I yearn only for flowers.
I have come to cut flowers on earth.
Now I cut precious flowers, now I cut flowers of friendship.
They are your being, prince.
I am Nezahualcóyotl, king, I am Yoyontzin.
I hasten to seek only your glorious song, and with it also I seek friends.
Let there be joy here, let friendship be shown.
For a short time I delight, for a short time my heart is glad on earth.
I am Yoyontzin:
I yearn for flowers.
I live by flowering songs.
Greatly I desire and crave fellowship, nobility.
I yearn for songs:
I live by flowering songs.
Like jade, like a rich necklace, like proud quetzal feathers, I prize your song to the Life-Giver.
In it I delight, with it I dance among the kettle-drums in the flowering house of spring.
I, Yoyontzin. My heart delights in it.
Singer, beat well on your flowering drum, scatter sweet-smelling, white flowers, spread precious flowers, let them rain down beside the kettle-drums.
Let us enjoy ourselves here.
You, turquoise bird, you roseate spoonbill, you go flying about.
Self-Creator, through whom everything lives, you quiver, you beat your wings here: all my house, all my home is here. Ohuaya. Ohuaya.
By your kindness and your grace we can live, Life-Giver, on earth, you quiver, you beat your wings here: all my house, all my home is here. Ohuaya. Ohuaya.
Are You Real?
Are you real (do you have a root)?
The Life-Giver alone rules all things.
Is this true?
Perhaps it isn’t, as they say?
Let not our hearts be tormented!
Everything that is true (has a root) they say is not true (has no root).
The Life-Giver is just arbitrary.
Let not our hearts be tormented!
Because it’s the Life-Giver.
Fragment of a Prophecy
Who will be present then?
Will it be my son or my grandson?
Translated from the Nahuatl into Spanish by Ángel María Garibay (I Have Come Here; You, Turquoise Bird) and Miguel León-Portilla (Are You Real?), with the prophecy by Alva Ixtilxóchitl; English versions translated from the Spanish by Dinah Livingstone.