358
THE APPEAL OF OLLANTAY
Act I
Having need of thy valour and skill.
Rumi-ñaui. With respect I obey thy command.
[Exit Rumi-ñaui.
Ollantay. Thou knowest, most gracious Lord,
That I have served thee from a youth,
Have worked with fortitude and truth,
Thy treasured praise was my reward.[1]
All dangers I have gladly met,
For thee I always watched by night,
For thee was forward in the fight,
My forehead ever bathed in sweat.
For thee I've been a savage foe,
Urging my Antis[2] not to spare,
But kill and fill the land with fear,
And make the blood of conquered flow.
My name is as a dreaded rope,[3]
I've made the hardy Yuncas[4] yield,
By me the fate of Chancas[5] sealed,
They are thy thralls without a hope.
- ↑ In the original Quichua, Ollantay makes his appeal to the Inca in quatrains of octosyllabic verses, the first line rhyming with the last, and the second with the third. Garcilasso de la Vega and others testify to the proficiency of the Incas in this form of composition.
- ↑ Ollantay was Viceroy of Anti-suyu.
- ↑ Chahuar, a rope of aloe fibre. A curb or restraint.
- ↑ 4Raprancutan cuchurcani; literally, 'I have clipped their wings.'
Rapra, a wing. - ↑ The powerful nation of Chancas, with their chief, Huancavilca, inhabited the great valley of Andahuaylas and were formidable rivals of the Incas. But they were subdued by Pachacuti long before Ollantay can have been born. An allowable dramatic anachronism.
