The attendants hurried off and said to his sister:--
"Noble lady, we have come for you. The high priest Quetzalcoatl awaits
you. It is his wish that you come and live with him."
She instantly obeyed and went with them. On her arrival Quetzalcoatl
seated her beside him and gave her to drink of the magical pulque.
Immediately she felt its influence, and Quetzalcoatl began to sing, in
drunken fashion--
"Sister mine, beloved mine,
Quetzal--petlatl--tzin,
Come with me, drink with me,
'Tis no sin, sin, sin."
Soon they were so drunken that all reason was forgotten; they said no
prayers, they went not to the bath, and they sank asleep on the floor.[1]
[Footnote 1: It is not clear, at least in the translations, whether the
myth intimates an incestuous relation between Quetzalcoatl and his sister.
In the song he calls her "Nohueltiuh," which means, strictly, "My elder
sister;" but Mendoza translates it "Querida esposa mia." _Quetzalpetlatl_
means "the Beautiful Carpet," _petlatl_ being the rug or mat used on
floors, etc. This would be a most appropriate figure of speech to describe
a rich tropical landscape, "carpeted with flowers," as we say; and as the
earth is, in primitive cosmogony, older than the sun, I suspect that this
story of Quetzalcoatl and his sister refers to the sun sinking from
heaven, seemingly, into the earth.
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