1. The fleeting pomps of the world are like the green willow trees,
which, aspiring to permanence, are consumed by a fire, fall before
the axe, are upturned by the wind, or are scarred and saddened by
age.
2. The grandeurs of life are like the flowers in color and in fate;
the beauty of these remains so long as their chaste buds gather and
store the rich pearls of the dawn and saving it, drop it in liquid
dew; but scarcely has the Cause of All directed upon them the full
rays of the sun, when their beauty and glory fail, and the brilliant
gay colors which decked forth their pride wither and fade.
3. The delicious realms of flowers count their dynasties by short
periods; those which in the morning revel proudly in beauty and
strength, by evening weep for the sad destruction of their thrones,
and for the mishaps which drive them to loss, to poverty, to death
and to the grave. All things of earth have an end, and in the midst
of the most joyous lives, the breath falters, they fall, they sink
into the ground.
4. All the earth is a grave, and nought escapes it; nothing is so
perfect that it does not fall and disappear. The rivers, brooks,
fountains and waters flow on, and never return to their joyous
beginnings; they hasten on to the vast realms of Tlaloc, and the
wider they spread between their marges the more rapidly do they mould
their own sepulchral urns. That which was yesterday is not to-day;
and let not that which is to-day trust to live to-morrow.
5. The caverns of earth are filled with pestilential dust which once
was the bones, the flesh, the bodies of great ones who sate upon
thrones, deciding causes, ruling assemblies, governing armies,
conquering provinces, possessing treasures, tearing down temples,
flattering themselves with pride, majesty, fortune, praise and
dominion. These glories have passed like the dark smoke thrown out by
the fires of Popocatepetl, leaving no monuments but the rude skins on
which they are written.
6. Ha! ha! Were I to introduce you into the obscure bowels of this
temple, and were to ask you which of these bones were those of the
powerful Achalchiuhtlanextin, first chief of the ancient Toltecs; of
Necaxecmitl, devout worshiper of the gods; if I inquire where is the
peerless beauty of the glorious empress Xiuhtzal, where the peaceable
Topiltzin, last monarch of the hapless land of Tulan; if I ask you
where are the sacred ashes of our first father Xolotl; those of the
bounteous Nopal; those of the generous Tlotzin; or even the still
warm cinders of my glorious and immortal, though unhappy and luckless
father Ixtlilxochitl; if I continued thus questioning about all our
august ancestors, what would you reply? The same that I reply--I know
not, I know not; for first and last are confounded in the common
clay. What was their fate shall be ours, and of all who follow us.
7. Unconquered princes, warlike chieftains, let us seek, let us sigh
for the heaven, for there all is eternal, and nothing is corruptible.
The darkness of the sepulchre is but the strengthening couch for the
glorious sun, and the obscurity of the night but serves to reveal the
brilliancy of the stars. No one has power to alter these heavenly
lights, for they serve to display the greatness of their Creator, and
as our eyes see them now, so saw them our earliest ancestors, and so
shall see them our latest posterity.
* * * * *
It will be seen that the philosophy of these songs is mostly of the
Epicurean and _carpe diem_ order. The certainty of death and the
mutability of fortune, observations which press themselves upon the
mind of man everywhere, are their principal staples, and cast over
them a hue of melancholy, relieved by exhortations to enjoy to the
utmost what the present moment offers of pleasure and sensual
gratification. Here and there a gleam of a higher philosophy lights
the sombre reflections of the bard; his thoughts turn toward the
infinite Creator of this universe, and he dimly apprehends that by
making Him the subject of his contemplation, there is boundless
consolation even in this mortal life.
Both these leading _motifs_ recur over and over again in the songs
printed in the original in the present volume, and this similarity is
a common token of the authenticity of the book.
§ 10. _THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENT COLLECTION._
The most recent Mexican writers formally deny that any ancient
Mexican poetry is now extant. Thus the eminent antiquary, Don Alfredo
Chavero, in his elaborate work, _México á través de los Siglos_,
says, "the truth is, we know no specimens of the ancient poetry, and
those, whether manuscript or printed, which claim to be such, date
from after the Conquest."[55] In a similar strain the grammarian
Diario Julio Caballero, writes: "There has never come into our hands
a single poetic composition in this language. It is said that the
great King Nezahualcoyotl was a poet and composed various songs;
however that may be, the fact is that we have never seen any such
compositions, nor met any person who has seen them."[56]
It is important, therefore, to state the exact provenance of the
specimens printed in this volume, many of which I consider to have
been composed previous to the Conquest, and written down shortly
after the Nahuatl language had been reduced to the Spanish alphabet.
All of them are from a MS. volume in the library of the University of
Mexico, entitled _Cantares de los Mexicanos y otros opusculos_,
composed of various pieces in different handwritings, which, from
their appearance and the character of the letter, were attributed by
the eminent antiquary Don José F. Ramirez, to the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.
The copy I have used is that made by the late Abbé Brasseur (de
Bourbourg). It does not appear to be complete, but my efforts to have
it collated with the original have not been successful. Another copy
was taken by the late well-known Mexican scholar Faustino
Chimalpopoca, which was in the possession of Señor Ramirez and sold
at the vendue of his books in 1880. It is No. 511 of the catalogue.
The final decision of the age of the poems must come from a careful
scrutiny of the internal evidence, especially the thoughts they
contain and the language in which they are expressed. In applying
these tests, it should be remembered that a song may be almost wholly
ancient, that is, composed anterior to the Conquest, and yet display
a few later allusions introduced by the person who preserved it in
writing, so as to remove from it the flavor of heathenism. Some
probable instances of this kind will be pointed out in the Notes.
The songs are evidently from different sources and of different
epochs. There are two notes inserted in the MS. which throw some
light on the origin of a few of the poems. The first is in connection
with No. XII. In my copy of the MS, the title of this song is written
twice, and between the two the following memorandum appears in
Spanish:
"Ancient songs of the native Otomis, which they were accustomed to
sing at their festivals and marriages, translated into the Mexican
language, the play and the spirit of the song and its figures of
speech being always retained; as Your Reverence will understand, they
displayed considerable style and beauty, better than I can express
with my slight talent; and may Your Reverence at your convenience
approve and be entertained by them, as a skilled master of the
tongue, as Your Reverence is."
From its position and from the titles following, this note appears to
apply only to No. XII.
The second note is prefixed to No. XIV, which has no title. It is in
Nahuatl, and reads as follows:--
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