El Cantar de mio Cid (, or 'The Song of my Sidi ('lord')'), or El Poema de mio Cid, also known in English as The Poem of the Cid, is the oldest preserved Castilian epic poem (). Based on a true story, it tells of the deeds of the Castilian hero Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar—known as El Cid—and takes place during the eleventh century, an era of conflicts in the Iberian Peninsula between the Kingdom of Castile and various Taifa principalities of Al-Andalus. It is considered a national epic of Spain.
The work survives in a medieval manuscript which is now in the Spanish National Library.
Origin
The Spanish medievalist Ramón Menéndez Pidal included the Cantar de mio Cid in the popular tradition he termed the mester de juglaría. Mester de juglaría refers to the medieval tradition according to which popular poems were passed down from generation to generation, being changed in the process. These poems were meant to be performed in public by minstrels (or juglares), who each performed the traditional composition differently according to the performance context—sometimes adding their own twists to the epic poems they told, or abbreviating it according to the situation.
El Cantar de mio Cid shows signs of being designed for oral transmission. For example, the poem ends with a request for wine for the person who has recited it (Es leido, dadnos del vino). On the other hand, some critics (known as individualists) believe El Cantar de mio Cid was composed by one Per Abbad (in English, Abbot Peter) who appears to be credited as the writer of the work in a colophon to the text. It has been suggested that the poem, which is written in Old Spanish, is an example of the learned poetry that was cultivated in the monasteries and other centers of erudition. However, Per Abbad puts the date 1207 after his name and current thinking is that his claim to have written the work has simply been copied along with the text of an earlier manuscript now lost. The existing copy forms part of a 14th-century codex in the (National Library) in Madrid, Spain. It is, however, incomplete, missing the first page and two others in the middle. For the purposes of preservation, it is not normally on display.
There are sources that claim that the song was written several years earlier, considering the historical Cid died in 1099. These, however, recognize that the poem itself would not have been written immediately after the death of its titular hero since the narrative would not have been picked up if the story of the Cid had not yet attained its legendary status. There are those who also take into consideration the emergence of the Carolingian legends, which began after 1100 since it is believed that these stories also influenced the poem. The Poem of the Cid, for example, echoes the plot devices used in The Song of Roland epic.
Title
One of the oldest documents preserved at the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid presents only this phrase as the poem's title: Hic incipiunt gesta Roderici Campi Docti, which means "Here begin the deeds of Rodrigo the Campeador." Its current title is a 19th-century proposal by Ramón Menéndez Pidal since its original title is unknown. Some merely call the poem El Poema del Cid on the grounds that it is not a cantar but a poem made up of three cantares. The title has been translated into English as The Lay of the Cid and The Song of the Cid. Mio Cid is literally "My Cid", a term of endearment used by the narrator and by characters in the work. The word Cid originates from Arabic sidi or sayyid (سيد), an honorific title similar to English Sir (in the medieval, courtly sense).
The commonly used title El Cantar de mio Cid means literally The Song of my Lord or The Poem of my Lord. As the original title of the poem is lost to history, this one was suggested by historian Ramón Menéndez Pidal. It is Old Spanish (old Castilian), adjusted to modern orthography. In modern Spanish the title might be rendered El Poema de mi Señor or El Poema de mi Jefe. The expression cantar (literally "to sing") was used to mean a chant or a song. The word Cid (Çid in old Spanish orthography), was a derivation of the dialectal Arabic word سيد sîdi or sayyid, which means lord or master. During the period the poem was written, Arabic was still a widely used and highly regarded language in Iberia (hence the fact that modern Spanish still contains many Arabic words). Çid was not a common word, though, in old Spanish and thus can be treated almost as a proper noun.