THE POSTHUMOUS EL CID`S TOUR

El Cid - Don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the brave, courageous and faithful knight of the spanish Reconquista. As a warlord, he was particularly faithful to those governors who contracted his mercenary services, regardless whether they were christians or muslims. El Cid - came alive for all telespectators in 1961, played by Charlton Heston, and glamorous Sofia Loren as Doña Jimena. El Cantar del Mio Cid, the oldelst spanish epic poem delighted the spanish-castilian collective pride for over 800 years.

However, El Cid's longest tour started after his death, 1099 in Valencia. 1808 napoleonic troops profanated his tomb and his bones were scattered around. As pilgrims are proud today of bringing back scallop shells as a souvenir, so did generals and diplomants take much more up to skeletons, skulls or bones instead. This way, a great bunch of the hero's 206 bones (after all he had been human) reached the German Empire - in the suitcases of two french commissioners.

After all, did the hero's leftovers offer a great excentric, yet macabre gift potential for noble hosts as for instance Karl-Anton of the Hohenzollern dinasty or Fürst Metternich, the Earl of Peace. The largest bone treasure was identified by spanish intellectual commissioners in the Hohenzollern castle of Sigmaringen and taken back to his home town Burgos by the end of the XIX century.

So finally, all bones got back to their origin. All of them? No! Still a Cid's rib is alledgedly being exhibited in the westbohemian castle of Kynzvart, in it's "museum of curiosities" amidst a manuscript of Lope de Vega, a pair of gloves of Maximilian of Mexico, a uniform of the 4-year-old-Metternich and a few egyptian mummies. Perhaps worth doing a pilgrimage to Kynzvart!

Camino-Poem by A. Machado

Home made translation
(by Martin Paulus & a little help from my friends)

Everything passes and everything stays,
Yet, our duty is to walk,
To walk making pathways, pathways on the sea.

Never did I seek glory, or did I expect
Anyone to remember my song.

I love the subtle, weightless and gentile worlds
Like soap bubbles.
I like watching them painted as suns in red
Floating under the blue sky,
Trembling and suddenly blasting.

Never did I seek for glory...

Wanderer, your footsteps are
the pathway, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the pathway
that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road--
Only the wash left by the sea.

Some time ago in that place, where the woods are dressed in thorns,
A poet’s voice is heard,
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking...

Beat to beat, verse to verse...

The poet died far away from home,
covered in the dust of a neighbouring country.
When leaving he was seen crying.

When the finch, cannot sing anymore,
when the poet becomes a pilgrim,
When praying doesn’t help at all.

Cantares: The Camino-Poem by A. Machado

(original title)


"Caminante No Hay Camino"
adapted by the songwriter,musician and poet Joan Manuel Serrat

Todo pasa y todo queda
Pero lo nuestro es pasar,
Pasar haciendo caminos,
Caminos sobre la mar.

Nunca perseguí la gloria,
Ni dejar en la memoria
De los hombres mi canción;
Yo amo los mundos sutiles,
Ingrávidos y gentiles
Como pompas de jabón.

Me gusta verlos pintarse de sol y grana,
Volar bajo el cielo azul,
Temblar súbitamente y quebrarse...
Nunca perseguí la gloria.

Caminante son tus huellas el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino se hace camino al andar.

Al andar se hace camino
Y al volver la vista atrás
Se ve la senda que nunca
Se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino sino estelas en la mar...

Hace algún tiempo en ese lugar
Donde hoy los bosques se visten de espinos
Se oyó la voz de un poeta gritar
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar...

Golpe a golpe, verso a verso...
Murió el poeta lejos del hogar
Le cubre el polvo de un país vecino.
Al alejarse, le vieron llorar.
"caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar..."

Golpe a golpe, verso a verso...
Cuando el jilguero no puede cantar
Cuando el poeta es un peregrino,
Cuando de nada nos sirve rezar.
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.

Golpe a golpe, verso a verso. (3 bises)