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What would happen if you didn’t believe in any gods? asked Buckhurst Hill Community Primary School. Read what Dr. Raúl Macuil Martínez had to say.
Where to find the short 5-line poem... (Click on image to enlarge) |
This is the brief poem, with its simple humanist message:-
Amo el canto del zentzontle
Pájaro de cuatrocientas voces
Amo el color del jade
Y el enervante perfume de las flores
Pero amo más a mi hermano el hombre.
I love the song of the zentzontle,
Bird of myriad voices.
I love the colour of jade
And the seductive perfume of flowers;
But most of all I love my fellow human beings.
Scans from two different notes (Click on image to enlarge) |
The zentzontle, sometimes written cenzontle is the Northern Mockingbird, found from Canada down to Mexico and Cuba. So-called because of its ability to reproduce the call of dozens of birds and other creatures (males are said to have a repertoire of up to 200 calls), its original Náhuatl name comes from the two key words centzontli meaning four hundred (or ‘myriad’) and tlahtolli meaning ‘word’ or song.
‘Amo el canto del zentzontle...’ (Click on image to enlarge) |
Picture sources:-
• Note scans by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Portrait of Netzahualcóyotl scanned from our copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition of the Codex Ixtlilxóchitl (Graz, 1976), folio 106r.
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