Aztec Poetry (2): Three Poems

1. STAND UP, BEAT YOUR DRUM

By Nezahualcoyotl

Stand up, beat your drum:

give of yourself, know friendship. -Aya!-

Let your hearts be taken

with many colours -Yehuaya!-

only here perhaps are lent to us

our tobacco pipes, our flowers,

Ohuaya Ohuaya.

Stand up, my friend,

elated take your flowers to the drum:

your bitterness flees.

Adorn yourself with them:

the flowers raise their heads,

cocoa flowers of precious gold -Aya!-

are being scattered,

Ohuaya Ohuaya.

Beautifully sing here

the turquoise bird, the quetzal, the trogon:

the macaw’s song presides, and

all the jingling rattles and drums answer,

Ohuaya Ohuaya.

I drink cocoa:

with it I am glad -Aya!-

my heart takes pleasure, my heart is happy,

Ohuaya Ohuaya.

Romances de los Señores, poem #55.

Flower-song glyph, Codex Borbonicus, p. 4

2. FLOWERS ARE OUR ONLY GARMENTS

By Nezahualcoyotl

Flowers are our only garments,

only songs make our pain subside,

diverse flowers on earth,

Ohuaya ohuaya.

Perhaps my friends will be lost,

my companions will vanish

when I lie down in that place, I Yoyontzin -Ohuaye!-

in the place of song and of Life Giver,

Ohuaya ohuaya.

Does no one know where we are going?

Do we go to God’s home or

do we live only here on earth?

Ah ohuaya.

Let your hearts know,

oh princes, oh eagles and jaguars

that we will not be friends forever,

only for a moment here, then we go

to Life Giver’s home,

Ohuaya ohuaya.

Cantares Mexicanos, poem #5 and #40, and Romances de los Señores #52.

Note: This poem is found three times in the original manuscripts, with some variations. Because of that we can conclude it was a popular poem. In one version it has three verses, four in another, and ten in another. It is a call-and-response poem, a common form in Aztec flowersongs. Interspersed between some of the stanzas, are verses in which another singer or chorus answers the poet. The flowersongs were written down as the scribe heard them performed, two generations after Nezahualcoyotl’s death. The response verses were probably not part of the original poem, and are not included in my translation. Yoyotzin was Nezahualcoyotl’s nickname.

3. THE SONG CHANTED EVERY EIGHT YEARS
AT THE FEAST OF THE WATER TAMALES

Sacred Hymn #14

Anonymous, transcribed by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún

My heart is a flower,

it bursts open,

Lord of Midnight,

Oaya ouayaye.

Already the Goddess has come,

our Earthmother has come,

Oaya ouayaye.

The god of corn, born in Paradise,

where flowers bloom,

on the day One Flower,

Yantala yantata ayyao ayyaue

tilili yyao ayaue oayyaue.

The god of corn,

born in the region of rain and mist,

where the children of men are conceived,

home of the Lords of Jewelled Fish,

Yyao yantala yantata ayyao ayyaue

tilili yyao ayaue oayyaue.

Dawn arrives, radiant sunrise.

Multi-coloured spoonbills

drink nectar from the standing flowers,

Yantala yantata ayyao ayyaue

tilili yyao ayaue oayyaue.

Here on earth,

in the market you appear.

I am the lord,

I, Quetzalcoatl,

Yantala yantata ayyao ayyaue

tilili yyao ayaue oayyaue.

Florentine Codex, Book 2

Note: The Atamalcualiztli ceremony included dances and deity impersonation. Its performance served to rejuvenate corn. It was celebrated every eight years on the day One Flower, when the cycle of the planet Venus crossed the 365-day sun cycle. According to the mythological story, on that day during the Creation epoch or First Sun, Tlazolteotl, the Earth Mother, gave birth to Cinteotl, the corn deity. Cinteotl and Quetzalcoatl are closely identified. Cinteotl was the Morning Star (planet Venus), and Quetzalcoatl became the Morning Star in the current epoch or Fifth Sun.

Text © 2008 John Curl. All rights reserved.

Picture sources:-

Florentine Codex (original in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence); image scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994

Codex Borbonicus (original in the Bibliotheque de l’Assembée Nationale, Paris); images scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1974

Codex Vaticanus 3773: image scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1972

Xochipilli ('Flower Prince'), God of poetry, music, summer... Codex Vaticanus 3773, p. 10