Song XLV — Only Somewhere You Died
Song XLV carries the rubric "Ycuic Tlaltecatzin Quauhchinanco" — Song of Tlaltecatzin of Cuauhchinanco. Tlaltecatzin is attested in colonial sources as a lord of Cuauhchinanco (Eagle-Fence-Place, modern Cuauhchinango in the state of Puebla, part of the Aztec empire's eastern domains). The song functions as a memorial piece for Axayacatl and Itzcoatl — the sixth and fourth tlatoani of Tenochtitlan respectively — and it forms a deliberate memorial pair with Song XLIV (folio 29v, "Ycuic Axayacatzin Ytzcoatl"), which names the same two rulers in its rubric. The scribal arrangement of adjacent folios suggests intentional pairing: two named singers mourning the same two kings in sequence. The song occupies folios 30r–30v, sections 557–575.
The song moves in five gestures: (I) grief-opening — the divine word the lord made, and 'only somewhere you died' (§§557–558); (II) the memorial register — remembering Itzcoatl, questioning divine weariness, the drum sounding as lords depart, the plea for their return (§§559–562); (III) the voice-shift — the singer inhabits Axayacatl's first-person voice, seeking the dead, Tenochtitlan built from their merit (§§563–565); (IV) devotional close on folio 30r — singing with God, the cacao-flower and flower-pulque, the tlauhquechol in bloom (§§566–568); (V) grief and drum on folio 30v — arrival before the lords, sorrow, abandonment, going with flowers in hand, beating the drum, jade as the heart, and the living close: 'still your heart lives — sing!' (§§569–575).
The most striking feature of this song is the persona shift at §563. In a corpus where singers sometimes identify with birds or invoke lords in third person, Tlaltecatzin crosses further: he inhabits Axayacatl's first-person voice. "I am Axayacatl — only I seek him." The one sought is almost certainly Itzcoatl: §559 names Itzcoatl as the object of memory and grief, and Axayacatl was Itzcoatl's grandson. The song becomes a layered mourning — Tlaltecatzin mourns Axayacatl, Axayacatl mourns Itzcoatl, the living mourn the dead who mourn the further dead. The grief recedes through generations as through a hall of mirrors.
Key vocabulary: Tlaltecatzin (honored earth-lord — tlalli = earth; tecatl = one from a place; -tzin = honorific; a name rooted in the earth, distinct from the sky-associated bird-names of many Cantares singers), Quauhchinanco (Eagle-Fence-Place — quauhtli = eagle; chinanc- = enclosed garden or fence; -co = locative; a site in the Tepeaca region of modern Puebla), teotlatolli (divine word — teotl = divine/sacred; tlatol = word, speech; the divine word is both God's speech to humanity and the sacred quality of language itself; here the dead lord is said to have "made" it — his life was its utterance), Itzcoatl (Obsidian Serpent — itzli = obsidian; coatl = serpent; the fourth tlatoani of Tenochtitlan, r. 1427–1440, co-founder of the Triple Alliance; central reformer of Aztec religion and political identity; his name recurs throughout the Cantares as an ancestor of profound legitimacy), Axayacatl (Water-on-the-Face — atl = water; xayacatl = face/mask; the sixth tlatoani, r. 1469–1481, grandson of Itzcoatl; remembered for military campaigns and for the catastrophic defeat at Tzinacanostoc against the Tarascans in 1479; his voice is assumed here by Tlaltecatzin), yocoya (to create, to invent — root of Yocoyan, one of the names of the Giver of Life meaning "the Inventor"; to say "no one can create him" is to say even the Creator will not re-create the dead; the deepest grief in a single verb), nentlamati (to feel sadness, spiritual destitution — nentla = in vain, poorly; mati = to know/feel; the distinctive mourner's state in the Cantares: knowing one's grief is real but its object is irretrievably gone), atl-tepetl (water-mountain — the kenning for any Nahua city-state, from the paired glyphs of water and mountain; here specifically Tenochtitlan, built between lake-waters and volcanic mountains), mahcehual (merit earned through penance — from macehua = to deserve, to earn through discipline; the lords' accumulated merit through bloodletting, fasting, and war sustained the city and built Tenochtitlan's foundations), tlauhquechol (roseate spoonbill, Platalea ajaja — the bright-red bird of paradise, associated with celestial singing and warrior souls), xochincacahuatl (cacao-flower — the flower of the cacao tree, offered to the gods and drunk as a luxury ritual beverage; its foam marked proper preparation and divine acceptance), xochioctli (flower-pulque — octli = pulque, the fermented agave drink; combined with xochitl to create a ritual intoxicant associated with flower-songs and the blurring of living and dead), huehuetl (the upright cylindrical drum — one of the two central instruments of Nahua ceremony, struck with the hands; the drum's voice is not accompaniment but presence, the gods speaking through percussion), chalchiuhtli (jade — the most precious material in Nahua cosmology, associated with water, life, and divine favor; to call one's heart jade is to call it most precious, most irreplaceable).
Song XLV spans folios 30r–30v, sections 557–575. Song XLVI begins on folio 30v with the new manuscript heading XLIX ("Ytotocuic Totoquihuatzin Tlacopan tlatoani" — Song-Dance of Totoquihuatzin, tlatoani of Tlacopan). Nahuatl source text accessed from the UNAM TEMOA digital platform (temoa.iib.unam.mx), Cantares Mexicanos manuscript. The Cantares Mexicanos is held at the Biblioteca Nacional de México. Digital facsimile and transcription by UNAM's Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas. Translated directly from Classical Nahuatl by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
[Drum preamble]
Titocoti tocoti tocoti —
titocoti titocoti.
[§§557–558 — Movement I: The Divine Word and the Death]
Only that — the divine word —
you made it.
Ah, only somewhere you died.
Ah — perhaps he said it,
the person —
as weariness spreads —
no one can create him again.
[§§559–562 — Movement II: The Memorial Register]
Again the lords come —
ah —
only I remember them —
Itzcoatl —
my grief.
Ah, perhaps it tires —
he grows weary —
God, who dwells
with the Giver of Life.
Already the drum has sounded —
they are gone,
the noble children,
the rulers, the lords.
Still may they come rising here —
still may they come dancing here —
only there, at Ximoan.
[§§563–565 — Movement III: The Voice Shift — I Am Axayacatl]
Where does my heart dwell?
I am Axayacatl —
only I seek him.
Ah, their merit —
the water and the mountain —
what they carried here.
I guard the mountain —
somewhere is my bowing place —
the flower paints itself.
[§§566–568 — Movement IV: Devotional Close]
Only together with them I sing —
he, my god,
God.
Now the cacao-flower foams and spreads —
flower-pulque,
my ache.
Only the tlauhquechol blooms —
it foams and spreads —
your scattering-flower.
[§§569–575 — Movement V: Grief and the Drum]
Still —
you have arrived here already,
before the lords.
Only I am sad —
I say it —
may I not go.
Ah — my god,
the Giver of Life, has gone —
I am left alone.
Only thus will I go —
standing here,
flowers in hand.
I beat our drum —
adorned, splendorous.
Jade is my heart.
Still your heart lives —
sing!
Colophon
Song XLV of the Cantares Mexicanos, attributed in the manuscript rubric to Tlaltecatzin of Cuauhchinanco, folios 30r–30v, sections 557–575 (nineteen sections). The Cantares Mexicanos is a colonial-era manuscript of 91 Nahuatl songs compiled in the mid-sixteenth century by indigenous and colonial scribes in central Mexico, preserved at the Biblioteca Nacional de México.
This translation was made directly from Classical Nahuatl. Alonso de Molina's Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana (1571) and Frances Karttunen's An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl were consulted for lexical verification after the English draft was complete. No existing English translation was consulted during translation. The Blood Rule is maintained.
On the memorial pair with Song XLIV: Song XLV reads most naturally alongside Song XLIV (folio 29v, "Ycuic Axayacatzin Ytzcoatl"). Both songs mourn Axayacatl and Itzcoatl; both occupy adjacent folios; the scribal arrangement appears deliberate. Song XLIV was identified (by Life 47 in its colophon) as likely forming a memorial pair with Song XLV, with Axayacatl and Itzcoatl invoked in first person in §563 and named in §559 respectively. Kshatriya may wish to cross-link the two songs in the Library.md entry.
On §558 (ayac quiyocoyan): "No one can create him" (ayac quiyocoyan — ayac = no one; yocoya = to create, to invent) carries profound grief in Nahua context. The verb yocoya is the root of Yocoyan — one of the names of the Giver of Life, the Creator. To say "no one created him again" is to say: even the Creator will not re-create the dead lord. The weariness (tlatzihui, ciahui) that runs through §§557–560 — in the divine word, in the spreading world, even perhaps in God — is the weariness of this knowledge: that death is final and un-invented.
On §559 and Itzcoatl: The UNAM TEMOA fragment for §559 was partially accessible: "Cannelocpa huitze teteuctin a ohuaye çan niquimonilnamiqui..." (Again the lords come — ah — only I remember them...). Life 47 (Song XLIV, folio 29v) observed in the prior session that §559 continues with Itzcoatl's name and a grief-word — this observation has been incorporated in the translation. The full §559 names Itzcoatl as the object of remembrance.
On §563 (the voice-shift): The phrase nAxayaca is unambiguous: n- (first-person prefix) + Axayaca = "I [am] Axayacatl." Tlaltecatzin, the named singer, speaks in Axayacatl's voice for this section. ça niquiyatemoa (only I seek him) gives Axayacatl a grief-object — the one sought is almost certainly Itzcoatl, Axayacatl's grandfather and the object named in §559. The layered mourning — living singer inhabiting a dead king who grieves his own dead ancestor — is among the most architecturally complex memorial moves in the Cantares.
On Ximoan (§562): The destination Ximoain/Ximoan is not clearly identified. It may be a variant spelling of a place in the afterlife tradition, or a locative form of xima (to smooth, to plane — associated in some contexts with the smoothing of death). The translation preserves it as a proper destination-name for the departing lords. Kshatriya may flag for specialist review.
On §568 (mocquipacxochiuh): This compound is difficult. In context — flanked by the cacao-flower foaming and the tlauhquechol blooming — the most probable reading is a scattering or spreading flower: mo- (your) + some particle + pach-xochitl or paz-xochitl (scattering flower, or the flower that falls/opens). The translation offers "your scattering-flower" provisionally.
On §574 (toto etcetera): The scribal abbreviation toto etcetera indicates a refrain repetition of a preceding drum-pattern line. The translation renders it as a single closing affirmation ("Jade is my heart") without the repeated drum notation.
Boundary note: Song XLV ends at §575 (folio 30v). Song XLVI begins with manuscript heading XLIX ("Ytotocuic Totoquihuatzin Tlacopan tlatoani") on folio 30v after §575. UNAM TEMOA cross-reference numbers embedded in the raw source text (dlxv, dlxvi, dlxvii) are editorial apparatus and have been omitted from the source text below.
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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Source Text: Cantares Mexicanos — In Cuicatl
Classical Nahuatl source text from the UNAM TEMOA digital platform (temoa.iib.unam.mx), Cantares Mexicanos manuscript, folios 30r–30v, sections 557–575. The Cantares Mexicanos is held at the Biblioteca Nacional de México (MS 1628 bis). Transcription by UNAM's Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above. UNAM TEMOA scribal cross-reference numbers (dlxv, dlxvi, dlxvii) have been omitted as editorial apparatus.
[Drum preamble]: Titocoti tocoti tocoti etcetera — titocoti titocoti
§557: Çan tonilhuiçolon teotlatollin ticchiuh aya çan can timomiquili
§558: O ach anca oquitto in tlacatl aya in mahmana tlatzihui ayac quiyocoyan
§559: Cannelocpa huitze teteuctin a ohuaye çan niquimonilnamiqui [Ytzcoatl notlaocol — §559 partially accessible from TEMOA this session; Itzcoatl named per Life 47 observation, Song XLIV colophon]
§560: O ach anca ciahui a ontlatzihuin Dios yehuan chane yn Ipalnemoani
§561: Ye onetocoto ohuiloaca in tepilhuan i in tlatoanime teteuctin
§562: Mach oc hualquinehua ya mach oc hualilotihua yan can ompa Ximoain
§563: Canon in nemi a noyollo nAxayaca o ça niquiyatemoa
§564: O anca inmahcehual atlo yan tepetl huiya a in oquitquico
§565: Nicpiecon tepetl cana nitoloyan xochintlahcuiloa
§566: Çan ye ihuan noncuica yehuan noteouh in Dios
§567: Y ie xochincacahuatl in pocontimani xochioctli nocoyaye
§568: Çan ca tlauhquechol celiya poçontimani a mocquipacxochiuh
§569: Can tiye'coc ye nican imixpan o teteuctin
§570: Çan ca ninentlamati nic yhtoayan aya maca niyahui
§571: A oya ninocahua ya noteouh yn Ipalnemoani
§572: Çan ca iuh noyaz xochihuiconticac
§573: Nictzotzona yan tohuehueuh xahuiaca
§574: Chalchiuhtli noyollo toto etcetera
§575: Can oc moyo'lic a xoncuica ya toto
Source Colophon
Nahuatl source text from the UNAM TEMOA digital facsimile (temoa.iib.unam.mx), Cantares Mexicanos manuscript, folios 30r–30v. The manuscript is held at the Biblioteca Nacional de México (MS 1628 bis). Transcription by UNAM's Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Reproduced for non-commercial archival use.
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