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The Song of Netzahualcoytl

(An Aztec "Thanatopsis")

Translated By H. C. Theobald

At the wedding feast of Netzahualcoytl, who was Emperor of Texcoco, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, the ruler recited to his guests a poem which has been translated from the Nahuatl dialect of the Aztecs and turned into melodious Spanish verse by Juan Villalon, a modern Mexican poet. In sentiment closely resembling Bryant's "Thanatopsis," these lines reveal the philosopher king's belief in immortality and in a Supreme Being. The following translation from the Spanish represents an endeavor to keep close to the literal rendering by Villalon of this rather serious wedding poem:

Swift fades the pomp and trappings of this world,
E'en as the borders of the brooks are parched
When fierce the flames invade the forest shade,
Or as the warrior sinks in all his might,
His forehead rent by battle-axe of power.

The purple of the throne fades like the rose
Who vaunts her lovely petals for a day,
And lo! all withered by the blazing sun,
Blighted and colorless to earth she falls,
Like dolorous virgin, desolate, betrayed!

Brief is the reign of mortals, brief as flowers!
That which at dawn its beauty lifts to heaven
At eve lies dying-soon its race is run!
Glory and honors pass with mortal speed;
Fate urges on unto the dark abyss.
Earth is one vast, stupendous pantheon

That piteously inters all those she bore.

The rivers, brooks and streamlets onward rush,
But backward to their course none may return:
They onward rush unto the gloomy deep,
There hurl themselves into their tomb and rest.
So is our human life; lo, yesterday

Was not that which to-day doth seem to be;
Nor shall to-morrow's vision be to-day's.

Full is the vault of sad remains: those forms
Rejoicing yesterday in health and life,

Were warriors, lusty youth, and monarchs wise.
Great riches, wisdom, and command were theirs,
But power, and wealth, and high estate soon passed,
Quick vanishing as pestilential fumes

Which Popocapetl boiling vomits forth.

Rend now the shadows of the hollow crypt,
Of those forgotten, register each trace:
Where is Chalchiutlanet, the Chichimecan?
Mitl, cherisher of the gods, say, whither gone?
Of Tolpiltzin, last of the ancient Toltecs,
And beauteous Xiuhtzal, tell me, what of them?
Where is Xolotl, great and favored monarch?
Where now Ixtlilxochitl, my unhappy sire?

Ah, idle, vain desire! Ah, useless search!
Who shall know more than He, who knoweth all?
From clay, by His omnipotence, they came,
And mingled with the clay their bones repose.
Such course shall our existence run, and such
Shall be the fate of our posterity.

Aye! and in none other manner, also they
Shall end their course in dust of nothingness!

To life immortal, oh, noble Texocanos,

To life of the high heavens let us aspire!

The mortal perishes 'mid worms, but not the soul.
Toward God, released, it wings aloft its flight.
In yonder sovereign fields of the eternal,
Glory and love attend consoling peace.
And yonder planets, dazzling mortal eyes,
Are but the lamps His palace that illume!

[graphic]

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Carrying the pit-roasted meat to the serving tables.

A Bordertown Barbecue

By Daisy Kessler Biermann

SINGLE star hung low in the luminous amethyst above the Eastern horizon, trembling in liquid radiance above the silent hills. The Western sky was still flooded with a vivid saffron glow, and the studded oaks were black blotches etched in clear-cut silhouette through the dry mountain air. A stretch of pasture, gray-green in a fast gathering twilight dimness spread as a carpet from the sloping hills on either side.

In this expanse of gray-green merging into the darkening silhouettes of the hedging Southern California mountains, a group of men gathered, a spot of darker grey, about the mouth of a deeply dug pit. Within its depths -ruddily glowing-sturdy oaks were

transforming into a bed of palpitating living coals, and imbedded in the fiery mass lay rounded stones dully glowing with an intense heat. Campo was preparing for the barbecue.

The men lounged lazily about the pit, their idle gaze held by the ageold fascination of the fire. Pricking the darkness here and there about the circle glowed the point of a cigarette, and its thin blue smoke mingled its fragrance with the pungent odor of the drifting wood smoke. The men spoke in low tones, desultory remarks in mingled American and Mexican. In the silences that marked the lapses in conversation the stillness of the mountain night seemed freighted with the weight of desert solitudes pressing

from the east, the loneliness of the wilds of old Mexico to the south, and of all the peaks and valleys stretching down to the ocean seventy miles to the west.

Finally the smoke ceased drifting from the pit. In its yawning throat the clear air vibrated with the red heat of the coals. The group of waiting men stirred casually. From the darkness beyond the rim of firelight were brought huge pieces of raw beef, a quarter or a half a beef in a chunk. These were wrapped in burlap sacking, soused in tubs of water, and flung dripping upon the sizzling stones. Clouds of white steam rose densely. An old square of tent canvas was soaked with water and battened down over the steaming mass, and earth was heaped over all, hermetically sealing the feast which was to be the central feature of to-morrow's festivities. The little band of workers faded into the night beneath the now brilliantly starset sky, plodding toward the village lights. From the distance a lone auto truck following the highway from the sea to the desert shrilled its harsh,

strident call across the deserted dreaming pastures.

The next morning the sun rolled up, a burning ball in a sky of fleckless blue. With its early rays came the first arrivals. Jingling spurs, leathern chaps, coils of rawhide riata hanging from their saddle pommels, the cowpunchers from the desert edge and the higher pine-clad mountains, trailed in in groups of two and threes. Lazily lounging in their saddles, they clustered about the bottled soda and icecream cone stand erected in front of the stone-built frontier store, and imbibed copiously.

As the sun grew higher the crowds about the store thickened, and drifted up to the barbecue grounds in the pasture beyond the settlement. A strangely assorted mixture met and stared and greeted on this common ground. Smart automobiles, now dust covered from the long climb up heavy grades from the seaside city, filled with curious pleasure-seekers; dilapidated wagons, drawn by a pair of shaggy burros or dejected horses, overflowing with dark-skinned, black

[graphic]

Taking the barbecue from the roasting pit of hot ashes.

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