Ancient Nahuatl Poets

These songs come from the Cantares Mexicanos, a manuscript collection of Nahuatl songs written down in the sixteenth century, after the Spanish conquest, from the older tradition of the Aztec courts. They were sung to the beat of the drum, and the manuscript preserves their drum syllables alongside the words.

Daniel G. Brinton, who first published the Nahuatl text, ascribes some of the songs to Nezahualcoyotl, the ruler-poet of Tezcuco (1402–1472), and others to named lords such as Tetlepan Quetzanitzin. The English versions here are Brinton's, from Ancient Nahuatl Poetry (1887); the Nahuatl originals are not given.