A Poem Considered: The Fall of Tenochtitlan

Hernán Cortés' invading Spanish army sacked the final holdout of the Aztec Empire in 1521 at the capital city of Tenochtitlán.

Unknown artists. "The Conquest of Tenochtitlán," from the Conquest of México series Mexico, second half of seventeenth century Oil on canvas

The destruction is recalled in a poem dated to 1523, ascribed to Cantares Mexicaons: 

The Fall of Tenochtitlán:

Broken spears lie in the roads;

We have torn our hair in our grief

The houses are roofless now, and their walls

Are red with blood.

Worms are swarming in the streets and plazas,

And the walks are spattered with gore 

The water has turned red, as if it were dyed

And when we drink it,

It has the taste of brine

We have pounded our hands in despair

Against the adobe walls,

For our inheritance, our city, is lost and dead

The shields of our warriors were its defense.

But they could not save it.

We have chewed dry twigs and salt grasses:

We have filled our mouths with dust and bits of adobe.

We have eaten lizards, rats and worms

When we had meat, we ate it almost raw.

I find that there is a somber universality here lamenting the collapse of a great imperial city, seemingly abandoned by its long worshiped gods. What is of particular pensive import for me is the mention of how the fallen inhabitants had “filled their mouths with dust,” which works both as a direct remark upon  lost food supplies, but also the bodies of the fallen being sent to their burial without honor or peace in their hearts. Cortés, it is fair to say, was ruthless. The remaining priests of the Aztec upper classes were torn apart by the Spanish Army’s war dogs.* 

*See Alan Taylor's American Colonies: The Settling of North America (2001), chapter 3 for a detailed rendering of the Spanish invasion and settlement of the vast swathes of the American continent during the 16th century.