david-betten
Hello! Each day I'll be posting an excerpt from my play in verse, "The Floral War." If you wish to read it in full, you can find it at: thefloralwar.com / / "The Floral War" is set in the Aztec empire at the eve of Spanish conquest. The conquistador Cortés has recently landed his ships in the territory of the emperor Montezuma. We follow his often bloody march towards Mexico City, and his attempts to solve mysteries of racial identity, shifting loyalties, and muddied morality within a world of cannibalism and human sacrifice. / / All the episodes of The Floral War are based on historic events. The dialogue is written in a blank verse that reflects the poetry of the 16th-century world it recreates, adapted from Cortés’s letters, eyewitness accounts from both Spaniards and Aztecs, and Aztec poetry and philosophical writings.
Enter CORTÉS and ALVARADO.
CORTÉS
Hail, friends, from the Atlantic potentate!
[of ALVARADO] This wandering star is my bright satellite.
ATTENDANT
He glitters like a flax-haired god of hell.
TEUHTLILLI [aside]
A god? Gaudy, perhaps.
ALVARADO Hail, gentlemen.
TEUHTLILLI [to Malinalli]
How like a brilliant sun does he arise!
Let’s drench them with these superfluities.
(Enter SANDOVAL, ESCUDERO, DÍAZ,
MARÍA DE ESTRADA, and GARRIDO.
TEUHTLILLI produces the helmet, filled with gold dust.)
Your helmet, with its brim-full quarry, sir.
A drained mine’s monthly yield all ground to dust.
What fortunes else, I furnish for your eyes.
(The gifts are presented.)
CORTÉS
See, Alvarado, how much more they give,
When left to give it voluntarily?
TEUHTLILLI
Will you now, otherworldly men, make march
To where Motecuhzoma, in your name,
Still keeps the throne warm for his ancestor?
MALINALLI
They will enjoy the presence of the king,
Wherever he might be, to lavish him
And do all he might order us to do,
For to this end, they’ve charted seven seas,
And journeyed distant lands.
TEUHTLILLI Then let them come.
[Aside] (Let’s see how far they’ll take their godly fraud.)
Let us now pierce our tender tongues with thorns,
For your divine desire, if gods you be,
That you may taste our blood.
CORTÉS Certainly not!
We’re no more gods than you are penitents.
If this is all you have to offer, go.
I’ll summon you at leisure, by and by.
(Exit Mexicans. The Spanish converse.)
SANDOVAL
[indicating gifts] What do you make of these gratuities?
ALVARADO
A gesture of submission.
CORTÉS No, not so.
It was to be a show of dominance:
Great wealth in unmatched liberality,
Which their profuse humility in giving
Makes glorious. But they mistake their man,
For I might mask this bounty as a meek,
Submissive yielding, binding legally.
(Exit Cortés, Alvarado, and Sandoval.)
MARÍA DE ESTRADA
But oh, to storm so rich a capital!
AGUILAR
We’re far too insignificant a force.
GARRIDO
I wish that we already lived with them.
(Exit all but Escudero and Díaz.)
Aug 19, 2023
Aug 19, 2023 at 5:43 PM UTC
[May 1; In a Mexican-controlled territory on the Gulf Coast.]
Enter AGUILAR and MALINALLI.
AGUILAR Blood.
MALINALLI Sangre.
AGUILAR Gold.
MALINALLI Oro.
AGUILAR War.
MALINALLI Guerra.
AGUILAR God.
MALINALLI Dios. Yo soy Marina. Yo soy traducidora. Enough lessons, Aguilar!
AGUILAR
Cortés insists you must perfect his tongue.
I’ll have succeeded once I’m obsolete.
MALINALLI
Aguilar,
Sometimes, I think of that Guerrero.
AGUILAR Why?
MALINALLI
He entered my world; now I enter his.
At first, a forced exchange, but in the end,
We both embrace our foster families,
And shall go as enigmas to our graves.
AGUILAR
Hush now, here comes that meddling Mexican.
(Enter TEUHTLILLI, with two attendants.)
MALINALLI
Where do you come from?
TEUHTLILLI
From where do I come?
From Mexico.
MALINALLI You may, or you may not.
Perhaps you tease. I know we all would like
To claim that we’re from Mexico these days.
TEUHTLILLI
I come to greet my sovereign, who is here.
MALINALLI [to Aguilar]
He says he’s here to meet his sovereign lord.
AGUILAR
You err, my dear. He must’ve said, “your lord.”
MALINALLI
In fact, he claims his king is here with us.
AGUILAR
Captain, come forth! Our emissary’s here.
And, sir- I’d look as kingly as you can.
Aug 18, 2023
Aug 18, 2023 at 10:27 PM UTC
MOTECUHZOMA
They say the first, inchoate age of man
Met its demise by monsters from the earth,
The second, brought extinct through violent winds,
The third by fire, the fourth by worldwide floods.
This fifth and final age, as we all know,
By earthquakes’ rampant motion shall dissolve.
And yet, who could foresee this cataclysm
Would find its epicenter in this room?
For now my oscillation shakes the realm,
My rattling teeth, my quivering, palsied hands,
The fearful quaking of my feeble knees,
So agitates the contents of the earth
To pitch its crust in spasms to a wrack,
And crack the planetary fundament.
Ach, what a bandied shuttlecock I’ve been!
But from henceforth, by heaven’s crowded hall,
I’ll shake my feeble fears, or rattle all. Exit.
Aug 11, 2017
Aug 11, 2017 at 3:48 PM UTC
MOTECUHZOMA
I tried to bear up to necessity,
To steel self-conquest through my fears, and thus,
In stoic resolution, greet my fate.
But then this temperance, to the common eye,
Seemed but a fatalistic resignation,
A shrug, a sigh that what shall be shall be,
In abdication to a fancied doom.
So then I heap my irons in the fire
To undertake all means I can devise,
And now that versatile defense is seen
As paranoia, and hysteria,
The fickle indecision of a fool,
Who- like a pup between two bowls of food-
Would waver till the flyblown point grew stale.
And they are right, these forward serfs are right:
I am a knock-knee, and a juggler!
Who could foresee the vortex of my mind
Should be the whirlpool that would drain the sea?
Jul 30, 2017
Jul 30, 2017 at 2:06 PM UTC
MOTECUHZOMA
My lowly hoop of servile sycophants
Arise to stands of judges, triple-tiered,
Grave, gyral, escalating arbiters,
Who shake their damnatory, hooded heads
At me- Their blotch, their convict, and their prey,
Caught in their spotlight of interrogation,
To twitch and quiver in disclosure’s sight.
And now, what plan can salvage my appeal?
Jul 23, 2017
Jul 23, 2017 at 7:34 PM UTC
MOTECUHZOMA
The locusts swarm in ever tighter arcs,
And dizzy whisperings pollute the air.
The time was, in my long-lost halcyon days,
I hubbed the compass of this spiraled realm
Like to the turbine of a tempest’s eye,
The axis of a great panopticon,
Whose every vassal gaze was trained on me,
Arrested in a well-lit wheel of cribs.
The glaring of my ever-watchful eye
Flushed out all glint of scandal from my slaves.
I was the copy-text to check their conduct,
And all examples I would radiate
Reflected warmly from each ardent face.
But now this ring of watchers weighs on me.
Jul 22, 2017
Jul 22, 2017 at 12:45 PM UTC
MOTECUHZOMA
It is their chief that most perplexes me.
Send him my greeting, and convey to him
The gifts I have equipped for your encounter:
A turquoise serpent mask, a pearl-decked shield
With feathered fringe as gossamer as foam,
I’ll send the rain god’s legendary headdress
Of quetzal feathers, green as sprouting grass,
Fine, snail-shell collars, dainty golden bells,
A saffron helmet chased with dazzling stars,
Sandals obsidian-black- What riches more,
I have not breath in this old chest to list.
TEUHTLILLI
By your good will, I might unfold for him
The vestments which are worn by several gods:
Tezcatlipoca’s mirror, and Tlaloc’s jades,
Huitzilopochtli’s gilded helm, and such.
If he reach straight for the regalia
Of Quetzalcoatl- Well, who need say more?
MOTECUHZOMA
A thoughtful move. And, if not gods themselves,
They yet may be our wandering ancestors.
See if their speaker is the picture of
A homeward-bound, long-absent patriarch.
Especially take note if he admits,
Or claims, he is your rightful king. What more?
TEUHTLILLI
Should I purvey a spread of birds and game,
And mark how fluently he dines or not?
If he is from our far-flung lineage,
He ought to be familiar with our fare.
MOTECUHZOMA
Do so. But if, by chance, he shuns your board,
And does not hanker for such bill of fare,
But rumbles with a yen for human flesh,
Why, then allow yourself to be consumed.
I will ensure the welfare of your wife,
And guide your children.
TEUHTLILLI As you wish, my lord. Exit.
Jul 16, 2017
Jul 16, 2017 at 1:24 PM UTC
MOTECUHZOMA
Unpack your thoughts. Be free and frank with me.
Pretend yourself my junior cabinetman,
For my own court is often at a loss.
What vague agenda does this fleet announce?
TEUHTLILLI
They masquerade as peaceful legates sent
To haggle wares and flaunt their god, no more.
MOTECUHZOMA
Ridiculous!
TEUHTLILLI My sentiments as well.
MOTECUHZOMA
Then what’s your own misgivings of their aim?
Don’t gild the pill for me. Who are these men?
TEUHTLILLI
I’d bank they’re vigorous, new, cruel foes,
Now swiftly winging from the Eastern Sea
To spoil, maraud, shed sheathes and buccaneer.
We’ve Mayan authority to warrant this,
Hence their determination for the fray.
MOTECUHZOMA
But I have poor rapport with Mayaland.
What do my coastal subjects make of this?
TEUHTLILLI
They call them minor, maverick deities,
As yet unknown, yet fancied devilish.
MOTECUHZOMA
And what if they will prove, as prophesied,
Our long-lost rulers coming home?
TEUHTLILLI Perhaps.
Jul 15, 2017
Jul 15, 2017 at 2:13 PM UTC
TEUHTLILLI
Then down to brass tacks: These wan wanderers
Indeed match those who skimmed our shores last year.
See- Here’s my schoolyard scribbling of their looks:
MOTECUHZOMA
What are these? Iron pipes on lumbering wheels?
TEUHTLILLI
A roaring, dragon-mouthed machine of war,
Whose entrails discharge hails of shooting stars.
When leveled at a mountain’s rocky crags,
The cliff face cracked, disgorging its rich veins,
Then, splintered into chips a knotted pine.
Their porters picked their teeth with the remains,
Like sullied spirits in a sulfurous haze.
MOTECUHZOMA
What is this shambling menagerie?
TEUHTLILLI
Some over-magnifying strain of hound,
Whose urine-yellow eyes flash sparks of flame,
And lolling tongues lob down to glut for blood.
MOTECUHZOMA
And these? Some hybrid hash of man and stag?
TEUHTLILLI
No, sire, but merely stilted, toothy does
That suffer men to play at pick-a-back.
Their plate-wide hooves dig wells at each impress,
And lofty eyes peep over the city walls.
MOTECUHZOMA
What is their destination?
TEUHTLILLI Here, my lord.
They’re full of inquiries, but send you gifts:
These chokers of green glass- Quite lovely things.
MOTECUHZOMA
What is the subject of their questions?
TEUHTLILLI You, my lord.
Jun 11, 2017
Jun 11, 2017 at 4:06 PM UTC
TEUHTLILLI
My family looks for me. Why, then, do I,
Here in this hideous House of Serpents, wait?
A hellish bestiary of constrictors.
But now, behold where, from the grisly gate,
Our golden eagle lights like daybreak’s rays.
Enter MOTECUHZOMA.
MOTECUHZOMA
Well met, bright steward. Rise, and meet me, sir.
TEUHTLILLI
When might a mortal’s eye behold the sun?
MOTECUHZOMA
When, sir? Why, when he dwindles in the west,
When, blushing red and swollen full with care,
A man might ogle with unwinking eyes
Before his flickering orb of day winks out.
Look up, my scout. I wish your sights were high,
And eyed a brighter orbit for your liege.
TEUHTLILLI
I do, your majesty.
MOTECUHZOMA Come, your report.
Jun 3, 2017
Jun 3, 2017 at 1:49 PM UTC