Conquest of Mexico
by M. Ternaux-Compans in the Appendix to his translation of Ixtlilxochitl's Hist. des Chichimèques (tom. i. pp. 359-367). Bustamente, who had also published the Spanish version in his Galeria de Antiguos Principes Mejicanos [Puebla, 1811], (pp. 16, 17), calls it the "Ode of the Flower," which was recited at a banquet of the great Tezcucan nobles. If this last, however, be the same mentioned by Torquemada (Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 45), it must have been written in the Tezcucan tongue; and, indeed, it is not probable that the Otomie, an Indian dialect, to distinct from the languages of Anahuac, however well understood by the royal poet, could have been comprehended by a miscellaneous audience of his countrymen.
Page 110 (2).—An approximation to a date is the most that one can hope to arrive at with Ixtlilxochitl, who has entangled his chronology in a manner beyond my skill to unravel. Thus, after telling us that Nezahualcoyotl was fifteen years old when his father was slain in 1418, he says he died at the age of seventy-one, in 1462.— Instar omnium.—Comp. Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 18, 19, 49.
Page 110 (3).—MS. de Ixtlilxochitl,—also, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 49.
[[Page:The Conquest of Mexico Volume 1.djvu/155#155-1|Page 111 (1).—Hist. Chich., cap. 49.
Page 112 (1).—The name Nezahualpilli signifies "the prince for whom one has fasted,"—in allusion, no doubt, to the long fast of his father previous to his birth. (See Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 45.) I have explained the meaning of the equally euphonious name of his parent, Nezahualcoyotl. (Ante, ch. 4, p. 65.) If it be true, that
"Cæsar or Epaminondas
Could ne'er without names have been known to us,"
it is no less certain that such names as those of the two Tezcucan princes, so difficult to be pronounced or remembered by a European, are most unfavourable to immortality.
Page 113 (1).—Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 67. The Tezcucan historian records several appalling examples of this severity:—one in particular, in relation to his guilty wife. The story, reminding one of the tales of a Oriental harem, has been translated for the Appendix, Vol. ii. p. 406. See also Torquemada (Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 66), and Zurita (Rapport, pp. 108, 109). He was the terror, in particular, of all unjust magistrates. They had little favour to expect from the man who could stifle the voice of nature in his own bosom, in obedience to the laws. As Suetonius said of a prince who had not hit virtue, "Vehemens et in coercendis quidem delictis immodicus."—Vita Galbæ, sec. 9.
Page 113 (2).—Torquemada saw the remains of this, or what passed for such, in his day.— Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 64.
Page 113 (3).—Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 73, 74. This sudden transfer of empire from the Tezcucans, at the close of the reigns of two of their ablest monarchs, it so improbable, that one cannot but doubt if they ever possessed it,—at least to the extent claimed by the patriotic historian.—See ante. Chap, 1, p. 15, note, and the corresponding text.
Page 113 (4).—Ibid., cap. 72. The reader will find a particular account of these prodigies, better authenticated than most miracles, in a future page of this History.
Page 113 (5).—Ibid., cap. 75.—Or, rather, at the age of fifty, if the historian is right in placing his birth, as he does in a preceding chapter, in 1465. (See cap. 46.) It is not easy to decide what is true, when the writer does not take the trouble to be true himself.
Page 113 (6).—His obsequies were celebrated with sanguinary pomp. Two hundred male and one hundred female slaves were sacrificed at his tomb. His body was consumed, amidst a heap448
