Broken Spears - Broken Bones

[John F. Schwaller]

Colleagues,

The Library of Congress is opening a new permanent exhibit of materials 
dealing with the conquest and colonial period of Latin America.  I has 
served as a consultant, and they asked me to do a translation of two of 
the pieces from Leon Portilla's _Broken Spears_  One is the passage from 
the Anales de Tlatelolco that contains the disputed phrase "broken 
spears" which is in fact "broken bones" ("omitl" not "mitl")  The other 
is from the Cantares mexicanos, an elegy for Tlatelolco.

I offer these for your "pleasure."  These are very difficult passages to 
translate, and I was also forced into casting it into an English that 
would be accessible to the most general audience, so my apologies in 
advance for my poetic license.

----------------
Broken Bones Littered the Road



Thus in our place this happened; we saw it, we will marvel at it.  The 
crying, the pity caused us to suffer exhaustion.

Broken bones littered the road; crushed heads, roofless houses, walls 
were made red with blood.

Worms crawled through noses in the streets; the house walls were 
slippery with brains.

The water was dyed red with blood.  Thus we went along; we drank the 
brackish water.

Still, there an adobe foundation, here a well were protected with a 
shield. 

Still, in vain someone might toast something on a shield. 

We ate tzompantli wood, grass from the salt flats, the adobe bricks, the 
lizards, mice, bits of dust.

Worms were toasted on a shield; there, on the fire the meat was cooked.  
They ate it.


-------
Elegy for Tlatelolco


Only the poetry of mercy was spreading there in Mexico, there in 
Tlatelolco.  Beyond is only the Place of Recognition.

Giver of Life, it is good that you have favored, you have washed our 
faces.  Indeed, we your people will perish.

You have raged and indeed we went in misery, we people.  We saw the 
affliction in the Place of Knowledge.

You dispersed and destroyed your people in Tlatelolco.  Affliction upon 
affliction come fall down in the Place of Revelation, when we were 
weary, we were lazy, oh Giver of Life.

Teardrops fall, crying protection in Tlatelolco.  The Mexican women have 
gone to the lake.  Truly they take leave.  Where do our friends go?

Truly they leave the city, the water-hill, of Mexico.  Smoke rises, fog 
spreads there.  You caused it, oh Giver of Life.

Weep and realize this, oh friends: you have abandoned the Mexican 
people.  The water is bitter and the food is bitter.  The Giver of Life 
made this happen in Tlatelolco.

(c) 2007 J. F. Schwaller for the Library of Congress




-- 
*****************************
John F. Schwaller
President
SUNY - Potsdam
44 Pierrepont Ave.
Potsdam, NY  13676
Tel. 315-267-2100
FAX 315-267-2496

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