OK, I'll shut up and start this.
I promise not to read for more than 39 minutes,
but I'm going to take you on a little tour
of different translations starting
in the 15th century with Nezahualcoyotl who
was a philosopher, and an architect,
and is mostly known as a poet.
He was the ruler of Tetzcoco in the Golden age
of pre-columbian Mexico.
He had this incredible experience
where he was visited by a presence--
the presence of poetry.
An unknown, unknowable Lord of everywhere, he called it.
And to which he built an entirely empty temple,
in which no blood sacrifices of any kind were allowed.
This is a poem that I translated from the 16th century
Spanish translation of his work, which was written in nahuatl.
I sense the secret, the dark truth.
Oh my brothers!
Being mortal, being men side by side, all of us
must pack ourselves off, must die on the Earth.
Like a painting we will fade.
Like a flower we'll dry up here in this dirt.
Like a cape made from the feathers
of a zacuan, that rare rubbernecked bird,
we start to come apart the moment we leave the house.
Consider this, my friends--
eagles and tigers, though made from Jade,
though carved from gold come to the same end,
to the same broken place.
All of us must disappear, none is given to stay.
Where to go where there is no death?
And so we lug ourselves around weeping?
I sense the secret, the dark truth--
oh my brother's!
Being mortal, being men, side by side, all of us
must pack ourselves off, must die here on the Earth.
Yeah-- Yeah, so pretty relevant.
Written in a language that's still spoken in parts of Mexico
and other parts of Latin America.
yeah, that's a long time ago.