Ballads of the Lords of New Spain: The Codex Romances de Los Senores de La Nueva Espana

254 Pages·2009·2.836 MB·English

by  John Bierhorst

Ballads of the Lords of New Spain

Ballads of the Lords of New Spain
The Codex Romances de los Señores
de la Nueva España
Transcribed and translated from the Nahuatl by
John Bierhorst
University of Texas Press, Austin
Copyright © 2009 by the University of Texas Press
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First edition, 2009
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Romances de los señores de la Nueva España. English & Aztec.
Ballads of the lords of New Spain : the codex Romances de los
señores de la Nueva España / transcribed and translated from the
Nahuatl by John Bierhorst.—1st ed.
p. cm.—(The William and Bettye Nowlin series in art,
history, and culture of the western hemisphere)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-292-71852-4 (cl. : alk. paper)
1. Nahuatl poetry. 2. Nahuatl poetry—Translations into English.
I. Bierhorst, John. II. Title.
PM4068.6.R65 2009
897′.4521008—dc22
2008025278
Contents
Preface vii
A Note on Orthography xi
Using the Online Edition xiii
Introduction 1
On the Translation of Aztec Poetry 24
Guide to the Vocabulary 71
Romances de los Señores de la Nueva España/
Ballads of the Lords of New Spain
Guide to the Transcription 76
The Text in Nahuatl and in English 80
Part 1
[I] 1. Friends, let us sing 81
[II] 2. “I’m coming, I, Yoyontzin, craving flowers” 85
[III] 3. Again they make music 87
[IV] 4. God Self Maker’s home is nowhere 89
[V] 5. Friends, listen to this 91
[VI] 6. “I come to guard the city” 95
[VII] 7. The flower lords, the song bells 97
[VIII] 8. Chalco’s come to fight 99
[IX] 9. Let’s drink 99
[X] 10. For a moment God’s drums come forth 101
[XI] 11. May your flesh, your hearts be leafy green 105
[XII] 12. The flower trees are whirling 107
[XIII] 13. In this flower house 109
[XIV] 14. Princes, I’ve been hearing good songs 111
Part 2
[XV] 1. Now let us begin 115
[XVI] 2. A master of egrets makes these flowers move 117
[XVII] 3. On this flower mat you paint your songs 119
[XVIII] 4. Are You obliging? 121
[XIX] 5. I’m born in vain 123
[XX] 6. I strike up a song 125
[XXI] 7. I stand up the drum 127
[XXII] 8. Your flowers blossom as bracelets 131
[XXIII] 9. My heart is greatly wanting flowers 133
[XXIV] 10. Let there be comrades 135
[XXV] 11. Strike it up beautifully 137
[XXVI] 12. Eagle flowers, broad leafy ones, are sprouting 139
[XXVII] 13. A shield-roaring blaze-smoke rises up 141
[XXVIII] 14. Flowers are our only adornment 143
Part 3
[XXIX] 1. [. . .] 147
[XXIX-A] 1-A. You paint with flowers, with songs 149
[XXX] 2. Your flowers are jade 151
[XXXI] 3. Come forth and play our drum 151
[XXXII] 4. In the house of pictures 153
Part 4
[XXXIII] 1. Begin in beauty 157
[XXXIV] 2. Like flowers 159
[XXXV] 3. “Never with shields” 161
[XXXVI] 4. Jade, turquoise: your chalk, [your] plumes 161
Commentary 163
Concordance to Proper Nouns 189
Verbs, Particles, and Common Nouns 204
Appendix I: Two Versions of
the Myth of the Origin of Music 207
Appendix II: Corrections for the Cantares Edition 211
Bibliography 221
Index 233
Preface
Comprising thirty-six song-texts apparently dating from the early fourth
quarter of the sixteenth century, the so-called Romances, or “ballads,” stands
as one of the two principal sources of Nahuatl song. Unlike its sister com-
pilation, the more voluminous Cantares Mexicanos, the Romances, whether
by design or accident, takes the form of an organized anthology—an Aztec
cancionero—that may be read with a sense of unity from start to finish.
Although it can be agreed, at least, that Aztec songs are richly figura-
tive and carry an aura of mystery, the underlying question is whether they
are inscrutable. Is it profitable to consider them at all? In my view, now as
previously, the answer is yes, both for the sake of history and for the sake
of art. Yet as early as the 1580s, when the songs were being performed in
public, the redoubtable missionary-ethnographer Bernardino de Sahagún
seemingly took a stand against translation, warning that “no one knows
what [the singers] say except themselves alone,” thus hinting at a position
still widely, if tacitly, respected. That is, by cautiously steering away from
the topic, many Mexicanists have treated Aztec “poetry” as something akin
to what the late Franz Boas—the father of American anthropology and an
occasional Mexicanist himself—used to call a Scheinproblem, or sham prob-
lem, to be avoided as insoluble.
A second view, developed by antiquaries and latter-day historians in the
early 1600s, takes the songs to be poetic ruminations of old kings stationed in
flowery gardens—like shepherds stepped out of the Eclogues—interlarded
with firsthand reportage from pre-Cortésian battlefields. The method com-
partmentalizes the two aspects of the genre, the aesthetic and the martial,
treating the texts as a mass of fragments to be examined for scraps of history,
on one hand, and, on the other, bits of found poetry that seem to touch on
classic themes of friendship and mortality. This kind of interpretation, which
viii Ballads of the Lords of New Spain
casts a glow of humanism over Mexico’s ancient past, survived through the
end of the twentieth century and is not likely to be abandoned.
A third view is suggested by Sahagún’s equally sober but provocative
observation that the native leaders were “using” the songs “to persuade the
people to do their bidding, whether it’s war or other business that is not
good.” My earlier edition of the Cantares—Cantares Mexicanos: Songs of
the Aztecs—explored this third approach, presenting Aztec songs as a mid-
to late-sixteenth-century testament of nativism and defiance in the face of
colonial authority.
The Romances de los Señores de la Nueva España, then, offers another op-
portunity to consider the matter. More integrated than the Cantares, as
mentioned above, and not as overtly ethnographic, the Romances is surely
connected to the social fabric of its time, even if transcending it as a peren-
nially fascinating work of ritualistic art.
I am indebted to the many who commented on the Cantares edition in
published essays and in private communications. In the work that follows
I have addressed the questions they have raised and have accepted various
suggestions. I especially thank Louise Burkhart for putting the interpreta-
tion of colonial Nahuatl texts on a more secure footing; James Lockhart for a
quarter-century’s worth of spirited criticism; James Taggart for his reminder
that the native term netotiliztli is sufficient to designate the genre repre-
sented by the songs in the Cantares and Romances manuscripts; Jane H. Hill
and the late Robert E. MacLaury for their analysis of the role of Montezuma
in sixteenth-century mythmaking; Elizabeth R. Wright for her reflections on
European and Mexican literatures; and John Ceely, Alan Sandstrom, and,
again, James Taggart, generally, for their insights and encouragement.
My overall view of the netotiliztli, emphasizing the passage of native war-
riors to and from the other world, corresponds to an observation set forth
in the 1964 edition of the Romances prepared by Angel M. Garibay K., who
may be given credit here. On pages 106–7 of that work, Garibay singles out
the xochicuahuitl, or “flower tree,” of Romances songs II, XI, XII, and XXXIII,
treating it as a guiding concept:
[…] it puts us on the road of correct investigation. The antecedent of
this concept is well documented in the complex of ancient prehispanic
codices. For each of the directions of the universe there is a particu-
lar tree; and in the center, another. Surrounding the central tree are
Preface ix
the beings who came from this life and will return to it. There exists
in the ancient culture, not wholly explored, a doctrine of reversion to
the present life ([…] nos lleva por el camino de la indagación recta. El
antecedente de este concepto se halla bien documentado en el conjunto de
códices de la antigüedad prehispánica. Para cada dirección del universo
hay un árbol especial. En el centro hay otro. En torno de éste se hallan
agrupados los seres que vinieron de la vida y regresarán a ella. Hay en la
antigua cultura, no del todo explorada, una doctrina de la reversión a la
vida presente).
Although my readings differ from Garibay’s in significant ways, it will be
seen that I have continued to travel the indicated “road.”
I acknowledge, gratefully, the Nettie Lee Benson Collection, University
of Texas Libraries, Austin, for access to the Romances manuscript; the pio-
neering edition of the Romances published by the late Angel Garibay, as
noted, still useful after forty years; the National Endowment for the Arts and
the National Endowment for the Humanities for their repeated support;
and especially the National Endowment for the Arts Translators Fellowship
that enabled me to complete the present work.