Songs in Ollantay

There are three different songs in Ollantay: the first one, excerpted in the book, resembles the aravi, an ancient Inca lyrical song that could be not only about intense emotions like love, sadness or joy, but also the various festivities in the time of harvest. This song addresses a small finch (tuya) that damages the corn fields, and “Tuyallay” is currently used as a name for songs about harvest, accompanied by dancing and feasts.

The other two songs are however, not aravis, but yarahuis, considered by some historians to appear for the first time in this drama.

After listening to the chorus singing Tuyallay, Cusi Coyllur says: “I should better like a sadder song”, and one of the girls sings:

• Two loving little doves are in despair,
• They moan, they weep, they sigh;
• For snow has fallen on the pair,
• To hollow tree they fly.

Two scenes later, Ollantay hears a yarahui after realizing Cusi Coyllur has gone missing:

• In a moment I lost my dove,
• She was gone, and I never knew where;
• I sought her in fields and in woods,
• Asking all if they’d seen the Coyllur.

These yarahuis compare lovers to doves (“urpis” in quechua), expressing melancholic feelings in eight-syllable lines, accompanied by the music of an Indian flute (quena), with the sole purpose of bringing tears to your eyes. Later, the word evolved into “yaraví”, and it describes melancholic love songs of the southern Andes.