Le Cid

Rodrigo shows up at Chimène’s house and is received by Elvira, who questions why he has come there after filling the house with “mourning” by killing Chimène’s father. Rodrigo replies that he wants Chimène to kill him as vengeance for what he has done. However, Elvira tells him to hide so it doesn’t appear that Chimène is giving him safe harbor.

Chimène returns home accompanied by Sancho. Sancho offers to avenge Chimène by killing Rodrigo. Chimène objects that this would offend the King, who has promised to enact justice himself. Sancho replies that under the King the course of justice will be too slow. Chimène tells Sancho that he may take justice into his own hands as a “last remedy,” and Sancho leaves.

Believing she is alone with Elvira, Chimène expresses her sorrow over her father’s death and her conflicted feelings toward Rodrigo. She still loves Rodrigo, yet also sees him as her enemy; her loyalties are thus torn between her father and her lover. Elvira urges Chimène to curb her vindictiveness, wait for justice from the King, and “not persist in this morbid humor” (25). Chimène insists that “my honor is at stake” (25) and that she has no choice but “to pursue [Rodrigo], to destroy him, and to die after him” (25).