NOTES FOR SONG XXVI.
This seems to be a song of victory to celebrate an attack upon Atlixco by the ruler of Tezcuco, the famous Nezahualpilli. This monarch died in 1516, and therefore the song must antedate this period, if it is genuine. It has every intrinsic evidence of antiquity, and I think may justly be classed among those preserved from a time anterior to the Conquest. According to the chronologies preserved, the attack of Nezahualpilli upon Atlixco was in the year XI tochtli, which corresponds to 1490, two years before the discovery by Columbus (see Orozco y Berra, Hist. Antigua de Mexico, Tom. III, p. 399).
NOTES FOR SONG XXVII.
My MS. closes with a Christian song in the style of the ancient poetry. It is valuable as indicating the linguistic differences between these later productions of the sixteenth century and those earlier ones, such as XXVI, which I have not hesitated to assign to an epoch before the Spaniards landed upon the shores of New Spain.
VOCABULARY.
The Roman numerals refer to the songs, the Arabic to the verses, in which the word occurs. Abbreviations: lit., literally; ref., reflexive; pret., preterit; rev., reverential; freq., frequentative; post., postposition; Span., a Spanish word.
A, adv. No, not, in comp.
A, n. For atl, water, in comp.; as acalli, water-house, i.e., a boat.