The Spanish March, on Mexico City, 1519
Thus they came causing great awe; thus they came causing great terror
My late father, Bill Bright, wrote a “translation poem” from an eyewitness account of the Spanish invasion of Mexico City — as described in the Florentine Codex 12:xi, by Fray Bernadindo de Sagagún, the first European ethnographer of the New World.
Bill studied Nahuatl and Aztec culture in Mexico as a 20-year-old, when he first visited Mexico City in 1947 to attend the university. He continued his studies until the end of his life.
Auh in ommicohuac Chollollan, niman hualpeuhque in ye ic huitze Mexico.
After the massacre in Cholula, then they set forth for Mexico.
Ololiuhtihuitze, tepeuhtihuitze, teuhtli quiquetztihuitze.
They came grouped together, they came in a mass, they came raising dust.
In intepoztopil, in intzinacantopil iuhquin tlapepetlaca.
Their iron lances, their halberds seemed to glitter.
Auh in intepozmacuauh iuhquin atl monecuiloa.
Their iron swords gleamed like flowing water.
Iuh tlacacalaca in intepozhuipil, in inteposcuacalala.
They seemed to clatter, their iron …