Le Cid

Act III functions as the dramatic center of the play, developing the obstacles to Rodrigo and Chimène’s happiness while also offering the first hope of resolution via Rodrigo’s valor on the battlefield. Act III also features Rodrigo and Chimène’s first scene together, which lays bare the ironies and moral complexity of their situation. Rodrigo offers himself to be killed by Chimène because he realizes that what he has done deserves such punishment. At the same time, he believes his actions were justified because he was defending his father’s honor: “do not expect from my affection a dastardly repentance of a justifiable action” (26). Chimène, in her turn, recognizes that Rodrigo was simply doing what duty commanded: “I cannot blame thee for having shunned disgrace” (26). She emphasizes that she does not accuse Rodrigo, she only laments the cruelty of the situation. Chimène says that Rodrigo’s actions in defending his father serve as an example for her to defend her own father by having Rodrigo put to death. Then, as the final act of justice, she will have herself killed: “Even in offending me, thou hast proved thyself worthy of me; I must, by thy death, prove myself worthy of thee” (27). Chimène recognizes Rodrigo’s killing of her father as being a crime worthy of the death penalty, yet also a noble act that makes him worthy in her eyes—because Rodrigo killed for an honorable cause. Again, Corneille resists the conventional depiction of protagonists and antagonists in the contemporary dramas of his time by shifting the location of the primary conflict to the internal struggle of two characters both attempting to act nobly.

Prior to this scene, Sancho is revealed to legitimately love Chimène in his own right. He refers explicitly to this fact when he tells Chimène to “employ my love to revenge this death” (23). This reinforces Sancho as an antagonist and rival to Rodrigo, and his offer to fight Rodrigo on Chimène’s behalf foreshadows their duel in Act V.

In the last scene of the act, Rodrigo and Diego meet for the first time after the duel. Diego argues that, with the Moorish forces closing in, Rodrigo must prove himself on the battlefield. Here the intermingling of the private and public, one of the major themes of the play, is presented most explicitly. Diego says that Rodrigo, to be truly honorable, must extend and universalize the valor that he showed in the duel with the Count. Diego implies that there is more to glory than avenging personal slights, and that duty to one’s nation is even greater than duty to one’s family. In gaining honor through war, Rodrigo will also have the chance to win back Chimène’s love as well as the King’s esteem, in the process replacing the Count as chief warrior. Thus, Diego depicts the war as a cure-all for Rodrigo’s problems. Once again, Diego uses strong rhetoric to influence his son’s behavior. Act III ends with high dramatic stakes and a strong feeling of suspense, as the major conflicts which were complicated in Act II remain unresolved.