literature, this eight-hundred-year-old saga narrates the legendary exploits of the soldier-adventurer Ruy Díaz of Bivar, known as El Cid--"the Lord"--and his part in the long struggle between Christianity and Islam. The poem recounts the adventures of a broad cast of characters: the Cid; his peerless steed, Babieca, and his two famous swords, Colada and Tizón; his wife, Doña Ximena, and his two daughters, Doña Elvira and Doña Sol, who found sanctuary with Abbot Don Sancho in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña during the Cid's exile; and the black-hearted princes of Carrión, Diego and Fernando González. This powerful epic sings of universal human values and failures, loyalty and betrayal.