The drama was first brought to notice by Don Manuel Palacios, in the Museo Erudito, a periodical published at Cuzco in 1837. The learned Peruvian mineralogist and antiquary, Don Mariano Eduardo de Rivero,[32] in his work entitled Antiguedades Peruanas, gave two specimens from it, in Quichua and Spanish. Señor Rivero says that copies of Ollantay, written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are preserved in private libraries at Cuzco.[33] The whole text was first printed by Dr. von Tschudi at the end of his Quichua Grammar, but without a translation, in 1853.[34] The manuscript used by the learned German was copied from one preserved in the Dominican monastery at Cuzco by one of the monks, between 1840 and 1845, for the artist Ruggendas of Munich, who gave it to Dr. von Tschudi, the original being much damaged and in parts illegible.
In April 1853 I had the opportunity of examining and transcribing a version of Ollantay, which, I was informed, contained the purest text. It belonged to Dr. Don Pablo Justiniani, the aged priest of the village of Laris, in the heart of the eastern Andes.[35] His father, Dr. Justo Pastor Justiniani, had copied it from the original manuscript belonging to Dr. Don Antonio Valdez, the priest of Sicuani in 1780, and the friend of the unfortunate Ynca Tupac Amaru. Dr. Valdez died in the year 1816. He is said to have been the first to reduce the drama to writing, and to arrange it for the stage,[36] but this is clearly an error, as there is a manuscript of 1730, and others dating from the previous century, according to Rivero. The manuscript of Valdez is, however, one of great value, as it preserves all the original forms, and the fame of the owner as a Quichua scholar is some guarantee for its accuracy. In 1853 it was in the possession of Don Narciso Cuentas of Tinta, the nephew and heir of Dr. Valdez. Another copy taken from the Valdez manuscript, was in possession of Dr. Rosas, the priest of Chinchero near Cuzco. I carefully collated the Justiniani and Rosas copies. In the year 1871 I published the text of my copy of the Justiniani version, with an attempt at a literal English translation.[37] But in three or four passages I adopted the reading of Von Tschudi’s version, and in all I was wrong. I should, as I have since convinced myself, have adhered closely to the Justiniani text. In this text, however, there are several additions inserted by a later hand when the drama was arranged for the stage. These I placed in brackets.
In 1873 the Peruvian scholar, Dr. Don Manuel Gonzalez de la Rosa, informed me that he had in his possession the manuscripts of Dr. Justo Sahuaraura Ynca, Archdeacon of Cuzco, and a descendant of Paullu, the younger son of the great Ynca Huayna Ccapac. Among them is a version of the drama of Ollantay, which Dr. de la Rosa considers to be authentic and very accurate. This text has not hitherto been published.
Don José S. Barranca, in 1868, published an excellent Spanish translation, chiefly from the text of Von Tschudi, now called the Dominican text. It is preceded by an interesting introduction, and the author announced that he was preparing for the press a carefully edited Quichuan text, but I am not aware that this has yet seen the light.[38] In 1876 the Peruvian poet, Don Constantino Carrasco, published, in Lima, a version of the drama of Ollantay in verse, paraphrased from the translation of Barranca. It is preceded by a critical introduction from the pen of the accomplished Peruvian writer, Don Ricardo Palma, who expressed an opinion that the drama was composed after the Spanish conquest.
In 1874 the enthusiastic Peruvian student of the language of the Yncas, Dr. José Fernandez Nodal, printed the Quichua text with a Spanish translation in parallel columns. This version has several different readings.[39]
In 1875 Dr. von Tschudi published a second text of Ollantay, at Vienna, with a translation. His new version, like the first, is mainly from the Dominican text, but partly from another manuscript which bears the date “La Paz, June 18th, 1735”.[40] This important date proves that Dr. Valdez was not the author, as supposed by the editor of the Museo Erudito, but merely the possessor of one of the best manuscripts.[41]
Don Gavino Pacheco Zegarra published the text of Ollantay at Paris, in 1878; his version being taken from a manuscript found among the books of his great-uncle, Don Pedro Zegarra. He added a free translation, and numerous valuable notes. The work of Zegarra is by far the most important that has appeared on this subject; for the accomplished Peruvian has the great advantage of knowing Quichua from his earliest childhood. To this advantage, not possessed by any previous writer, he unites extensive learning, literary ability, and very considerable critical sagacity. He is fully convinced of the antiquity of the drama.[42]
In his Races Aryennes, Don Vicente Fidel Lopez refers to the drama of Ollantay, and discusses the meaning of the word. The editors and critics to whom I have referred, all being students of the Quichua language, have come to the conclusion that Ollantay is an ancient Ynca drama. Some of them, including myself, arrived at this conclusion after long study and much hesitation.[43] The following is the argument of the drama. Ollantay, General of Anti-Suyu, was deeply enamoured of the princess Cusi-Ccoyllur, the chief beauty of the court of the Ynca Pachacutec. In vain the High Priest, Uillac-Umu, endeavoured to dissuade him, and even performed a miracle to divert him from his illegal love. Pachacutec, the Ynca, rejected the suitor for his daughter’s hand, and Ollantay rose in rebellion, occupying the great fortress, consisting of colossal ruins, which has ever since been called Ollantay-tampu. Meanwhile, Cusi Ccoyllur gave birth to a child which was named Yma Sumac (“how beautiful”). For this transgression the princess was immured in a dungeon in the Aclla Huasi, or convent of Sacred Virgins, for ten years. Pachacutec died, and the sceptre passed to his son Ynca Yupanqui. Ollantay was at length conquered by a stratagem. Concealing his army in a neighbouring ravine, the general Rumi-ñaui came to the stronghold of the rebels, and appeared before Ollantay covered with blood. He declared that he had been cruelly treated by the Ynca, and that he desired to join the insurrection. Encouraging the insurgents to celebrate a festival with drunken orgies, he admitted his own troops and captured the whole party, including Ollantay. Next there is a touching dialogue between Yma Sumac and one of the virgins, who allows her to visit her mother in the dungeon. Finally the great rebel is pardoned by the magnanimous Ynca, and the unfortunate princess is restored to the arms of her lover. One of the characters, a facetious servant lad, named Piqui Chaqui, supplies the comic vein which runs through the piece.
There are ample proofs of the antiquity of the tradition, and that the name of Ollantay was known in the days of the Yncas, and was applied to the famous ruins near Cuzco. Father Cristobal de Molina, a very high authority, writing in 1580, mentions Ollantay-tampu in connection with a curious sacrificial ceremony.[44] Salcamayhua, a writer of the seventeenth century, also mentions Ollantay.[45] The name, therefore, was well known before the Spanish conquest.[46] The name of Rumi-ñaui, which means “stone-eye”, as that of the general who, by the stratagem of mutilating his face, deceived Ollantay, is not uncommon in Ynca history. A general of Atahualpa had the same name. It is a curious fact, as corroborative of this part of the story, that in 1837 an Indian presented to Don Antonio Maria Alvarez, then Prefect of Cuzco, an ancient earthen drinking vessel, moulded into the shape of a man’s head and bust. He said that it had been handed down in his family for generations, as the likeness of Rumi-ñaui. The person represented must have been a general, from the masccapaycha or ornament on the forehead, and wounds are cut on the face in accordance with the argument of the drama.
But the chief reasons for assigning a date before the Spanish conquest to the speeches and dialogues of Ollantay, have reference to the internal evidence. Throughout the piece there is not the remotest allusion to Christianity, an impossible phenomenon if the drama had been written in Spanish times, like the comedy of Dr. Lunarejo and the Usca-paucar. It contains songs of indubitable antiquity, and in use among the purest Quichua people. The language is archaic; there are many words which have long disappeared from the spoken Quichua, and are now only found in the earliest vocabularies. The grammatical forms, such as cca instead of pa for the genitive, are ancient. The state of society represented in the drama is entirely Pagan, without a sign of Spanish contact. The metre is octo-syllabic, like that of the Ynca song preserved by Blas Valera, and is the same as the most ancient verses in the collection of Dr. Justiniani. In the early and pure copies there is not an allusion to anything, or any animal, introduced by Europeans. All arguments must of course be based on the most authentic text, and not on later copies into which many errors have crept, such as the substitution of words like misi (a cat), and asna (a donkey), corrected in another copy to llama, for the original word, in both cases, atoc (a fox).