 The poem ends abruptly, obviously incomplete, before the battle.The description of the Cid's weapons, the earliest in the literature, contains references to chainmail, a silver-plated helm with a golden gem on it, a lance, an anonymous sword with golden ornamentation (which may be Tizona, based on the description), and a shield depicting a "fierce shining golden dragon" (which is the only surviving description of the Cid's shield).The "Carmen" also contains the earliest description of the Cid's ancestry, describing him as "Nobiliori de genere ortus / Quod in Castello non est illo maius"