The Musicians--Aztec Poem--Author Unknown by Heavy Saturn

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Tezcatlipoca - God of Heaven
and of the Four Quarters of the Heavens -
came to Earth and was sad.
He cried from the uttermost depths of the Four Quarters:
'Come, O Wind!
Come, O Wind!
Come, O Wind!
Come, O Wind!'
The querulous Wind, scattered over Earth's sad bossom,
rose higher than all things made;
and, whipping the waters of the oceans
and the manes of the trees,
arrived at the feet of the God of Heaven.
There he rested his black wings
and laid aside his endless sorrow.
Then spoke Tezcatlipoca:
'Wind, the Earth is sick from silence,
Though we posses light and colour and fruit,
yet we have no music.
We must bestow music upon all creation.
To the awakening dawn,
to the dreaming man,
to the waiting mother,
to the passing water and the flying bird,
life should be all music!
Go then through the boundless sadness
between the blue smoke and the spaces
to the high House of the Sun.
There the Father Sun I surrounded
by makers of music
who blow their flutes sweetly,
and with their burning choir,
scatter light abroad.
Go, bring back to Earth a cluster - the most flowering -
of those musicians and singers.'
Wind traversed the Earth that was plunged in silence
and trod with his strength of breath pursued,
till he reached the heavenly roof of the World
where all melodies lived in a nest of light.
The Sun's musicians were clad in four colours.
White were those of the cradle songs;
red those of the epics of love and of war;
sky blue the troubadours of wandering cloud;
yellow the flute players enjoying gold
milled by the Sun from the peaks of the World.
There were no musicians the colour of darkness.
All shone translucent and happy, their gaze turned forward.
when the Sun saw the Wind approaching he told his musicians:
'Here comes the bothersome
wind of Earth:
Stay your music!
Cease your singing!
Answer him not!
Whoever does so
will have to follow him
back down there into silence.'
From the stairways of light
of the House of the Sun,
Wind with his dark voice shouted:
'Come, O musicians!'
None replied.
The clawing wind raised his voice and cried:
'Musicians, singers!
The supreme Lord of the World is calling you...!'
Now the musicians were silent colours;
they were a circling dance held fast
in the blinding flame of the Sun.
Then the God - he of the heaven's Four Quarters -
waxed wroth.
From the remotest places,
whipped by his lightning lash,
flocks of cloud whose blackened wombs
were stabbed and torn by lightning
assembled to besiege the House of the Sun.
His bottomless throat let loose the thunder's roar.
Everything seemed to fall flat in a circle
beneath the World's mad roof, in whose breast
the Sun like a red beast drowned.
Spurred on by fear,
the musicians and singers then ran for shelter
to the wind's lap.
Bearing them gently
lest he should harm their tender melodies,
the wind with that tumult of happiness in his arms
set out on his downward journey, generous and contented.
Below, Earth raised its wide dark eyes to heaven
and its great face shone, and it smiled.
As the arms of the trees were uplifted,
there greeted the wind's wanderers
the awakened voice of its people,
the wings of the quetzal birds,
the face of the flowers
and the cheeks of the fruit.
When all that flutter of happiness landed on Earth,
and the Sun's musicians spread to the Four Quarters,
then Wind ceased his complaining and sang,
caressing the valleys, the forests and seas.
Thus was music born on the bosom of Earth.
Thus did all things learn to sing:
the awakening dawn,
the dreaming man,
the waiting mother,
the passing flower and the flying bird,
Life was all music from that time on.