An Aztec king of the 1400s composed surviving, deeply philosophical poetry

Evidence

Among the Aztec peoples, poetry was treasured as one of the highest of all arts — they called it “flower and song” (in xochitl in cuicatl), for a true poem was like a flower: beautiful, fragrant, and fleeting. And the greatest of all the poets of the Aztec world was a real king: Nezahualcoyotl (“Fasting Coyote”), the wise philosopher-king of the city of Texcoco, who ruled in the 1400s, before the Spanish came. He was famous not only as a great ruler, lawgiver, and builder, but as a profound poet and thinker who pondered the deepest questions — the brevity of life, the certainty of death, the search for the true and hidden God whom he called “the Giver of Life” and “the Lord of the Close and the Near.” Many of his poems were remembered and written down, and survive to this day. — , A Year of World Stories, 10348

Categorization

• SEED: A real Aztec philosopher-king shatters the warrior-sacrificer stereotype — strong essay angle on knowing a civilization’s poets, not just its warriors.