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Moctezuma and Spaniards: An Incident from a Sixteenth–Century “Rimed Chronicle”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
The general history of man has not infrequently been supplemented by materials found in epic poetry (The Iliad, The Aeneid, La Chanson de Roland, Os Lusiadas, etc.). The history of Spanish America has similarly profited, from epic poems such as Castellanos' Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias, Ercilla's La Araucana, Oña's Arauco domado. Most scholars who have commented on Antonio de Saavedra Guzmán's El Peregrino indiano, published in 1599, have emphasized this poem's historical value. Such emphasis perhaps compensates somewhat for their having found scant literary merit in it (A mere “rimed chronicle” is the dictum of Menéndez y Pelayo, dean of Spanish literary historians).
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1959
References
1 See Ticknor, George, History of Spanish Literature (Boston, 1872), 2, 555 Google Scholar; Prescott, William H., History of the Conquest of Mexico (Philadelphia, 1873), 3, 134, n. 8Google Scholar; Icazbalceta, Joaquín García, Preface to El Peregrino indiano, infra, p. 9 (reprinted in Obras de D. Joaquín García Icazbalceta [México, 1896], 4, 115)Google Scholar; de Carranza, Baltazar Dorantes, Sumaria relación de las cosas de la Nueva España (México, 1902), p. 203 Google Scholar; Menéndez, Marcelino y Pelayo, , Historia de la poesía hispano-americana (Madrid, 1913), 1, 42 Google Scholar; Manzoni, Aída Cornetta, El indio en la poesía de América Española (Buenos Aires, 1939), p. 104.Google Scholar
2 Menéndez y Pelayo, op. cit., I, 43, says that he knows few works as arid and indigestible as Saavedra’s “crónica rimada.” Peña, Carlos González, Historia de la literatura mexicana (México, 1945), p. 76,Google Scholar affirms that probably no one has read its “thousands of octaves”; but Icazbalceta, García, Obras, 2, 300,Google Scholar insists that he has perused its “tasteless … rimed prose” from beginning to end.
3 de Saavedra Guzmán, Antonio, El Peregrino indiano (Madrid: En Casa de Pedro Madrigal, 1599 [Reprinting by “El Sistema Postal de la República Mexicana” (México, 1880–1881)]).Google Scholar
4 Icazbalceta, García, Obras, 4, 111.Google Scholar Menéndez y Pelayo, op. cit., I, 44, agrees that maybe Saavedra did know one of the Indian tongues, “… pero tal conocimiento no le sirvió para dar color local á la narración, sino para rellenarla de nombres estrafalarios, que acrecientan la dureza é insonoridad de sus octavas.”
5 Prescott, op. cit., III, 134, n. 8.
6 The most memorable example of Cortés’ democratic “inducing” is perhaps his destruction of the ships, particularly as told by Bernal Díaz, chap, lviii.
7 de Madariaga, Salvador, Hernán Cortés, Conqueror of Mexico (New York, 1941), p. 334,Google Scholar urges scholars to avoid “a sentimental approach to the dramatic figure of Moteçuçuma, seen in grotesque deformation through our European spectacles. …” He perspicaciously continues, “Moteçuçuma was not a noble, unfortunate and weak ‘King,’ doing his best for the Spaniards; neither was he a treacherous, black villain of a Mexican, plotting against the Spaniards under a smiling mask; he was the archpriest of a magic religion dealing with events as expediently as he and his colleagues in the service of the gods saw fit … utterly unable to see what was wrong with his attitude, since he had no conception of such a thing as ‘wrong.’”
8 The incident given by Cervantes de Salazar, as well as most of the rest of his work, was incorporated almost word for word into the history of de Herrera, Antonio y Tordesillas, , Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las islas y tierra firme del mar Océano (Madrid, 1601–1615),Google Scholar Second “Década,” Book VIII, chap. v.
9 Herrera states simply that the soldier replied insolently.
10 Every indication points to the probability that Saavedra’s first visit to Spain was in the latter part of 1597, after the poem’s completion. The aprobación, signed by Herrera as the Court’s official Chronicler of the Indies, is dated January 12, 1598. The possible previous existence in Mexico of a manuscript copy of Cervantes de Salazar’s work has not been established; moreover, internal evidence in the poem shows that Saavedra’s historical source was not Cervantes de Salazar.
11 This is in contrast to the more imaginative and “supernatural” tradition of French epics, exemplified by the Chanson de Roland. For a comparative discussion, see Castro, Américo, España en su historia: cristianos, moros y judios (Buenos Aires, 1948), chaps, vi–vii.Google Scholar