ed you, rejoice and be glad.

22. "In the life of this world there is no beginning anew, therefore
rejoice, for all good ends.

23. "The future promises endless changes, griefs that your subjects
will have to undergo.

24. "Ye see before you the instruments decked with wreaths of odorous
flowers; rejoice in their fragrance.

25. "To-day there are peace, and goodfellowship; therefore let all
join hands and rejoice in the dances,

26. "So that for a little while princes and kings and the nobles may
have pleasure in these precious stones,

27. "Which through his goodness the will of the King Nezahualcoyotl
has set forth for you, inviting you to-day to his house."

* * * * *

The fourth song has been preserved in an Otomi translation by the
Mexican antiquary Granados y Galvez[53] and in an abstract by
Torquemada.[54] The latter gives the first words as follows:--

_Xochitl mamani in huehuetitlan:_

Which he translates:--

"There are fresh and fragrant flowers among the groves."

It is said to have been composed at the time the king dedicated his
palace.

IV.

1. The fleeting pomps of the world are like the green willow trees,
which, aspiring to permanence, are consumed by a fire, fall before
the axe, are upturned by the wind, or are scarred and saddened by
age.

2. The grandeurs of life are like the flowers in color and in fate;
the beauty of these remains so long as their chaste buds gather and
store the rich pearls of the dawn and saving it, drop it in liquid
dew; but scarcely has the Cause of All directed upon them the full
rays of the sun, when their beauty and glory fail, and the brilliant
gay colors which decked forth their pride wither and fade.

3. The delicious realms of flowers count their dynasties by short
periods; those which in the morning revel proudly in beauty and
strength, by evening weep for the sad destruction of their thrones,
and for the mishaps which drive them to loss, to poverty, to death
and to the grave. All things of earth have an end, and in the midst
of the most joyous lives, the breath falters, they fall, they sink
into the ground.

4. All the earth is a grave, and nought escapes it; nothing is so
perfect that it does not fall and disappear. The rivers, brooks,
fountains and waters flow on, and never return to their joyous
beginnings; they hasten on to the vast realms of Tlaloc, and the
wider they spread between their marges the more rapid