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
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.)
