The ''Romances de los señores de Nueva España'' ( Spanish for "Ballads of the Lords of New Spain") is a 16th-century compilation of

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...

songs or poems preserved in the

Benson Latin American Collection The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection is part of the University of Texas Library system in partnership with the Teresa Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies (LLILAS), located in Austin, Texas, and named for the historian and ...

at the University of Texas. The manuscript also includes a Spanish-language text, the ''Geographical Relation of Tezcoco'', written in 1582 by

Juan Bautista Pomar Juan Bautista (de) Pomar (c. 1535 – after 1601) was a mestizo descendant of the rulers of prehispanic Texcoco, a historian and writer on prehispanic Aztec history. He is the author of two major works. His ''Relación de Texcoco'' was written ...

, who probably also compiled the ''Romances''. Most of the songs come from Texcoco, with several attributed specifically to the ruler

Nezahualcoyotl Nezahualcoyotl may refer to: * Nezahualcoyotl (tlatoani), the ruler of Texcoco * Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, a city in the State of Mexico * Nezahualcóyotl metro station, in Mexico City * The Nezahualcóyotl Award, a literary prize in Mexico * Nezah ...

. Several of songs are also found with variations in the '' Cantares Mexicanos''. The Nahuatl text and a Spanish translation of the ''Romances'', as well as the ''Geographical Relation'', was published in 1964 by

Ángel María Garibay K. Fray Ángel María Garibay Kintana (18 June 1892 – 19 October 1967) was a Mexican Roman Catholic priest, philologist, linguist, historian, and scholar of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, specifically of the Nahua peoples of the central Mexi ...

as volume 1 of ''Poesía nahuatl''. John Bierhorst produced the first full English prose translation of the ''Romances'' along with a paleographic transcription of the Nahuatl text, published in 2010 by the University of Texas Press and now available as an e-text. David Bowles crafted English verse version of select songs from the ''Romances'' in his ''Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry'', released in 2013 by Lamar University Press.

References

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Romances de los senores de Nueva Espana Nahuatl poetry 16th-century manuscripts

See also

References