Monday, March 23, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org
Mesoamerican
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Texts
Cantares Mexicanos — Song I — Beginning of SongsA Good Works Translation of Song I (Cuicapeuhcayotl — Beginning of Songs) from the sixteenth-century Cantares Mexicanos manuscript — the largest surviving corpus of Classical Nahuatl poetry, translated directly from the UNAM TEMOA transcription.Cantares Mexicanos — Song IX — Mexican Spring SongA Good Works Translation of Song IX from the Cantares Mexicanos — a xopancuicatl (spring song) in the plain-song register, meditating on self-deception, the brevity of earthly glory, the grief-flower as offering, and the singer's wound, translated directly from the UNAM TEMOA Nahuatl transcription.Cantares Mexicanos — Song VI — Chalco Song of TetlepanquetzanitzinA Good Works Translation of Song VI from the Cantares Mexicanos — an elegiac Chalco song attributed to Tetlepanquetzanitzin, mourning the passing of Nezahualcoyotl and Tezozomoctli and meditating on friendship, grief, and the brevity of earthly glory.Cantares Mexicanos — Song VII — Another SongA Good Works Translation of Song VII from the Cantares Mexicanos — a war-flower song on earning the precious flower of lordship and nobility through battle, addressed to Chiapaneca-Otomí warriors, translated directly from the UNAM TEMOA Nahuatl transcription.Cantares Mexicanos — Song VIII — Grief SongA Good Works Translation of Song VIII from the Cantares Mexicanos — a tlaocolcuicatl (grief song) in which a singer mourns dead lords who have descended to Ximohuayan and addresses the Giver of Life in naked grief, translated directly from the UNAM TEMOA Nahuatl transcription.Cantares Mexicanos — Song X — Another SongA Good Works Translation of Song X from the Cantares Mexicanos — a grief song bearing two colonial syncretic insertions (Dios, Santa María), a direct address to named lords Tezcacoacatl and Atecpanecatl, and a close meditation on the impossibility of knowing anything true on earth, translated directly from the UNAM TEMOA Nahuatl transcription.Cantares Mexicanos — Song XI — Spring Song, Exhortation SongA Good Works Translation of Song XI from the Cantares Mexicanos — a spring song and exhortation to warriors who hold back from battle, translated from an Otomi original into Nahuatl in the manuscript, now rendered into English directly from the Nahuatl; the drummer wakes his sleeping friends to the flower-dawn songs, and the song climbs from the drum-circle to Eagle Mountain where nobles are shattered like jade.Cantares Mexicanos — Song XII — HuexotzincayotlA Good Works Translation of Song XII from the Cantares Mexicanos — the Huexotzincayotl, a song in the style of Huexotzinco, translated directly from Classical Nahuatl; sections 66-73 on folios 6v-7r open with the flower-warrior ideal and the feathered nobles walking in beauty, then pivot without warning into a lament over the fall of Mexico-Tlatilolco — grief-flowers spread, tears rain, the people go into the water, smoke rises, and the Giver of Life is accused.Cantares Mexicanos — Song XIV — Melahuac HuexotzincayotlA Good Works Translation of Song XIV from the Cantares Mexicanos — the Melahuac Huexotzincayotl (True Song in the Style of Huexotzinco), sections 74–112 on folios 7r–8v; attributed to Don Francisco Plácido, performed at Easter 1551 in Azcapotzalco; moves from conquest lament through colonial-syncretic meditation on God and Christ, to mythic Mexica origins, then into a sustained war-lament over Huexotzinca conflicts with Totomihuacan, Tlaxcala, Mexica, and Acolhua, closing on the scattering of God's mat and seat.Cantares Mexicanos — Song XV — Flower-Death in the PlainA Good Works Translation of Song XV from the Cantares Mexicanos — manuscript heading XVI, sections 113–121 on folios 9r–9v; nine sections moving from earthly grief through a philosophical meditation on prayer to the Only God and the Place of No Return, closing on the warrior's longing for flower-death in the burning plain.Cantares Mexicanos — Song XVI — The Flower-Song DebateA Good Works Translation of Song XVI from the Cantares Mexicanos — manuscript heading XVII (Xochicuicatl), sections 122–169 on folios 9v–11v; forty-eight sections in which named lords from Huexotzinco, Tlaxcala, and other altepetl speak in a philosophical dialogue about the origin of flower songs, the nature of earthly life, and the question of whether meaning survives death.