Page:Myths of Mexico and Peru.djvu/197

 and spontaneous belief in one god in the midst of surroundings so little congenial to its growth would have been exceedingly valuable from several points of view.

The Poet Prince

We find Nezahualcoyotl's later days stained by an act which was unworthy of such a great monarch and wise man. His eldest son, the heir to the crown, entered into an intrigue with one of his father's wives, and dedicated many passionate poems to her, to which she replied with equal ardour. The poetical correspondence was brought before the king, who prized the lady highly because of her beauty. Outraged in his most sacred feelings, Nezahualcoyotl had the youth arraigned before the High Court, which passed sentence of death upon him—a sentence which his father permitted to be carried out. After his son's execution he shut himself up in his palace for some months, and gave orders that the doors and windows of the unhappy young man's residence should be built up so that never again might its walls echo to the sound of a human voice.

The Queen with a Hundred Lovers

In his History of the Chichimeca Ixtlilxochitl tells the following gruesome tale regarding the dreadful fate of a favourite wife of Nezahualpilli, the son of Nezahualcoyotl: When Axaiacatzin, King of Mexico, and other lords sent their daughters to King Nezahualpilli, for him to choose one to be his queen and lawful wife, whose son might succeed to the inheritance, she who had the highest claims among them, for nobility of birth and rank, was Chachiuhnenetzin, the young daughter of the Mexican king. She had been brought up by the monarch in a separate palace, with great Rh