The Ixtacc�huatl has the silhouette
of a sleeping woman under the Sun.
The Popocat�petl flames thru the centuries
as an apocalyptic vision;
and these two solemn volcanos
have a story of love,
a story worthy to be sung
in an extraordinary song.
Ixtacc�huatl -- thousands of years ago--
was the princess most similar to a flower
in the old chiefs tribe,
whom with a gentle captain fell in love.
Her father thusly spoke
and to the seductive captain said,
of the enemy warlord nailed in his spear,
he would find prepared, at the same time,
the feast for his triumph and the bed for his love.
Popocat�petl went to war
with this hope in his heart:
he tamed revolts of obstinate forests,
the riot of crags against his winning strade,
the daring fall of the torrents,
the ambush and treachery of the marshes;
and against hundreds and hundreds of soldiers,
for years very bravely he fought.
At last he returned to the tribe (and the head
of the enemy warlord bled in his spear).
He found prepared the feast for his triumph,
but not the bed for his love;
instead of bed he found a tomb
where his fianc�e, asleep under the Sun,
waited for a kiss, from whom
never in life could kiss her brow.
Popocat�petl broke his arrows on his knees
and, in one single voice,
by his ancestors he swore
against the cruelty of his impassible God.
It was his life, his,
because against death he'd won it:
he had triumph, wealth and power,
but he did not have love...
Then he made twenty thousand slaves
built a great tumulus before the Sun,
he accumulated ten mountains
in a hallucinating stairway;
he took then his beloved in arms,
and placed her himself in the burial mound;
He ignited a torch and forever stood there,
illuminating the sarcophagus of his pain.
Sleep in peace, Iztacc�huatl: may Time
never erase the lines of your expression.
Guard her in peace, Popocat�petl: may the hurricanes
never extinguish your torch, eternal as Love...