| Mocedades de Rodrigo | |
|---|---|
| The youthful deeds of Rodrigo, the Cid | |
 | |
| Also known as | Cantar de Rodrigo y el Rey Fernando (The lay of Rodrigo and King Fernando) |
| Author(s) | unknown |
| Language | Old Spanish |
| Date | composed around 1360 |
| Manuscript(s) | unique manuscript. Bibliotèque Royale, Paris, nº 12, olim Cod. 9988. |
| Genre | epic poetry |
| Verse form | anisosyllabic with assonant rhyme |
| Length | 1164 verses |
The Mocedades de Rodrigo is an anonymous Castilian cantar de gesta, composed around 1360, that relates the origins and exploits of the youth of the legendary hero El Cid (Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar).
There are 1,164 surviving verses,[1] preceded by an initial prose fragment. The only codex that contains the work is a manuscript from 1400[2] that is kept in the National Library of Paris.[3] The text that has reached us lacks a title, and critics have variously titled the work Mocedades de Rodrigo or del Cid ("The youthful deeds of Rodrigo, the Cid"), Refundición de las Mocedades de Rodrigo ("A Recasting of the Youthful Deeds of Rodrigo"), Cantar de Rodrigo y el Rey Fernando ("Song of Rodrigo and King Fernando") and Crónica rimada del Cid ("The Rhyming Chronicle of El Cid").[4]
Traditionally, the Mocedades has been valued more for its role in the history of literature that as literature itself. It generated a tradition of romances about the youth of El Cid that culminated in the French drama Le Cid by Pierre Corneille and the ensuing "Quarrel of the Cid".
- ^ Stefano Arata, "Prologue" (epigraph "The Medieval Phase of the Legend", pp. 36-39) to Las Mocedades del Cid (First Comedy), editorial, prologue and notes by Stefano Arata, preliminary study by Aurora Egido, Barcelona, Crítica, 1996 (Classic Library, 59), p. 37.
- ^ Juan Victorio, in the "Introduction" to his edition of the Mocedades de Rodrigo (Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1982, p. 54.), comment:
...thanks to one specific discovery... it can be known that [the copy that has come down to us] was made in the year 1400. This date is found at the end of the folio in which the scribe abandoned his work, two centimeters below the last verse. The fact that it was not seen is due to it not being written by pen, instead it is marked with a stamp. In addition, it is partially covered by the seal of the [National] Library [of France] where the manuscrito is located. The inscription, whose legibility is only possible at very close lighting, says: "Anno domini m c d"
- ^ ms. espagnol, number 12
- ^ Bourland titled the Mocedades de Rodrigo as Rimed Chronicle of the Cid in his edition "The Rimed Chronicle of the Cid (El cantar de Rodrigo)", in Revue Hispanique, 24, 1911, pp. 310-357. Menéndez Pidal adopted Song of Rodrigo and King Fernando into his edition in Relics of the Spanish Epic Poetry, Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1951, pp. 257-289. Samuel G. Armistead, on his part, proposed to title his A Recasting of the Youthful Deeds of Rodrigo in "The Mocedades de Rodrigo and Neo-individualist Theory", Hispanic Review, 46 (1978), pp. 313-327. See also the section: Modern editions