BEGINNING OF THE SONGS[i]
I wonder where I can get some Good Sweet Flowers[ii].
Who Will I ask?
Let me ask the Quetzal Hummingbird, the Jade Hummingbird.
Let me ask the Troupial Butterfly.
They’re the ones who know:
They know where the Good Sweet Flowers bloom.
Let me wander through this needle grove where the Trogons are,
Let me wander through this flower grove of Roseate Spoonbill Swans.
That’s where they’re bending with sunstruck dew.
That’s where they blossom in beauty.
Perhaps I’ll find them there.
If they showed them to me, I’d gather a cloakful,
and with these I’d greet the princes,
With these I’d entertain the lords.
Ah, here’s where they live!
I hear their flower songs as though mountains were echoing them.
Ah, the plume water, the Cotinga spring, is flowing in their midst.
And there the Mockingbird is throbbing with song, reverberating with song.
The Bellbird echoes these precious ones,
these sundry songbirds:
they’re rattle—shrilling:
they’re eulogizing World Owner there.
They’re the very Ones who fill Our throats.
I call out mournfully. I say,
“O you, His precious ones, don’t let me disturb you.”
And then they fell silent.
And then the quetzal hummingbird said,
“Singer, who are you looking for?”
Then I answer him, saying,
“Where are Good Sweet Flowers for me to entertain your fellows?”
Then they shrilled to me,
“They’re here. Let’s go show them to you, singer.
Perhaps with these you’ll entertain our lordly fellow braves.”
They took me into a valley,
a land of plenty,
a land of flowers.
And there they were, laden with sunstruck dew.
There I saw those sundry sweet and precious flowers,
delicious precious flowers,
clothed in dew,
laden with sunstruck mistbow.
And there they said to me,
“Cut whatever flowers you want.
Entertain yourself, singer!
And when you arrive, you’ll give them to our lordly comrades
who’ll entertain World Owner.”
So I fill my cloak with these sundry sweet flowers,
these heart pleasers,
these delight makers. I say,
“I wish one of our comrades could come here with me.
I wish we could carry off a great many.
But I’ve gotten the information.
And when I arrive, I’ll spread the word among our friends.
We’ll always come here to cut these sundry sweet and precious flowers,
to get these sundry good ones, these songs.
With these we’ll entertain our friends on earth,
the eagle—jaguar princes.”
I, the singer, went to get all of them,
and I flower-crowned the princes,
adorned them, filled their hands.
And then I lift these good songs in praise of all the princes
before the Ever Present, the Ever Near.
But where would he whose worth is nothing get delicious flowers?
Where would he find them?
Could he whose worth is nothing, who is wretched and who sins on earth,
accompany me to flower land, the land of plenty?
It’s the Ever Present, the Ever Near,
who causes people to deserve them here on earth.
And so my heart is weeping.
l, the singer, recall how I went to look around in flower land:
And I say,
“Ah, this earth is not a good place.
Ah, it’s elsewhere that one goes, where there’s happiness.
What good is earth?
Ah, the place of life where all are shorn is elsewhere.
Let me go there.
Let me go make music with the sundry precious birds.
Let me enjoy the good flowers,
the sweet flowers,
the heart pleasers,
that intoxicate with joy and sweetness,
intoxicate with sweet joy.”
[i] Opening Poem of the Cantares Mexicanos. The Náhuatl title is “Cuicapeuhcáyotl,” which translates as either “The Start or Beginning” or “The Origin of the Songs,” by Nezahualcoyotl. There are several interpretations of this poem. This version comes from Cantares Mexicanos, Songs of the Aztecs, Song 1, Folios I—IV, by John Bierhorst, Stanford University Press, 1985.
[ii] The phrase “I wonder where I can get some good, sweet flowers” from Nezahualcoyotl’s poem is a metaphor for the search for beauty, inspiration, truth and wisdom or spiritual nourishment. Flowers represent beauty and the ephemeral nature of life on earth. Flowers blossom but their beauty is fleeting as flowers, like all living things, soon wither and die.
