Page:Ollanta An Ancient Ynca Drama.pdf/16

8 My own version of the drama was transcribed by myself, with great care, from the copy in possession of Dr Don Pablo Justiniani, the aged Cura of Laris, and a descendant of the Yncas. That copy was taken by his father, Don Justo Pastor Justiniani, from the original manuscript of Dr Valdez. I have collated my version with a copy in possession of Dr Rosas, Cura of Chinchero, and with the printed version in the Kechua Sprache of Dr Von Tschudi. The latter collation has convinced me of the genuine antiquity of the drama, for in every single instance where a corrupt or Hispanicised word or phrase occurs in the Von Tschudi version, I find classical Quichua in the version of Justiniani. This proves that all the corrupt forms in the Von Tschudi version arise from the carelessness of a copyist, and that they have no existence in the original document. In my account of the drama in "Cuzco and Lima" I gave some translated passages, which were made with the assistance of a young student of Cuzco, named Bernardo Puente de la Vega.

The all-important question is whether the drama was handed down from the time of the Yncas, and merely committed to writing by Dr Valdez, who divided it into scenes, and inserted the stage directions; or whether Dr Valdez was the actual author, and composed the work himself in a classical and, in his day, almost archaic language. If the former opinion is the true one, the drama of is certainly the most important relic of ancient American civilisation; while in the latter case, though still an