This story[16] is a mirage of thin words and bodiless phrases. It paints on a film of mist things that are long ago and far away, and lifts up a pale reflection of cities and grandeurs lying below the horizon of our times, never to be resurrected in fact. It presents in a vaguely understandable fashion, strange beliefs and philosophies that a wonderful society of human beings created out of their common thought and supposed necessities. Have you ever tried really to understand the Past, not so much the material Past of quaint costumes and accoutrements, as the immaterial Past of ideals, ambitions, and enthusiasms? Have you ever wilfully imprisoned your present spiritual being in the emotional matrix of an age that is dead? In the hall where the glum old faces of your ancestors stare out from dull frames upon your unimagined new life, have you ever paused to gaze back into those dim presentments, and to think how impossible to-day would be the quest of the Pilgrims, or of the Crusaders? And when, not so long ago, a Gothic fantasy in gently treated stone crumbled before the war-saddened eyes of the world, did this fearful thought impress itself upon you: No man in all Christendom can ever re-carve those shattered prophets or re-groin those airy arches in the dread sincerity of the first builders?
Now, it is not the stone that changes, nor the chisel, nor the loves and hates of individual men and women: it is the over-soul of society that passes. For, out of our herded life of tribe or nation, comes an over-soul that directs our hands and implants in our minds the seeds of duty, the impulses of sincerity, and the recognition of all the needs which we think are absolute, but which, in a larger view, are merely relative. The cloud forms of communal emotion that constitute these over-souls, flame and fade like the western sky and never twice assume the same shapes and colors.
In Mexico, before the steel-clad soldiers of Cortes landed at Vera Cruz, there was a civilization that ran back into a twilight of the 238 gods. Centuries of accumulating art and ceremony had enriched the first crude thoughts of savages coming out of desert camps to abide in houses of mud and stone, amid maize stalks and squash vines. Cities and indeed, empires, had risen, flourished and fallen. There had come into being those slaves to the ideal of ritual whom we call priests, and those slaves to the ideal of political grandeur whom we call kings. And back of all these were gods to whom sacrifices were duly given for benefits received. And the people, commanded by their over-soul, raised gleaming temples on stately pyramids for their gods, and built palaces with bright gardens for their priest and kings. And, moreover, they gave honors and rewards for success in trade and war and they set the marks of class upon certain men and their children. This is a story of their sincerity....
That wise old man, bent from much climbing of temple stairs, but with the steady, believing gaze which comes from watching the stars, foretold the distant event with deceptive clarity. He was reader of the fates and keeper of the calendar in Quauhnahuac, and after grave study of his painted books he resolved the tangled interests of greater and lesser gods in the new-born child. So he said to the father and the friends who crowded round: “Let him be called Macuilquaultli, Five-eagle, after the day on which he was born, and let him be well taught in all that a chief should know. He shall acquire grace, skill, and a knowledge of all arts, for he shall come to rule in a high place. Thus it is written: he shall govern the City.”
The father of Five-eagle was a Captain among the armed men of Quauhnahuac, a bearer of standards, and a councilor in matters of state. He proudly bore the insignia of high success in war against the strange-tongued people of Tolucca. Yet, Quauhnahuac was not a city of warriors. The populous capital of the Tlahuica (as you may know from that Cuernavaca of sunlight and indolence which survives) lay deep below the mist houses of Ajusco, in a valley where waters dance and flowers flame. To be sure this people had come out from the Seven Caves with the Azteca and other tribes, but they had passed down from the cold highlands and had prospered under the benign protection of Xochivuetzalli, goddess of239 flowers, and patroness of all the arts that give beauty to the world and take vigor from it.
Five-eagle, at the age of eight, left the shaded portico of his father’s courtyard, where the fountain bubbled in a gleaming pool and where imprisoned birds sang, to study and sleep in one of the Great Houses with other youths. He was a slender boy with a pleasing and thoughtful face. Under the instruction of the old warriors he acquired only a careless skill in the hurling of lances, and took little pride when he won his set in the battering contests with wooden swords and shields of cane. Rather he preferred to beat out the thundering war songs of his people on the two-lipped drums. In this he became proficient beyond all others, and in his hands the rubber-tipped drumsticks set up wild, nerve-racking rhythms that soon had young men and old whirling in a mad dance and chanting a song of the old nomadic days. Or, hidden among the trees he would play lonesome melodies on flutes of clay.
He knew the narrow hunting trails that led across the hills to the haunts of deer and wild turkey. He knew the great lava flow that stretched, in twisted and forbidding ridges, along the sides of the high mountain which separated Quauhnahuac from the Valley of the Five Lakes. He had climbed the pinnacles of black desolation on this lava desert and descended into its caverns of whirring bats.
Often in the shade of a market shrine Five-eagle would encounter the aged priest of the calendar who had laid the gorgeous prophecy upon him. This wise old man knew there was no end of knowledge, for he squatted with his books unfolded on the ground before him, and diligently made other books. But always he laid aside his brushes and his sheets of lime-sized paper when the youth drew near. First he would explain what calculation was being written down, and then expanding to the breadth of his subject, he would tell his young disciple how time ran in wheels of days and years and ages, and how the cycles of the Morning Star fell now for good and now for evil fortune, and how the gods ruled the hours in turn. He taught the boy to calculate in high numbers, to make hieroglyphs and read history, and to draw with a sure skill the faces and distinguishing marks of all the gods.
And sometimes, at the dead of night, he took the youth with him 240 to the top of the high pyramid and before the very door of the temple itself. Below them lay the sleeping city amid soft rustlings of the wind and sweet smells of hidden flowers. The ravines were in deep shadow except where a thread of water gleamed faintly. The palm-thatched huts of the common people were huddled in the folds of the valley, with here and there a chieftain’s house built round a little court. The barracks and public buildings were placed on the four sides of larger squares, and in the dark of night their plaster walls showed ghostly white. In the market places still glowed the coals of dying fires, about which were massed the muffled figures of men who had brought their packs to market from afar. It was a solemn hour when mysteries crowd in upon the soul, and a still more solemn station. With heads together, speaking now and then in hushed and reverential voices, they studied the multitudinous stars as these swung grandly around the pole in a march of majesty across the eternal depths of heaven. And they kept their vigil until the great white Star of Morning hung like a splendid jewel above the calm snows of Ixtaccihuatl, the White Woman. Then the blue of the East turned to pearl and rose; new smoke streamed upwards through roofs of heavy thatch; the city stirred and the markets filled with sellers and buyers; the yellow Sun had given another day.
Once Five-eagle and the old priests journeyed together to the ruined site of Xochicalco, where one fair temple was still used in religious services. But the walls of a hundred more lay in shapeless heaps of fallen stone. In front and on either side, the terraced hill dropped off to great depths, but behind it rose another hill to a commanding height with a stronghold on its crest. The priest related fragments of history of this all-but-forgotten capital, shards of myths with names of kings and empty dates to signify resounding triumphs. Then he spoke sadly: “The glories of the great pass like the smoke of Popocatepetl, leaving the skies serene.”
“But Tenochtitlan,” broke in the youth, “tell me about that famous city, for surely you have been there and seen its wonders. Once from the top of Ajusco I looked down, far down, across the lava, and I saw the five lakes like five mists in the valley, and there was Tenochtitlan shining like a jewel. And I saw the roads that lead out from the land like a spider’s web.”
“Tenochtitlan: yes, I have seen it, and its gardens and temples 241 are rich and beautiful. Its priests and warrior chiefs have much jade and green feathers of the quetzal. Yet Tenochtitlan is youngest of all the cities of Anahuac. Many ages older are Chaleo, Colhuacan, Atzcapotzalco,—and Tezcoco, too, where ruled the loved singer. They say that Tenochtitlan was nought but a rock amid the reeds of the great lake when the Azteca came in bondage and distress. But these sought favor of Tacuba to fish and build floating gardens. Then came Acamapichtli and his sons, so that the fishermen went forth to fight, and their god Huitzilopochtli gave them victory. And now the ancient cities have fallen, save only Tezcoco, in all the valley. Those Azteca of Tenochtitlan go now to Colima and Tuxpan for tribute and captives, and even past Cholula to the lands of the Zapoteca. Their traders first go forth with shining goods to spy out the way; then their warriors fall like the lightning flash. Only the wild Tarasca have turned them back, and those of Tlaxcala, fighting behind stone walls.”
So the priest of the calendar told the long history of Mexico, and he described the great feasts that fell, one each twenty days, till the year was done. He discussed the signs and powers of the various gods who thirsted for the blood of human sacrifices and hungered for hearts that were freely given.
“But they say,” said Five-eagle, “that in ancient times we gave only flowers to our Xochiquetzalli. Now we must offer children to her or she will be displeased.”
“They,” replied the priest softly, “are the most precious flowers! And to her who gives should be returned gifts as precious. Yet, I think pride of place enters sometimes into sacrifices, and that there is human boasting where the altars are piled too high. If only the Cause of All, to whom even the gods are quarreling children, would speak the last truth, so that man might understand! But if Tlaloc calls for a sprinkling of blood before he will give us showers of rain, then it is indeed just that he should have his blood. Without rain the world would die. Yet Huitzilopochtli, under whose standard fight those of Tenochtitlan, is a god of war alone. He can promise only plunder. He is a little god suddenly grown to commanding stature, so that all the cities pay tribute to his children. But Tezcatlipoca is the great one of all the land; he is the Magician to whom nothing is hidden—may he remember us only in gentle mood!”
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There stands to this day in Cuernavaca a graven bowlder bearing a shield, a sheaf of arrows and a record in hieroglyphs of the fatal hour when the painted warriors of Tenochtitlan swept down upon Quauhnahuac. Then the City of Flowers withered before a rain of flint and a wind of flame. And among the men and women carried away as slaves or more honorable sacrifice was Five-eagle. This young man had disclosed, in the stress of that sudden attack, the qualities of true leadership. Out of the confusion he had emerged at the head of his people, leading them vainly against the foe. Yet he was captured at last and taken to Tenochtitlan without degradation, wearing still his ear-plugs of jade, sandals, and the embroidered mantle of his rank.
And then the prophecy of his birth was justified. For, because of his beauty, his daring and his arts of music and song, Five-eagle was raised to wealth, honor and the power of kings. He was made that other Tezcatlipoca to live among men and enjoy life and be granted every wish while the year turned slowly round to the feast of Toxcatl. His laughter meant good fortune to all the land, and his momentary sorrow spelled calamity. But at the end, replete with every honor, accomplished in every grace, surfeited with every joy, he must go freely under the black knife of glass. And the offer of his youth must be made so that the youth of Tezcatlipoca should be eternal, so that his powers should not wither with the creeping infirmities of time, so that his mysteries should still give forth life and happiness to the sad tribes of men.
What wonderful beings are the gods that men have imagined out of hopes and fears in the twilight of faith! They are creatures of beauty and terror, shaped from stars and storm winds and green waters and from the subtle and powerful beasts. Or they rise still higher to the very form and mind of their creator, man. They loom forever majestic, immortalized by the sincerities of human sacrifice, by prayers and incense and devoted lives, by ceremony and all its pictured train of magnificence and centered power, by temples and songs and statues that artists, in the grip of common thought, yield up and create. They are the over-souls of nations made visible from afar. But to their makers they are the blinding light of a great presence.
And what more gallant god ever bestrode the heavens than Tezcatlipoca 243 of the Mexicans? He was a Lord of Magic, inscrutable, pitiless, magnificent. He combined the wisdom of white hair and wrinkled cheeks with the reckless joy of never-passing youth. He was swift and cunning and unconquerable, making and breaking fates, snaring his brother gods in wizard traps. He was not alone the Smoking Mirror in which the world lay reflected, he was the Sun that looked down into the hearts of men, he was the prowling Jaguar, he was the night wind stealing across land and sea. Yet in his proper guise he was Youth with all its wiles and enchantments: Youth that was graceful, debonair, beguiling as music, subtle as the perfume of flowers,—but cruel, swift and terrible as the lightning bolt.
The greatest feast of the Mexican year was the feast of Toxcatl, made in honor of Tezcatlipoca. It fell in the springtime when thirsty fields called for rain. Scarcely had one young warrior, chosen from the clean-limbed and accomplished prisoners of a sacred war, been sacrificed on the last day of his fictitious glory than another stepped into the empty r?le. And, as had been said, it was the fate of Five-eagle, after his arrival at the Aztecan capital, to be chosen as a fit candidate for this dramatic death. With a true knowledge of the symbolism and significance of the ceremony in the emotional fabric that then was Mexico, he assumed the part p............