Anonymous (Quechua)

Ollantay is a verse drama in Quechua, the language of the Incas, on the love of the general Ollantay for Cusi Coyllur, the daughter of the Inca Pachacuti. Defying the rule that a commoner could not marry into the royal house, Ollantay rises in revolt in the fortress of Ollantaytambo, and the play ends with the princess found and the rebels forgiven.

Its date and authorship are disputed. The surviving manuscripts are colonial, the best known copied in the eighteenth century, and scholars have argued both for an Inca-era origin and for a colonial author, perhaps a priest such as Antonio Valdez, working from older material.

The English text in the archive is the free translation by Clements R. Markham, first published in 1871 and revised in 1910.