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Table of Contents
Paradise of Poets (SaF 25-28) & Cantares Mexicanos
Comparison between SaF "A Paradise of Poets" and other translations of the Cantares Mexicanos
From Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World By Miguel León-Portilla,
“The meeting convened by Tecayehuatzin was probably held in a garden near his palace in Huexotzinvo… Texayehuatzin, according to the Nahuatl text, opens with an invitation and a eulogy of flower and song” (202).
From Cantares Mexicanos By John Bierhorst
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Background
In the commentary to A Paradise of Poets(SaF 28), Carlos Herrera Montero discusses how the Aztec did not have a specific word for poetry in Nahautl, but instead they used the concept of, 'flowers and songs” ('in xochitl in cuicatl = poetry) as a metaphor for poetry. This concept is complicated in further readings such as John Bierhort's introduction to Cantares Mexicanos: Songs of the Aztecs, where he explores the concept of flowers and songs as people in spirit form, “In recent years the xochitl/cuicatl of the Cantares mexicanos has been repeatedly defined as poem or poetry…Although it is entirely proper from a modern point of view to speak of the Cantares as poetry and to regard the old singers as poets, the definition “xochitl/cuicatl = poetry” is a flaccid concept at best and at worst a misnomer” (Bierhort 17).
Cantares as "Ghost Songs"
When further exploring the concept of ghost songs through Bierhorst, the poet becomes a ghost singer and the songs that the poet is bringing down are ghost warriors (Bierhorst 21). Thus when the singer says, “'Flower tears are spinkling down at the flower drum, at the singing place' (song 86, stanza 31)” (23) the crying or weeping from the poets leads to the flowers or the ghost warriors arriving on earth, “To sing a dead warrior's praises is to do more than perpetuate his memory — it is literally to bring his spirit to earth” (23).
