Montezuma's Anguish
Cortés identified with Quetzalcóatl,
We think we know the story, but don’t know it all.
In writing stories of the people whom we vanquish,
how can we understand king Montezuma’s anguish?
It’s only with unconscionable audacity
that we consider science and sagacity
enable us to understand those we defeat
like open books to which we are the exegete.
Inspired by an article in the TLS, July 31,2009, by J. H. Elliott on the Boston gentleman-scholar William Hickling Prescott, the author of History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) . Criticizing Prescott’s approach, Elliott, former Regius Professor of History at Oxford University, writes:
As part of this process of re-evaluation, historians try to recover “the vision of the vanquished” and to reconstruct the history of “peoples without history”, victims not only of imperial domination but also the lack of written records....
Montezuma’s assumed identification of Cortés with Quetzalcóatl has been a staple element of the story from Prescott’s day to our own, but it has also come to be contested as a post-conquest fabrication. Equally the omens have been shown to have suspicious affinities with the omens and prodigies recorded by classical authors like Plutarch, Lucan and Josephus. If the Quetzalcóatl myth and the story of the omens are no more than retrospective attempts to make sense of the extraordinary succession of events, Prescott’s doom-laden interpretation of Montezuma’s behaviour loses much of its credibility….Was he killed by stones thrown by his own rebellious subjects, as the account commonly goes, or was he put to death by the Spaniards, as one or two alternative sources suggest? Or did he perhaps die “as much under the anguish of a wounded spirit, as under disease”, as Prescott ws inclined to believe?
8/15/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Related quotes
The name of Peru was not known to the natives.
quote by William Prescott
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If no man could become rich in Peru, no man could become poor.
quote by William Prescott
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The History Teacher
Woman!
Where exactly
Did you put me
In the women's history?
Am I History?
Or a part of it?
And for how long you are lacking me in;
Between
Your History,
Women's History, and
Your archives?
Does time make sense to you
As a History teacher or
As a History professor?
Cause', History, buying time, and rejuvenation
Are for emperors.
Are you making me
An emperor?
Or a Faeroe?
If so,
How precise your are?
And if you can't feel my present presence
how possibility could you feel me through your archives?
poem by Atef Ayadi
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History Is A Story
Hunters write history;
Tigers have no historians.
Winners write history;
Losers have no historians.
Read the history as a story.
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Turn it
I would like to suggest
a universal form
is the discipline
to write history
I would like to suggest changes in the relationship
towards a goal
I'm going to frontload
In fact, I'd like to argue
not the history of childhood
or great American conquest
and the myths that we believe in
but by our own experience
infused with a spirit of grace
radically changed
beautifully formed
like an individual
poem by Tanec Rayl
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History!
Spoken words are history
Records of some remain a mystery
And when today and tomorrow
Row bitterly over yesterday
Today will become history
With just an empty space
Enlightened by a darkened face
History reminds me of a repetition of events
Dancing to the rhythm of the same kind of achievements
A battle is won or lost
Every love or hatred will eventually be buried in dust
I love you
You love me
Soon our love goes down in history
Someone else will find love a new discovery
So the theory behind is history
Is to have a story that commands all glory
For the inevitable past that will last!
poem by Sylvia Chidi
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Black History Month
In January...
There they are making history.
In February...
There they are making history.
In March...
There they are making history.
In April...
There they are making history.
In May...
There they are making history.
In June...
There they are making history.
In July...
There they are making history.
In August...
There they are making history.
In September...
There they are making history.
In October...
There they are making history.
In November...
There they are making history.
In December...
There they are making history.
But...
It's nice to know
The shortest month of the year
Was chosen to celebrate
The great deeds of African-Americans!
However...
It is those LEAP YEARS,
That really have the blacks jumping for joy!
Note: 'Black History Month' along with other
works of interest can be found in...
*'MindPrints from Untouched Places-VOL I'*
~Now available online at a PC near you~
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Repeated
HISTORY IS ALWAYS REPEATED AND SOMEONE IS ALWAYS CHEATED THE CAT DIED OF COURIOSITY WHY NOT ME THEY SAY THE MOSS ON A TREE CAN SEE HISTORY IS A STORY OF THE PAST A STORY THAT IS REPEATED YEAR AFTER YEAR DAY AFTER DAY
HISTORY IS HIS STORY AND HER STORY ALWAYS REOEATED ALWAYS THE SAME
poem by Kairy sauerwein
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Many books today suggest that the mass of women lead lives of noisy desperation.
quote by Peter S. Prescott
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Neurotic
cause it moves just like you
And it breaks just like me
And it lies just like them
And these walls are protecting me
And so the story goes
Strip down its the same
And so the story goes
In a blink of an eye you become history
cause it plays just like you
And it fades just like me
And it steals just like them
Its neverending its neverending for me
And so the story goes
Strip down its the same
And so the story goes
In a blink of an eye you become history
I put my blinding faith in you
My philosophy says I should stop
And so the story goes
Strip down its the same
And so the story goes
In a blink of an eye you become history
song performed by by Unloco
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Racial history is therefore natural history and the mysticism of the soul at one and the same time; but the history of the religion of the blood, conversely, is the great world story of the rise and downfall of peoples, their heroes and thinkers, their inventors and artists.
quote by Alfred Rosenberg
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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History Stones People.
History stones people.
They stoned Moses, David and Linclon,
history did that for all to see
Marbel and cement,
that's all it leaves behind
of a long changing life.
Great heroes of time,
fall under the mercy
of the sculptor's knife.
History stones faces,
in a way that would make
ecclestias cringe.
History stones feet,
in a way that would make
piligrims cry.
History stones life
to always stay fresh,
yet, what is life without
the sins of the flesh.
All the radical kids
get stoned
and never change
or even move a muscle.
All the sword raising warriors
history stoned
without blood in their veins.
You can see all the victims
that history stoned
when you walk in the park,
they got kings
and queens
hell, they even got Gods.
They are there captive
in history's stones,
never to be again what they were;
wilting flesh and
breakable bones.
People look up at them
they are victims too.
History's stones fall far,
even on to you.
Those stoned to live
are like the ones stoned to die.
enslaved to the search
of the frozen smile.
Life is a burning bush
that doesn't get consumed.
not a dead rock
or a statue of history.
It's a fusing wind
of happinnes and misery.
An exploding volcano
of courage and fear.
It is the stem of the flower
struggling through the seasons
to stand and bloom
above the drying soil.
Life is the fighting wave
you see at sea
forgotten and denied
by the stones of history.
poem by Samuel Katz
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15th August to Bengali people
Mourn
It's a command I demmand you
mourn, fool and so ignorant
you must mourn
History is clear, amazingly open
and you still say you don't know that
a pity, I must say you should mourn,
you deserve no sympathy, you lost all
In this caged race, they will dominate, a few
and you so enormous don't understand
what you lost, your root
you must mourn, you want deception, prefer ambiguity
afraid! I have no sympathy
my poor fellow, beloved countrymen
you must mourn.
Note: Bengali people still today say they don't know the real history of their liberation war. What a shame! Actually everybody knows the history because there is no two story. we faught and liberate our country. And then some collabratore killed the Father of the nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 15th August 1975. To confuse all they say we do not know the real history of liberation war. but actually there is no real history, as history is one. And it is, Sheikh Mujib was the mastermind of our leberation. A handfull of Biheris and west pakistany settlers and their sympathesizers run the country after 1975 and still conspiring against Bengali people. they speak in Bengali, but they hate Bengali. and Bengali people do not still understand this and do not realize what they lost. Alas!
poem by Humayun Nasir
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The very concept of history implies the scholar and the reader. Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history, too, would lose its meaning.
quote by George Frost Kennan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The History of Now
The recording of culture is history;
but our culture is more than that.
It's the world of human action,
and the myths we make of the fact.
The recording of history is culture,
but our history is more than that.
It informs a hidden agenda.
Unconscious of motive we act.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
It's only the present that exists as endowed.
It's the history of now. The moment - KAPOW!
That knocks you right over and muddies your brow.
Through the prism of language, we know what we know.
We carry our baggage and stories of woe.
Victor and vanquished pride cannot budge,
the dead weight of hatred and ancestral grudge.
We fight our good fights with our hand on our heart;
the music is swelling as loved ones depart.
As sheep to the slaughter, the script cannot chart,
a course more ignoble: the propagandist's art.
The recording of history is culture,
but our culture is more than that.
More than the great individuals,
the scholars so love in their tracts.
The recording of culture is history;
but our history is more than that.
Not simple dates or statistics,
the full horror and gore still attracts.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
A strange contradiction that makes sense somehow.
It's the history of now, a mystery and shroud.
The past and the future: best fiction allowed.
poem by David SmithWhite
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The Rest Is History
Saw you across the room
Felt somethin stir inside my soul
Knew Id never be the same
Now that love had taken hold
Then when you touched me
There was no doubt
You unterstood what my heart was all about
And the rest is history
The story of you and me
For all eternity
The record will show
Well fill up the pages
Romance for the ages
There for the world to see
The rest ist history
Before we spoke a word
My heart told me you were the one
When you pressed your hand to mine
I knew my life had just begun
Like some old movie
Music filled the night
Lost held each other tight.
And the rest is history
The story of you and me
For all eternity
The record will show
Well fill up the pages
Romance for the ages
There for the world to see
The rest ist history
And the rest is history
The story of you and me
For all eternity
The record will show
Well fill up the pages
Romance for the ages
There for the world to see
The rest ist history
History ...
The rest is history.
The rest is history.
song performed by by LeAnn Rimes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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History why do we care
History
a famous person dies
History
a war rages
History
a new invention
History
a building opens
History
what happens if something happens to me
is that history?
no....
So why do we care.....
poem by Andrea Thepoet
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Although this is a fictitious story the history is real. You don't want to re-write history but you certainly want to portray events and characters as realistically as you can.
quote by James D'arcy
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The History Of Tomorrow
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of light
By dumping us in the dark with pits everywhere
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of food
By asking us to chop several fire-woods to heat up a pot full of stones
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of job creation
By making us slaves on our own soil
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of education
By dumping us in dilapidated buildings without teachers
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of accountability
By looting our treasury and asking us for yet another term in office
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of safety
By leaving pot holes large enough to swallow countless accident victims on our roads
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our bows and arrows
Would secure our future
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of a country, a country with countless heroes
It’s the history of a country, a country with countless robbers
Robbers with fame
Robbers without shame
Robbers that we would roast with flame
© Adegbenro Adekunle Jacob
Tomorrow’s history is today. All world leaders must make real democracy work. They must be selfless. We must not wait until there is horror and terror before we learn. Nigerian leaders must shun CORRUPTION.
poem by Adegbenro Adekunle
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The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation. No primitive State known to history originated in any other manner.
quote by Albert J. Nock
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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