The poet recalls a recent attendance on the obsequies of an
acquaintance, and seeks to divert his mind from the gloomy
contemplation of death and the ephemeral character of mortal joys by
urging his friend to join in the pleasure of the hour, and by
suggesting the probability of an after life.
1. _xochicalco_; compounded of _xochitl_, flower; _calli_, house; and
the postposition, _co_. The term was applied to any room decorated
with flowers; here, to the mortuary chamber, which Tezozomoc tells us
was decked with roses and brilliant feathers.
_ipalnemohuani_, literally "the one by whom life exists." The
composition is _i_, possessive pronoun, third person, singular;
_pal_, postposition, by; _nemoani_, singular of the present in _ni_
of the impersonal form of the verb _nemi_, to live, with the meaning
to do habitually that which the verb expresses. It is an ancient
epithet applied to the highest divinity, and is found in the _Codex
Telleriano-Remensis_, Kingsborough's _Mexico_, Vol. VI, p. 128, note.
_tolquatectitlan_, from _toloa_, to lower, to bow; _quatequia_, to
immerse the head; _tlan_, place ending. In the ancient funeral
ceremonies the faces of the assistants were laved with holy water. On
this rite see the note of Orozco y Berra to his edition of the
_Cronica Mexicana_ of Tezozomoc, p. 435 (Mexico, 1878).
_xoyacaltitlan_; from _xoyaui_, to spoil, to decay, whence
_xoyauhqui_, rank, unpleasant, like the odor of decaying substances.
_xochicopal tlenamactli_, "the incense of sweet copal," which was
burned in the funeral chamber (see Tezozomoc's description of the
obsequies of Axayaca, _Cron. Mex._, cap. 55).