Yet, to its solving, he would bend the knee
With dignity and grace; not turn away,
But face it with a ready, cheerful glance,
And meeting night, surcharge it with the day;
And grasping, break, if possible, the lance
That he felt sure was leveled at his breast.
He did not know the Inquisition stood,
With rack and torture at his very gate;
That it had traveled half the world for blood
To whet its throat for St. Bartholomew
And came with ravening appetite for him.
Those wary messengers he little knew,
Or those brown eyes would suddenly grown dim,
And the warm heart would furnaced up its heat;
And he would grappled at its very throat;
And man to man, and blood to blood, would meet,
And not a plume above one corselet float
To bear the story back of it to Spain.
They were not schooled in all the arts of war,
Nor were they wise in all the world's deceit;
Yet would they fought beneath their fated star,
And challenged every stubborn step, though it had proven vain.
But in this fleecy covering, the wolf
So hid its teeth that it was at the door
Before they dreamed of treachery. The gulf
Lay many leagues behind their foes; its shore
And all the distance had been gained by stealth.
Tlascala had been humbled on the march,
And promised spoils from Montezuma's wealth;
But they had reached the keystone of the arch,
At superstition's beck. The Aztec's gods
Had chained their valor, or their greater odds
Would crushed the viper, as it should have been,
And left it to a purer age, to seek a common kin.
The Monarch gave them hostelry and cheer,
Food of the rarest and the sparkling pulque,
And quarters for their troopers, all quite near
To his own palace gates. The very bulk
Of his well-laden markets was thrown down
To their repletion, for their loaded board.
They fared as princes favored of the crown,
Of all the best the Kingdom could afford.
The fair Malinche was interpreter,
And Montezuma spoke to them through her.
He told them of the mighty Quetzalcoatl,
And how he recognized them as his kin;
He thought he had their history, the whole
Vast riddle of their ancient origin.
"I rule a mighty nation," quoth the King.
"All Anahuac is subject to my sway;
And yet, I recognize that you have come
From the strong palace of a mightier lord,
To whom I bend as subject; and with you
We now will sway the scepter of his will.
We long have watched his coming from the East,
And now that he has sent his messengers,
Our hearts are ready for his wise commands.
We would have urged your coming on before,
But that we heard of tales of cruelty,
Which, haply we may now believe as false,
We welcome you with all our open hearts,
"And hope you may enjoy our humble fare.
We are not wise, as you are, for our lives
Have not caught wisdom from the fountain head,
And hung upon the lips of Quetzalcoatl;
Yet are we cousins in the faded past,
And welcome you as brothers and as friends."
How caught the Spanish Chieftain at the words!
How did he gloat upon this artifice!
How useless hung their heavy-hilted swords
That they should win a nation at this price!
With what a care he turned the dusty past,
To cover up the semblance of disguise;
And fix their superstition still more fast,
That he might clutch and carry home the prize.
"There _is_ grandeur in the tented field;
The bivouac and the smoldering camp-fires."
The human soul unconsciously must yield
To its supremest charm, where man aspires
To meet his fellow-man at one great bar;
And "valor speaks to valor" of its claim,
In all the panoply of stubborn war,
And drops the gauntlet in a nation's name.
It may be terrible, but it is grand
To see the banners flaunting in the breeze;
To hear the bugle blare and stern command;
And see opposing forces strive to seize
From Nature's stern arbitrament of force
The laurel that shall deck the victor's brow;
And turn the stream of nations from its course.
The cutting of new sod by such a plow
May tear up all the tender ties of life;
And hearts be turned to ashes in its path;
These are the ponderous incidents of strife,
And made legitimate when wrath meets wrath;
But when the assassin creeps into our hearts,
And draws around him all their sanctities,
And he becomes a parcel of our parts,
And all we have or claim are made as his,
What human brush can paint the upraised hand
That smites our confidence at such an hour?
What simile can human tongue command?
It is, indeed, beyond our mortal power.
We talk of devil, but the word is tame;
It cannot reach the climax we have sought;
It only frets us into hotter flame,
And beggars all the litany of thought.
I do not claim that Cortez was not brave;
Nor would I tear one laurel from his brow.
I only claim he stole the devil's glaive;
He held it then, and let him hold it now.
The issues of their lives are both with God,
The brown-eyed Monarch and the dark-eyed Knight.
The flowers of charity should strew the sod
Above them both; yet, Cosmos! was it right?
O world of human hearts and human lives!
Was Montezuma worthy of this fate?
O world of husbands! world of tender wives!
Behold your Aztlan! bleeding, desolate,
And say, if all their multiple of sins,
Though they be blacker than the blackest night,
Were worthy of the end that now begins
To grind them down to powder? Was it right
For Spain to steal the scepter from the hand
That held it out in welcome to their doors,
And poured their treasures out as free as sand,
And oped with lavish all their loaded stores;
To steal the key of superstition's gate,
And break the lock upon their hard-earned gold,
And, fattening at their table, steal their plate,
And feasting on their lambs to steal their fold;
To make a prison of the room he gave
In which to hold the Monarch as a slave?
O pitying God! thy thunderbolts were scarce.
Why crushed they not this hell-begotten farce?
And when the Aztecs, goaded to the quick
By the proud insolence of such a horde,
Could bear no longer parley, but were sick
Of such a visitor at such a board,
And rose en masse to crush the viper's fang,
They bring the Monarch out to face the crowd,
And plead for their immunity; the pang
That wrung his breast (for he, indeed, was proud)
Was like an arrow in his royal heart;
And yet he prayed for their forgiveness then,
And like a martyr bravely bore their part--
Search history; and find out greater men,
And they are less forgiving. There he stood,
His nation thronged before him, in its wrath;
Yet did he plead, before this multitude,
To spare the serpent, now across their path;
He could not name a promise not unbroke,
He could not offer one excuse for time,
He could not tell them why to hold their stroke,
He plead for hands scarred over with their crime.
Did ever charity reach loftier height?
Can Christian Spain outshine this sad, brown face?
How many souls in Christiandom, as white,
Would faced his countrymen, from such a place?
Great Montezuma! where shall we find room!
When Spain has such a multitude of saints
To save your enemies, you courted doom,
Yet would not kiss the cross with your complaints;
Therefore, anathema!--It will not do,
To pass a heretic at Heaven's gate;
You held no mumbled crucifix to view--
The Infallible has said it, you must wait.
Wait for a riper age to touch the chord
That quivers, all unconsciously, your praise;
When justice, _only_, draws the tardy sword,
And Earth's abhorrence covers those old days
With its repentant ashes, then my King
May rest his memory upon stubborn facts
Nor minstrels falter when they fain would sing
Their elegies implanted with _his_ acts.
The Holy Inquisition, from old Spain,
And St. Bartholomew, from "Ma belle France,"
The hissing fagots of sweet Mary's reign--
These million martyrs, with their melting glance,
Look at _his_ agony, across the sea,
_Who_, blind in superstition, groped his way
O'er harmless victims and much misery
To where the rays were slanting into day.
In Europe's face the star of Bethlehem,
With its benignant splendor, shed its light;
_These_ but the groping nomads of old Shem,
Lost in the meshes, of a rayless night.
_Those_, neath the palm of Earth's philosophy;
_These_ on the torchless desert, not a star
To guide them through life's potent mystery;
_Those_ bringing all the wisdom from afar,
Though Montezuma's sins had cried to Heaven
In a far greater stress; yet what were they,
Paling his cruelties, and still forgiven,
To pour out greater vials the next day?
O Spain! you lent the sanction of your name,
To cover up the foulest deed of time;
Upon your skirt is fastened this great shame,
And nation never wore the brand of a more causeless crime.
DEATH OF MONTEZUMA.
One sad, sad task, awaits my faltering pen,
And I have done. One flower upon _his_ grave,
Who in his dying could, alas! not save
His country from the vulturous maw of men.
They played upon the monarch with their arts,
Till he became a captive in their hands;
It was consistent with their _Christian_ hearts
That their good host should follow their commands.
They said their _Christian_ lord across the sea
Must have his treasure for their _Christian_ use.
All this was bitter, yet, he did agree,
And bent a patient knee to their abuse.
They struck their temples, and the red, right hand
Of Aztlan rose upon them. They could bear
To see their monarch littled, and their land
Made tribute to a stranger; but, beware
Stern warriors of Castile! touch not their gods.
The hearts of Aztlan are but human hearts,
And at some shrine the whole creation nods;
Invade the sanctum, and the whole man starts.
Las Casas[S] would have won them with his love--
The potent key that opens every gate.
Let not deceit claim sanction from above;
It may assist upon the wheels of fate,
But what Spain offered through such legatees
Was worse than powder on the bated flame.
To gather fruit from such ill-freighted trees,
Was worse than stealing nightmare from a dream.
In Christ's good name they stole the monarch's gold;
They changed the name of Christ to treachery;
They gathered all the spoils their hands could hold,
And pointed to their Master on the tree.
Their Master? No! since Lucifer was hurled
Down from the shining chambers of the just
To vent his spleen upon a new-made world,
He never had a worthier task in trust,
Than that he gave to Spain's inglorious knights,
To rob this people of their vested rights.
The people gather at the palace gates,
And vengeance writes itself upon each face;
Their generosity no longer waits,
They spit upon, and spurn the outraged place.
It harbors those who wrote themselves as knaves
Upon the pliant tablets of their lives,
And now the incensed nation only craves
Deliverance for their children and their wives.
They know the belching cannon of the knights
Will make sad havoc in their stately host;
They know that Spain and Fate to-day unite;
They know, if fortune fails them, all is lost;
But they can bear no longer to be torn,
And swear by all the gods to pluck this thorn.
The Spaniards see their perfidy, too late;
And call great Montezuma to the gate.
"Why are my people here to-day in arms?
These stranger friends are still my welcome guests;
They soon will turn them backward to their homes.
Shall we raise hands against great Quetzalcoatl?
We fight against the gods? Lay down your arms!
Go to your homes, and all shall yet be well,
And peace shall reign in all Tenochtitlan[T]!"
They bent before him reverently at first.
It was a moment--then their anger burst:
"Base Aztec! woman! coward! sneaking slave!
The whites have made a puppet of your name!
Talk not of fighting 'gainst our honored gods;
We soil their sacred robes if we submit!"
A cloud of stones and arrows flew the air;
And Montezuma fell a victim of _their_ rage and _his_ despair.
His heart had broke when he beheld the throng,
For he was burning with his country's wrong;
And when the missiles smote his fevered crest,
His very soul was reaching out for rest.
_They_ only helped to roll the burden off,
So long imprinted on his saddened face--
It was _too_ much to hear his people scoff--
He fell; and they removed him from the place.
He never rose again, nor wished to rise;
He made no effort to outlive his land;
He felt _his_ weakness, and he heard _her_ cries;
He saw _her_ sinking with _his_ wasting sand.
He knew his enemies had stole the garb
Of gods to fasten on him their deceit;
That they had stung the nation with their barb,
And he would not survive its sore defeat.
He felt their scoffings were deserved of him,
For he should gathered wisdom with his years;
He saw his weakness when his sight was dim,
And poured his wasting moments out in tears.
They called the Priest to shrive him for his death--
The worthy Monk Olmedo[U] takes his palms;
It is in vain; his very latest breath
Repulses all their uninvited alms.
He dies an Aztec--honor to his name!
And spurns the symbols that have crushed him down.
What mockery when he is all aflame
With their abuses! Give him back his crown,
His country's honor, and its hard-earned gold.
But force no wormwood to his fevered lips;
His hand is pulseless, and will soon be cold;
His life was shadow; and his death--eclipse.
Great are the consolations of the cross--
The Father-Son of Calvary, and time.
Their glory compensates a kingdom's loss;
But piety must not be wed to crime.
Did all the roses blossom from the cross,
And all the thorns grow out upon the waste?
Then were the metal guarded from the dross,
And every crust be suited to our taste;
But bitter-sweet is all the book of life,
And thorns and roses crowd the tangled way;
And good and evil, always, are at strife--
Night always dogs the footsteps of the day.
Yet "figs cannot be gathered from the thorn,"
Nor "grapes from thistles," says the patient Lord--
One great, good life, like a new angel born,
Is the most potent sermon ever heard.
The hands that smote the Monarch in the face
Did honor to his ashes, cold and dead.
Their anger was rubbed out, and not a trace
Was left, as with their slow and measured tread
They bore his sacred ashes to the tomb
Within the walls of old Chapultepec,
Where stately trees, and flowers perennial bloom,
And, all the pulses of their lives in check,
Bow down to kiss the shrine of memory.
The sacred hush of death comes none too oft
To still the fevered brain and make us free--
It is a gentle hand, and moves so soft
That it compensates all our misery
By chaining all the lions of our life
And placing durance on the throbbing drum
That marshals us to earth's unpitying strife.
How should we reverence the hand that strikes our passions
dumb!
Cortez and Montezuma; Aztlan, Spain--
The very mingling of these words is pain.
The one, bold, cold, unscrupulous and brave,
And making of each obstacle a slave;
Seeking _his_ glory in the name of Christ,
To gain his ends unfaithful to each tryst.--
The fault is with the ethics of his race,
Which justify the means for _any_ end,
And leave the moral aspect without place,
And to the foulest acts their ready sanction lend.
The thought of holding man to his account,
And throwing merit against circumstance,
Of cleansing souls at one great common fount,
Of holding out to man an equal chance--
These things were not considered in the least.
The glory of himself and Spain were first;
All the excesses pardoned by the Priest
Weaned the poor soul from any moral thirst.
A golden apple trembled on the limb,
And he must pluck it, at whatever cost.
What matter whose?--it should belong to him;
It was too tempting, and must not be lost:
The wall that lay before it must be scaled,
The owner of the field must be destroyed,
And if his _prowess_, in the effort failed,
_Deceit_ and _treachery_ must be employed.
The unbridled passions of the human soul
Linked with the crucifix in his emprise.
The lion, loosened and in full control--
The semblance of the Lamb to Aztlan's eyes:
A faithful offspring of the Papish loins,
The features of the Church in duplicate,
Though baser metals pass for golden coins,
Only earth's charity can make brave Cortez great.
But Montezuma conquers all our thought--
Tenochtitlan and old Chapultepec.
No greener shrine for memory can be sought;
The heart and conscience both alike bedeck
The unfading spectre of a soul sincere,
Who tugged at destiny against the dark--
The hand, unconscious, drops its laurels here.
His brown hands could not helm the fateful bark
Against the baleful breakers of old Spain;
Yet, who _is_ proof against the foils of men.
His life is but a psalmody of pain.
What soul unmoved can touch it with the pen?
The link that bound the old world with the new,
With pure and patient hands, might been upturned,
And every missing chapter brought to view
By Clio gathered, and again inurned
In history's cloister; Egypt and Aztlan
Strike palms upon the bridges of the years;
But Spain denies the privilege to man,
And fills the vacuum with a nation's tears.
O Monarch of the fading, mighty past!
Great Montezuma! we are wed to thee.
Back of thy name the ocean is so vast
That we can only write--Eternity,
And leave the secret in thy broken breast.
We would that we could taken thy warm palm,
Held out in welcome from the mellow West,
And poured upon thy stricken life the balm
Of real enlightenment; and point thee back,
Over the ridges of the years, to God;
To where your people lost the beaten track,
And ever afterward were left to plod.
Those great sad eyes, once filled with light from Heaven,
Would shone like diamonds when they found the way,
And every fibre of thy nature striven
To turn thy nation's darkness into day.
Alas! 'tis vain! we beat the empty air.
Our tears are mingled with thy wasting breath;
We _all_ are torn with thy warm heart's despair,
And mourn with Aztlan at thy fateful death.
CONCLUSION.
From sire to son the stern bequeathment falls
Of some misguided action in the past,
And, though our nature with the victim calls
And we are smitten with his overcast,
Still are we weak against the wheels of fate,
Which leaves the pensioner thus desolate.
The by-ways of the father must turn back
Sometime upon the highway that he left;
Though dark and sinuous may be the track,
And life of all its luster be bereft,
Still hangs the heavy impulse on the soul,
Unsatisfied, till it shall reach its goal.
The destiny was hard that brought proud Spain
Upon the fading summerland of gold;
Its retribution is no less a pain;
The grip of fate, so pulseless and so cold,
Brings back the shudder to the human heart;
Humanity is wounded with _each_ part
That feels the puncture of her cruel blade.
Nor is the censure less upon the hand
That strikes _so_ hard to force the debt thus paid.
The tender conquest of some heathen land
The brightest jewel is, of any crown--
God never licensed human hand to strike a foe when down.
When Spain's recruited army turned them back
To glut their ire on Guatamozin's head,
There never was a deeper furrowed track,
More thickly cindered with the myriad dead;
And when at last his bloody sceptre fell,
Tenochtitlan was likest to a hell.
The brave barbarian was put to rack
To force divulgence of his scattered gold.--
Is there a garment of a deeper black,
To cover up the fingers that could hold
Such hellish orgies after all the past?
The palm is thine, O Spain! and hold it to the last!
Yet one more turn upon the screw of time:
Thy red, right hand must slay this waif of fate;
And thou must put the climax to the crime,
And crush the heart thou has made desolate.
Enough! thou art the acme of the earth--
May God's great pity ever spare thy duplicated birth!
No, no, not Spain! _her_ better angel waits,
And _has_ been waiting all these weary years
For Castellar to open wide her gates,
That she may wash her garments with her tears;
But priestcraft, Rome, or demon, all the same--
That makes a desert of her rich champaign;
And sends her forth through history, so tame.
It is, her evil genius; but it is not Spain.
* * * * *
As Kohen prophesied, their race was run--
Their error cleaved upon them as a curse;
The fading phalanx of the Summer sun
Has crossed the borders of the universe.
We only catch the shadow of their flight;
They pass out with the sunset into night.
FOOTNOTES:
[D] Anahuac, the country dominated by the Aztecs at the time of the
conquest.
[E] "Mars or Mexitli." I have taken the easier of the names given to the
war-god. Huitzilopotchli or Mexitli both were used, the former more in
general use than the latter, at the time of the conquest.
[F] Huit-zilo-potch-li, the Aztec war-god.
[G] Quetzalcoatl, the god of the harvest, probably some ancient leader
deified. See Prescott.
[H] Tlappalan, the Elysian to which Quetzalcoatl passed, probably
referred to the chambers of the sun.
[I] Nez-a-hual-co-yotl, one of the famous kings of Tezcuco (a nation
allied to that of the Aztecs). Prescott enlarges on his character, truly
a wonderful one for the time and age.
[J] Montezuma, a corruption from the original Aztec, which was
Moctheuzoma.
[K] Nez-a-hual-pil-li, successor to Neza-hual-co-yotl, and a worthy one,
though not so gifted.
[L] Tecollas, Temples of worship.
[M] Caligula, a Roman Emperor whose name has become a synonym of crime.
[N] Courier, a courier came daily from the coast, and Couriers from
different parts of the Empire; their only script was the picture prints;
rude, it is true, and yet wonderful in conveying the different shades of
meaning.
[O] Montezuma's protest against human sacrifice though not literally
fact, so far as the historic record is concerned, is hazarded as not
inconsistent with his historic character.
[P] Tlalocan, Prescott has not left on record the name of the High
Priest, and the name given, I have thought in keeping with the Aztec
language.
[Q] Teuhtlile, the Embassador sent to meet Cortez. He was high in the
councils of the King.
[R] Malinche, Interpreter and Mistress of Cortez.
[S] Las Casas, a worthy Spanish Padre, who was constantly protesting
against the villanous conduct of the cavaliers. Prescott pays him a
glowing tribute.
[T] Te-noch-ti-tlan, the Aztec for the city of Mexico.
[U] Olmedo, a priest of that easy piety that characterized the cavalier,
ready to grant absolution in case of all excesses.
MALINCHE.
INTRODUCTION.
I may properly place "Malinche" as supplementary to "Montezuma," as
dealing with characters coincident to, and cotemporaneous with those
concerned in the "Conquest," and also as covering a period subsequent
to, and immediately succeeding the Conquest.
To the student of history, Malinche (in her position of interpreter
during the entire period of the Conquest) presents at once so much that
is unique and charming, and yet such a sad commentary on the criminal
practices of the sixteenth as well as the nineteenth centuries, that I
have often wondered that a stronger and more practiced hand has not ere
this claimed the privilege of championship.
According to Prescott, she was born in the town of Painnalla, Province
of Coatzacualco, in the southeastern extremity of what is now Mexico;
that she was the daughter of a Cacique (a sort of provincial Governor)
and prospective heiress to large estates; that after the death of her
father, her mother, with indecent haste, forms another union, and in
time presents the stepfather with a son; that they jointly combine to be
rid of Malinche, whom they sell to itinerant traders; and, to cover
their device, they pretend that she is sick and use the child of a
servant for their criminal pantomime; the child dies, thus completing
the deception, except the hypocritical mourning to which this unnatural
mother is said to have been equal.
Malinche is sold by the traders to the Cacique of Tabasco, and reaches
maturity about the time of the Conquest. She seems to have been a
favorite in the house of the Cacique, which would indicate that he had
become acquainted with her origin, and after the surrender of the town
to Cortez, she is one of the twenty female slaves presented to the
Conqueror and his allies.
Either from enlarged opportunities or her natural aptness, and probably
both, she is found by Cortez to be just the person he needs for
interpreter. Mutual attraction leads them into the closest relations,
and it is but just to Malinche to state that there is no indication of
her knowledge of the Conqueror's wife in Cuba, until she arrives at the
Capitol. There is also nothing to indicate more than a momentary
estrangement between Malinche and Catalina.