Spanish Tragedy

Where Spain and Portingale do jointly knit
Their frontiers, leaning on each other's bound,
There met our armies in their proud array:
Both furnished well, both full of hope and fear,
Both menacing alike with daring shows,
Both vaunting sundry colours of device,
Both cheerly sounding trumpets, drums and fifes,
Both raising dreadful clamours to the sky,
That valleys, hills, and rivers made rebound,
And heaven itself was frighted with the sound.
...
While they maintain hot skirmish to and fro,
Both battles join and fall to handy blows,
Their violent shot resembling th'ocean's rage,
When, roaring loud, and with a swelling tide,
It beats upon the rampiers of huge rocks,
And gapes to swallow neighbour-bounding lands.
Now while Bellona rages here and there,
Thick storms of bullets rain like winter's hail,
And shivered lances dark the troubled air.

On every side drop captains to the ground,
And soldiers, some ill-maimed, some slain outright:
Here falls a body scindered from his head,
There legs and arms lie bleeding on the grass,
Mingled with weapons and unbowelled steeds,
That scattering overspread the purple plain.

This knight was fair to see, of heavy build and large of body, neither
very tall nor yet short, and well-formed; he had wide shoulders, a
deep chest, hips high on his body, thighs thick and strong, arms long
and well made, thick buttocks, a hard fist, a well-turned leg and a
slim delicate waist, that became him very well.  He had a low and
pleasant voice and lively and gracious speech.

He always dressed well, with care and thought, making the most of what
he wore. He had a better understanding of new fashions than any tailor
or robe-maker, so that the finely dressed always took him as their
pattern.

In point of armour he had much knowledge and understanding: he himself
used to show the armourers the fairest shapes and tell them how they
might make armour lighter without the loss of strength.

He knew horses; he sought for them, tended them and made much of them.
In his time had no man in Castille so many good horses; he rode them
and trained them to his liking, those which were for war, and those
which were for parade and for jousting.  Hard did he strike with his
sword and strong and signal blows did he make with its point; never
did he meet a man who cut and thrust so well as he.

He excelled in all other exercises which asked for boldness and
nimbleness, in sports of lance-thrusting and dart-throwing.  He was a
mighty player at bowls and with the disc, as well as at hurling
stones.  He was also a mighty player with a spar and threw it better
than other men; in all these sports he was rarely surpassed by those
who tried their strength with him.

While Pero Niño was doing among the enemies of his lord as a
wolf does among the sheep when there is no shepherd to defend them, it
befell that an arrow stuck him in the neck. He received this wound at
the beginning of the battle.  The arrow had knit together his gorget
and his neck; but such was his will to finish the enterprise that he
had started that he felt not his wound, or hardly at all; only it
hindered him much in the movement of the upper part of his body and in
the turning of his neck.  And this pricked him on the more to fight,
so that in a few hours he had swept a path clean before him and had
forced the enemy to withdraw over the bridge close by the city.  And
the thing that hindered him most was that there were many lance stumps
and bolts in his shield.  When he had got so far, the people of the
city, seeing the havoc that he wrought, fired many crossbows at him,
even as folk worry a bull that rushes out into the middle of the ring.
He went forward with his face uncovered and a great bolt there found
its mark, piercing his nostrils through most painfully, whereat he was
dazed, but his daze lasted but little time.  And with this great pain,
he returned even more bravely to the fray, he pressed on more than
ever before.  At the gate of the bridge there were steps; and Pero
Niño found himself sorely tested when he had to climb
them. There he received many sword blows on the head and on the
shoulders.  At the last, he climbed them, cut himself a path and found
himself so pressed against his enemies that sometimes they hit the
bolt embedded in his nose, which made him suffer great pain.  It
happened even that one of them, seeking to cover himself, hit such a
great blow on the bolt with his shield that it drove it further into
his head than it had been before. 

In June 1524, almost three years after the fall of Mexico, a meeting
took place between Aztec leaders and wise men and Hernán
Cortés, who was surrounded by Franciscan missionaries. Although
the vanquished made an act of allegiance, they nevertheless defended
their spiritual values:

Our Lords, our very esteemed Lords:
great hardships have you endured to reach this land.
Here before you,
we ignorant people contemplate you.
Through an interpreter we reply.

Perhaps we are to be taken to our ruin, to our destruction.
But where are we to go now?
We are ordinary people,
we are subject to death and destruction, we are mortals;
allow us then to die,
let us perish now,
since our gods are already dead.

You said
that our gods are not true gods.
New words are these that you speak;
because of them we are disturbed,
because of them we are troubled.
For our ancestors
before us, who lived upon the earth,
were unaccustomed to speak thus.
From them we have inherited
our pattern of life
which in truth did they hold;
in reverence they held,
they honoured, our gods.
They taught us
all their rules of worship,
all their ways of honouring the gods.

It was the doctrine of the elders
that there is life because of the gods;
with their sacrifice, they gave us life.
It was their doctrine
that they provide our subsistence,
all that we eat and drink,
that which maintains life.
They themselves are rich,
happy are they,
things do they possess;
so forever and ever,
things sprout and grow green in their domain.
There hunger is never known,
no sickness is there,
poverty there is not.
Courage and the ability to rule
they gave to the people;
above the world
they had founded
their kingdom.
They gave the order, the power,
glory, fame.

And now, are we
to destroy
the ancient order of life?
Of the Chichimecs?
of the Toltecs,
of the Acolhuas,
of the Tecpanecs?

Hear, oh Lords,
do nothing
to our people
that will bring misfortune upon them,
that will cause them to perish.

Calm and amiable,
consider, oh Lords,
whatever is best.
We cannot be tranquil,
and yet we certainly do not believe;
we do not accept your teachings as truth,
even though this may offend you.

Is it not enough that we have already lost,
that our way of life has been taken away,
has been annihilated.

O eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears;
O life, no life, but lively form of death;
O world, no world, but mass of publich wrongs,
Confused and filled with murder and misdeeds.