Celebrating 15 Years
Retold by ILAN STAVANS
Nezahualcóyotl (1402–1472) is the only pre-Hispanic Aztec poet we know by name. The word means “Hungry Coyote” in Nahuatl. But Nezahualcóyotl wasn’t solely a poet. He ruled the Texcocans, who, along with the city-states Tenochtitlán and Tlacopán, formed the magisterial Triple Alliance, which ruled from 1428 until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors almost a hundred years later. Nezahualcóyotl was also known for his philosophical meditations, his urban projects, especially aqueducts, and for his views on war, sacrifice, and the legal system.
He lived a rather eventful life. After the assassination of his father and the usurpation of the Texcocan throne, he orchestrated an epic comeback that resulted in a long period of peace and prosperity for his people. He apparently had an introspective nature, given the inclination in his poetry for appreciations of nature in all its subtleties. Although he saw war as a form of physical and spiritual replenishment, especially in connection with slavery, which then prevailed in Mesoamérica, Nezahualcóyotl is said to have been critical of the sacrifices that were central to the Aztec religion. The Spaniards also portrayed him as a proto-monotheist. Are these views accurate, or wishful thinking among the conquerors?
Before the catastrophe brought along by the Europeans, the language of Nahuatl—which is today still spoken by about one million and a half people—was a syllabic and pictorial language defined by polysynthesis and agglutination that was the lingua franca of 16th-century Nueva España, as Mexico was then called. Nahuatl transitioned into the Latin alphabet because of the missionary work of Dominican and Franciscan friars. Much of Nezahualcóyotl’s poetry comes to us through that process of acculturation, which means it has heavy doses of the Christian motifs used to evangelize the indigenous population.
Attempting to hear his voice as authentically—as pristinely—as possible, I have gone back to a variety of códices, chronicles, and other historical sources, including accounts by Nezahualcóyotl’s great-grandson Juan Bautista Pomar, who authored the Nahuatl collection Romances de los señores de la Nueva España. Given Nezahualcóyotl’s standing, it is likely that, as in the case of say the biblical King Solomon, his poems aren’t truly written by him but by his entourage and successive generations of devotees. I don’t call my strategy a full-fledged translation but a retelling, since my attempt at recreation is also a form of reinvention.
The two poems showcased here look back at Nezahualcóyotl’s political life and allow him a chance to defend his actions. They also recreate, emblematically, his views of Mitlán, as the underworld was known among the Aztecs. He is an icon in contemporary Mexico.
—Ilan Stavans
Before the Council
Council of Wise Men:
The dwellers of Texcoco
have found you flawed,
Tlatoani Nezahualcóyotl.
Nezahualcóyotl:
Summoned by you
in this portico of the Temple of Humility,
I am humbled by your queries
and eager to explain
the source of my worries.
Council of Wise Men:
We are the envy of our enemies
and are regaled
with admiration from our friends.
Nezahualcóyotl:
When young,
I envisioned granting my people
more calibrated knowledge:
I studied the weather cycles,
I built houses for diverse animals,
I studied the movement of stars,
I sought the wisdom of the unknown;
I defied gods
and questioned sacrifice;
I plunder the treasures of my adversaries.
And what did I achieve?
Council of Wise Men:
But in expanding our ambitions,
you have undermined
our beliefs.
Nezahualcóyotl:
My legacy is in your hands,
the elders of the Calpullis,
and, it is my hope,
in my son Nezahualpilli.
He is made in my image,
from my blood,
in quetzal plumes.
I built a penal code
that embarrassed
criminals,
persuading the dwellers of Texcoco
to choose the right path.
Council of Wise Men:
From the ashes,
your reign has rebuilt
our august Acolhua Altepetl.
Nezahualcóyotl:
Nature thrives in opposites:
darkness gives place to light,
anger to joy,
knowledge to ignorance,
rain to drought,
and birth to death.
My body
will return to the waterfalls;
it will be part of the soil
and the wrathful Quetzalcóatl,
who forever wears
around his neck the breastplate ehecacozcatl,
a conch shell cut at the cross section,
the spirally volute wind jewel.
Council of Wise Men:
Your view of Tloque Nahuaque
brought us danger.
You defied the rule of Huitzilopochtli
and our other deities.
Nezahualcóyotl:
I disbelieved all our deities,
attempting to fuse them into a single force,
invisible and indivisible.
I sought to leave an imprint
for the future.
Through writing, those that come after us
will know who we are.
Itzcoatl and Tlacaelel
ordered the burning of painted manuscripts
but I saved them.
Council of Wise Men:
We wish not one but many.
Losing our gods will bring only defeat.
It is our wish for Nezahualpilli
to distrust your legacy, sending us back
to the right path.
Nezahualcóyotl:
Through you, I suffer
and spring forth.
Earth is the place for weeping,
where breath is exhausted,
where affliction and awe are known.
Be chaste and circumspect,
for when you go astray,
gossip prevails.
I no longer wish to safeguard my honor,
for honor is transient.
Oh, Tloque Nahuaque,
I invoke you with flowers.
Prepare the florid drum
girded with quetzal feathers,
interwoven with gilded flowers.
Council of Wise Men:
We will ask you to abandon Texcoco
and distance yourself from the Acolhua Altepetl.
You are a wise poet,
yet you are imperfect.
Nezahualcóyotl:
Your gaze is unmerciful,
Council of Wise Men.
Hear my supplication
to put away your thorns.
Docility is death.
True artists are skillful,
in dialogue with the head and heart.
Untrue artists mock people,
labor without care,
defraud us.
I am about to embark
on my perilous last journey.
Council of Wise Men:
You raped Azcalxóchitzin.
Power overwhelms
and rulers are intoxicated by power.
Their instincts must be tamed.
Nezahualcóyotl:
I have lapsed;
I have been arrogant;
I have rallied my people to the battlefield;
I have built alliances based on self-interest.
Yet I have also rebuilt Texcoco from the ashes,
erecting temples, gardens, and libraries,
all designed to erase our enemies.
Our kingdom was refurbished;
our language, Nahuatl, acquired a new grammar;
and our afterlife was surveyed anew.
Council of Wise Men:
We wish you endurance,
Tlatoani Nezahualcóyotl.
Prepare the florid drum,
girded with quetzal feathers
interwoven with gilded flowers.
Nezahualcóyotl:
Our earth comes from Cipactli,
the divine crocodile, of indefinite gender,
always hungry, every joint of its body
adorned with an extra mouth.
From Cipactli’s hair,
flowers, trees, and plants grow;
from its skin,
valleys, plains, and river sediments;
from its eyes,
caves, wells, and fountains;
from its mouth,
streams, rivers, and lakes;
from its nose,
ranges, mesas, and valleys;
and from its shoulders,
volcanos and mountain ranges.
Council of Wise Men:
You will delight the eagles and jaguars
from the interior of heaven.
In Texcoco, we shall seek a different song.
Nezahualcóyotl:
Our gods,
summoned by Tloque Nahuaque,
deposited three souls on all human bodies:
Tonalli is located in the fontanel of the skull;
Teyolia, in the heart; and Ihiyotl, the soul of passion,
aggression, and luminous gas, is in the liver.
Tonalli departs the body every time we sleep
and returns when we awake.
Teyolia and Ihiyotl only depart at the moment of death.
Without all three souls, we aren’t ourselves.
Grant me strength,
and bid farewell to your tlatoani,
dwellers of Texcoco,
as I intone these lamentations,
not meant for me but you.
Council of Wise Men:
We come to the arms of the luscious tree,
like a florid hummingbird,
in delight of the aroma of dahlias.
We sweeten our lips with them.
Nezahualcóyotl:
I hear the tentative bells of my tonalli,
anticipating my ultimate freedom.
Time is a delusion.
My three souls shall soon separate,
coalescing in their origin.
Their echo is yours,
Acolhua,
dwellers of Texcoco,
to pass on to the future.
Council of Wise Men:
Keep a firm heart
No one will live forever.
Ayac nican nemiz.
Journey to the Underworld
I, Tlatoani Nezahualcóyotl,
intone these lamentations
to the splendorous sound of the huehuetl,
the upright skin drum,
and the teponaztli,
the horizontal log drums,
at the Little Feast of the Dead.
On the year 11 Rabbit,
I request entrance to Mictlan,
the underworld,
if such region is attainable.
Some Tlamatinime,
the people of wisdom,
question its existence.
To me, doubt is the door to perception.
I dream of a place
where death isn’t a dream.
Let us go to that house of no tears,
the zone of golden feathers,
the sphere of mystery
ruled by Tloque Nahuaque,
Lord of the With and the By,
Owner of Presence and Inwardness,
of Closeness and Proximity,
also known as Moyocoyatzin,
the entity that invents itself;
let our yollotl, our heart,
find comfort in its uncertainty.
Death—blunt, recurrent, unforgiving—
awaits us all as part of our search.
Acolhua,
dwellers of Texcoco,
decorating the soft edges of Lake Texcoco,
beyond where the eagle might see,
grant me pardon,
nurture me with an infusion of your vitality,
remember me against the lords of oblivion.
Listen attentively,
for these are my “false” memories.
I accumulated them
over decades
and now pass them on to you,
my descendants.
Nothing in them is authentic;
they are false
because as your ruler,
I am fake.
I am made in your image;
you make me what you want me to be.
The next generation
of dwellers of Texcoco
shall imbue my story
with unforeseen significance.
I am myself a reflection—
a concoction,
a summation.
I, Tlatoani Nezahualcóyotl, wonder:
are we like roots of a tree inside the soil,
not forever on this earth,
only conditionally,
as visitors, as impostors?
Jade breaks apart,
quetzal plumage disintegrates.
Not forever on this earth,
only provisionally,
as a leaf in the wind.
We, Acolhua,
dwellers of Texcoco,
humbly belong
to the empire of Mexihko,
ruled by the magnanimous Axayacatl,
sixth tlatoani of Tenochtitlan
and its magnificent people.
In my bronze skin,
distilling the record of my voyage,
I recognize—infallibly—
that the possessions to be placed
in my tomb
are needless ornaments,
mere enchantments
incapable of appeasing the gods.
I request for them
to be burned
as a return to their origin.
I reject ostentations,
I deny brazenness.
In Mictlan, I shall come across Acuecueyotl,
the skirt of water,
her physical manifestation amorphous,
leaking a seductive fragrance,
a sprawling maguey in lieu of hair.
Although she might display ingratitude,
I will respond with self-effacement.
On behalf of you,
I shall fight the Xelhuas,
giants from the time of the universal deluge;
I shall come before the Tlalcíhuatl Toad,
its head always turned upside down,
and before Xiuhcoatl, the fire serpent,
whose task it is to keep the world in motion.
Finally, I shall come across Itzpapalotl,
the obsidian butterfly,
goddess of Tamoanchan,
which is the paradise inhabited by dead children.
No Texcoco person has ever returned
from the unexplored wilderness of Mictlan,
which proves that the road
to the underworld has countless obstacles.
Xolotl,
the heavenly fire,
is required as a companion.
I have sought
such fire,
I have looked for clues.
There is no philosophical key
to solve the mystery
of anonymity.
We come from oblivion
and to oblivion we shall return.
Mictlan is synonymous with darkness.
To reach it,
the deceased must travel across a mountain range,
followed by a treacherous landscape
where the wind throws flesh-scraping knives,
finally to reach a blood river inhabited by the Ocelotl,
a headless jaguar with an enormous jaw.
Will I find my path
where no one ever does?
Surely not.
I am insignificant.
Lean only on these lamentations,
for they are yours:
find in them the lessons you crave.
No one ever befriends the Lord of the With and the By,
Owner of Presence and Inwardness,
of Closeness and Proximity,
whose secret is found in our flowers,
our song,
our collective vision.
Tloque Nahuaque intoxicates us,
stealing our certitude.
Let our yollotl disengage with the objects surrounding us;
let freedom be granted from our bodily functions.
I am fake.
And after Mictlan, might any of us be granted
a pass to the land where death is nonexistent?
I am fallible.
I am finite.
Lamentations Of Nezahualcóyotl: Nahuatl Poems is out March 25, 2025 from Restless Books. You can preorder the illustrated collection here.
Ilan Stavans is the publisher of Restless Books and the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His books include On Borrowed Words, Spanglish, Dictionary Days, The Disappearance, and A Critic’s Journey. He has edited The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature, the three-volume set Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, among dozens of other volumes. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Chile’s Presidential Medal, the International Latino Book Award, and the Jewish Book Award. Stavans’s work, translated into twenty languages, has been adapted to the stage and screen. A cofounder of the Great Books Summer Program at Amherst, Stanford, Chicago, Oxford, and Dublin, he is the host of the NPR podcast “In Contrast.”
