<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><!--StartFragment--> <div class="MsoNormal"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#2D46FF">What is the meter pattern of classical Nahuatl poetry? Is it syllable-length-based like classical Latin poetry, or what?</font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#2D46FF"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#2D46FF">Citlalyani.</font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br></div><div class="MsoNormal">One looks in vain for either stress-based or syllable-timed meter in the large body of Nahuatl poetry/songs. If we knew how they fit together with the music, it would be a great help, but in the manuscripts we have the words but not the music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Many of them are preceded by drumbeat patterns transcribed with the syllables <i>ti, to, qui,</i><span style="font-style:normal"> and </span><i>co</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For example, several songs are accompanied by the drumbeat </span><i>coto coto coti ticoti ticoti</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For others the beat is </span><i>toco tico tocoti tocoti tocoti tocoti..</i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A longer one is </span><i>tiqui tiqui tocoto tiqui tiqui tocoto tiqui tiquiti tiqui tiqui tiquiti.</i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sometimes one drumbeat pattern is given and then a second one for “when it turns” or “until it ends.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br></div><div class="MsoNormal">In Nahuatl high style, whether prose or verse, elements are paired<span style="font-style:normal">. Such a pair of words or phrases is often described in English as a couplet, and in Nahuatl formal rhetoric, couplets are frequently embedded within couplets. Whatever is worth saying is worth saying twice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And whatever is worth saying twice is worth saying four or eight times.<o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal">This is reflected in the structure of the songs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The majority of them consist of four stanzas, each stanza consisting of a pair of verses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We know that the verse pairs go together, because each of the two elements ends with an identical coda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The coda is made up of syllables that can be compared to <i>tralala</i><span style="font-style:normal"> in English songs. The syllables have no meaning of their own but serve to tell the hearer that one verse is over and another is about to begin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A typical coda in Nahuatl songs is </span><i>ohuaya ohuaya</i><span style="font-style:normal">, but there are longer ones such </span><i>as ayie a oo ohuaya and ohui ohui ilili y yao ayyahue o amaha ilili ahua y yaohuia.</i><span style="font-style: normal"><o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal">An eight-verse Nahuatl song begins with a stanza consisting of a pair of verses, each ending in the same coda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then comes another stanza, often with a different shared coda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then comes another stanza, followed by the fourth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Rather than progressing from a beginning to a middle to an end, the organization is circular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In some repetitions, we find different order of the stanzas, but within the stanzas, the verse pairs are inseparable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In a few cases where one of the verses has been forgotten, a dummy verse has been substituted ending with the same coda as its partner within the stanza.<o:p></o:p></div> <!--EndFragment-->
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