Look now at the fate of Cortes--that great man whom I have known clothed
with power like a god. Nearly forty years ago, so I have heard, he died
poor and disgraced in Spain; he, the conqueror--yes, and I have learned
also that his son Don Martin has been put to the torture in that city
which the father won with so great cruelties for Spain. Malinche, she
whom the Spaniards named Marina, the chief and best beloved of all the
women of this same Cortes, foretold it to him in her anguish when after
all that had been, after she had so many times preserved him and his
soldiers to look upon the sun, at the last he deserted her, giving her
in marriage to Don Juan Xaramillo. Look again at the fate of Marina
herself. Because she loved this man Cortes, or Malinche, as the Indians
named him after her, she brought evil on her native land; for without
her aid Tenoctitlan, or Mexico, as they call it now, had never bowed
beneath the yoke of Spain--yes, she forgot her honour in her passion.
And what was her reward, what right came to her of her wrongdoing? This
was her reward at last: to be given away in marriage to another and
a lesser man when her beauty waned, as a worn-out beast is sold to a
poorer master.
Consider also the fate of those great peoples of the land of Anahuac.
They did evil that good might come. They sacrificed the lives of
thousands to their false gods, that their wealth might increase, and
peace and prosperity be theirs throughout the generations.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25