En casa del Rey Leon

Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: Y 5426/10
Referenced and notated in: Romancero Sefardi de Marreucos, pg. 68, Editorial Alpuerto, Pardes Publishing House, 2018 Susana Weich-Shahak.

Lyrics:

En casa del rey León,      salió Jimena una tarde:
demandando iba justicia     por la muerte de su padre.
- Justicia, señor, justicia,   si me la querís juzgare:
cada día que amanece       veo al que mató a mi padre;
se mete con mis palomas,     cuantas en mi palomare:
las gordas él las comía,     las flacas, su gavilane,
y las que menos valían      me las echa a revolare.
Todo el que ésto no juzga    no merece de reinare,
ni comer pan en manteles,     ni con la reina folgare.
[..]de casaros con el Cidi,       sabiendo que tanto vale.
Alegre salió Jimena         de los palacio[s]  reale[s]
y al día por la mañana       las ricas bodas se hacen.

Translation:

At King León's house, Jimena came out one evening
she was demanding justice for her father's death.
"Justice, sir, justice, if you want it, I'll judge it for me
every day that dawns I see the one who killed my father
he kills my pigeons, all the ones in my dovecote:
he ate the fat ones, his hawk the lean ones,
and the least worthy he tosses to me.
Anyone who doesn't judge this doesn't deserve to reign,
nor to eat bread on tablecloths, nor to be intimate with the queen.
[...]to marry the Cidi, knowing that he is worth so much."
Jimena happily left the royal palace,
and the next morning the rich wedding took place.

Notes:

The late epic poems of El Cid (such as Las Mocedades de Rodrigo) developed the legend that El Cid had killed Jimena Gómez's father in a duel. The ballad depicts the scene in which Jimena goes before the king to demand justice against the killer, and the king finds the ideal solution: marrying the two. There are versions in 16th-century collections of ballads, and oral traditions include those found not only among the Sephardim of Morocco but also in Andalusia and Portugal.