Saturday Rave: Amo el canto by Nezahualcoyotl.

Nezahualcoyōtl was born a prince. In the Mexico of the early 1400s this was not at all a safe thing to be.

Luckily for us - and him - he survived, lived to old age, and bequeathed his kingdom to one of his estimated one hundred and ten children.

As if this wasn't achievement enough, he was a remarkably able and creative designer, engineer, and poet.

He was an original thinker, too: on the whole he rather disapproved of human sacrifice, and he built a temple where even animal sacrifice was banned.

Here he is, in an illustration from the Codex Ixtlilxochitl:




Here is one of Nezahualcoyōtl's poems. It appears on the one hundred peso note of Mexico.

Amo el canto del zenzontle
Pajáro de cuatrocientas voces,
Amo el color del jade
Y el enervante perfume de las flores,
Pero más amo a mi hermano, el hombre.

I love the song of the mockingbird,
Bird of four hundred voices,
I love the colour of jade
And the intoxicating scent of flowers,
But more than all I love my brother, man.

Reading Nezahualcoyōtl's poem, it occurs to me that human sacrifice is still continuing, if with larger weapons of execution.

And it also occurs to me that perhaps what the world needs most is for more of its leaders to be poets.

Word To Use Today: Nezahualcoyōti. This name means coyote who fasts. This seems an odd name to give a baby, few of whom show any interest in fasting. 

But then Nezahualcoyōti was a remarkable person, after all.