Page:Stone of the Sun.djvu/60

 Would it be strange that Montezuma, great astronomer and priest, should see in these signs the clear fulfilment of prophecies and have a presentiment of the catastrophe destructive of his nation and his people? Could the Aztecs feel any confidence in an armed resistance against the inexorable fate decreed by their own deities? No, certainly, and they fought without hope of victory: for this, their last monarch proudly bore the name of “The Eagle who Falls.” Last representatives of an indomitable race, they truly desired to end with the dignity which corresponded to their past glory; and in the siege of Tenochtitlan, disheartened but stubborn, not weakening before the crushing weight of numbers, nor before famine, pestilence, and the cruel attacks of the enemies, nor before desertion and treason of compatriot races, nor before the fires of earth and the lightnings of heaven let loose upon them, they gave to the world an example of heroism greater than histories can record. If the ancient Mexicans had not been persuaded that their ruin was a thing determined from above, the phalanx of Cortez, in spite of its undaunted courage, would have been undone at the first vigorous assaults of the warriors of Cuauhtémoc!

Let us proceed to pass in review the more important opinions formulated, in way of interpretation, with regard to the monolith of the museum; let us mention at the same time the monuments and the codices which confirm our views, citing some of those which the stone itself now permits to be understood easily, since once the key is discovered it appears to lift the veil which concealed the enigma of our antiquities. We shall add the filiation of ideas which carried us to the discovery, in order that its origins shall be exactly known, indicating the development of the conception.

Here is the enumeration of the glyphs of the relief: