E27 An Untitled Poem by King Nezahualcoyotl

Description:
An immersive reading of an untitled poem by King Nezahualcoyotl translated by Daniel Brinton with reflection on Nahuatl poetry, memento mori, and flowers.

Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/ 

Work:

 Excerpts from an untitled poem by King Nezahualcoyotl translated by Daniel Brinton

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. […]

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.  […]

4. […] nothing is so perfect that it does not fall and disappear. […]

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 […]

6. […] 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; […] 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. 

References:

Poem: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12219/12219-h/12219-h.htm#S_10 

Miller ME Taube KA. The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya : An Illustrated Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion. New York: Thames and Hudson; 1993.  https://www.tatteredcover.com/book/9780500279281 

Noonan E, Little M, Kerridge I. Return of the memento mori: imaging death in public health. J R Soc Med. 2013 Dec;106(12):475-7. doi: 10.1177/0141076813495828. Epub 2013 Sep 11. PMID: 24025227; PMCID: PMC3842855.

Mexica vs Aztec https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/you-are-no-longer-called-aztecs-you-are-mexica 

NB: Tattered Cover is a local Denver bookstore