On this day in 1094 Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (known as El Cid), occupied the town of Valencia. When much of Spain was under Moorish influence, El Cid (The Nobleman) won many battles to drive them out. He used psychological warfare and unexpected tactics that were sometimes planned in brainstorming sessions with his commanders before battle – a revolutionary ploy at the time. Legend has it that after his death, at the siege of Valencia, his body in full armour was strapped to his horse to lead a charge against the enemy. Here is a poem by a great Spaniard, Federico Garcia Lorca, Gacela of the Dark Death:

I want to sleep the dream of the apples,
To withdraw from the tumult of cemeteries.
I want to sleep the dream of that child
Who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.
I don’t want to hear again that the dead do not lose their blood,
That the putrid mouth goes on asking for water.
I don’t want to learn of the tortures of the grass,
Nor of the moon with a serpent’s mouth
That labours before dawn.
I want to sleep awhile,
Awhile, a minute, a century;
…Cover me at dawn with a veil,
Because dawn will throw fistfuls of ants at me,
And wet with hard water my shoes
So that the pincers of the scorpion slide.
For I want to sleep the dream of the apples,
To learn a lament that will cleanse me to earth;
For I want to live with that dark child
Who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.

 

Today I will do my best in everything and I will not worry about the future, remembering Lorca’s words: “As I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die.”