[Gutenberg 12219] • Ancient Nahuatl Poetry, Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems / Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII.

Excerpt from Ancient Nahuatl Poetry: Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems; With a Translation, Introduction, Notes and Vocabulary

It is with some hesitation that I offer this volume to the scientific public. The text of the ancient songs which it contains offers extreme and peculiar difficulties to the translator, and I have been obliged to pursue the task without assistance of any kind. Not a line of them has ever before been rendered into an European tongue, and my endeavors to obtain aid from some of the Nahuatl scholars of Mexico have, for various reasons, proved ineffectual. I am therefore alone responsible for errors and misunderstandings.

Nevertheless, I have felt that these monuments of ancient native literature are so interesting in themselves, and so worthy of publication, that they should be placed at the disposition of scholars in their original form with the best rendering that I could give them at present, rather than to await the uncertain event of years for a better.

The text itself may be improved by comparison with the original MS. and with the copy previously made by the Licentiate Chimalpopoca, referred to on page 48. My own efforts in this direction have been confined to a faithful reproduction in print of the MS. copy of the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg.