Prejudices, third seriesMencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
History
Prejudices, third series
Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
American essays -- 20th century; American literature -- History and criticism; Literature -- History and criticism
provide comfortable and permanent jobs for hundreds and thousands of
deserving women, most of whom are far more profitably employed trying
to make Methodists out of Sicilians than they would be if they were
trying to make husbands out of bachelors. It is for this high purpose
also that the forward-looker suffers.
XII. MEMORIAL SERVICE
Where is the grave-yard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters
their mounds? There was a day when Jupiter was the king of the gods,
and any man who doubted his puissance was _ipso facto_ a barbarian and
an ignoramus. But where in all the world is there a man who worships
Jupiter to-day? And what of Huitzilopochtli? In one year—and it is
no more than five hundred years ago—50,000 youths and maidens were
slain in sacrifice to him. To-day, if he is remembered at all, it
is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the Mexican forest.
Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his mother
was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation
that she carried on with the sun. When he frowned, his father, the
sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed whole
cities. When he thirsted he was watered with 10,000 gallons of human
blood. But to-day Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as
Allen G. Thurman. Once the peer of Allah, Buddha and Wotan, he is now
the peer of General Coxey, Richmond P. Hobson, Nan Patterson, Alton B.
Parker, Adelina Patti, General Weyler and Tom Sharkey.
Speaking of Huitzilopochtli recalls his brother, Tezcatilpoca.
Tezcatilpoca was almost as powerful: he consumed 25,000 virgins a year.
Lead me to his tomb: I would weep, and hang a _couronne des perles._
But who knows where it is? Or where the grave of Quitzalcoatl is? Or
Tialoc? Or Chalchihuitlicue? Or Xiehtecutli? Or Centeotl, that sweet
one? Or Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love? Or Mictlan? Or Ixtlilton?
Or Omacatl? Or Yacatecutli? Or Mixcoatl? Or Xipe? Or all the host of
Tzitzimitles? Where are their bones? Where is the willow on which they
hung their harps? In what forlorn and unheard-of hell do they await the
resurrection morn? Who enjoys their residuary estates? Or that of Dis,
whom Cæsar found to be the chief god of the Celts? Or that of Tarves,
the bull? Or that of Moccos, the pig? Or that of Epona, the mare? Or
that of Mullo, the celestial jack-ass? There was a time when the Irish
revered all these gods as violently as they now hate the English. But
to-day even the drunkest Irishman laughs at them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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