216 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 



Mexico in connection with foretelling events. The days 

 were lucky, indifferent, or unlucky, and the future life of 

 a child was believed to be locked up in the horoscope of 

 his birthday. 



Other feasts were held in relation to longer time 

 periods. There were important festivals held in con- 

 nection with the planet Venus with especially elaborate 

 ones falling at intervals of eight years. Still another 

 ceremony was held at the completion of a fifty-two 

 year period, when the set of years were figuratively 

 bundled up and laid away and a new sacred fire lighted. 



Poetry and Music. The languages of Central 

 America were capable of considerable literary develop- 

 ment. This is seen especially in the songs that were 

 used in different religious ceremonies of the Aztecs, as 

 well as in the reflective poems written by educated 

 natives. Several very fine pieces have been preserved, 

 and while there is no rhyme, there is much rhythm. 

 When recited by a person speaking fluently the native 

 tongue these poems are very impressive. Of course, 

 translation is always hazardous, and fundamental 

 differences in language, such as exist between English 

 and Aztecan, make it almost impossible. The most 

 famous poet whose name has come down to us was 

 Nezahualcoyotl, or Famishing Coyote, who was a ruler 

 of Tezcoco and died at the advanced age of eighty 

 years in 1472. A few verses from one of his poems on 

 the mutability of life and the certainty of death have 

 been translated as follows : — 



AH the earth is a grave, and naught escapes it; nothing is so perfect 

 that it does not fall and disappear. The rivers, brooks, fountains and 

 waters flow on, and never return to their joyous beginnings; they hasten 

 on to the vast realms of Tlaloc, and the wider they spread between their 

 marges the more rapidly do they mould their own sepulchral urns. That 



