3. The silver drum sounds like bells of turquoise.
4. Xiuhtlapallàcuilōlāmoxtli manca.
4. There was a book of annals written and painted in colors.
5. Nic chālchiuhcozcameca quenmach tòtóma in nocuic.
5. I see my song unfolding in a thousand directions, like a string of precious stones."
From the specimens presented in this volume and from the above extracts, I would assign the following peculiarities to the poetic dialect of the Nahuatl:—
I. Extreme frequency and richness of metaphor. Birds, flowers, precious stones and brilliant objects are constantly introduced in a figurative sense, often to the point of obscuring the meaning of the sentence.
II. Words are compounded to a much greater extent than in ordinary prose writing.
III. Both words and grammatical forms unknown to the tongue of daily life occur. These may be archaic, or manufactured capriciously by the poet.
IV. Vowels are inordinately lengthened and syllables reduplicated, either for the purpose of emphasis or of meter.