Priest of Xippe Totec, Drinking and Playing on a Drum, Hymn XV Chicomecoatl, Goddess of Food and Drink, Hymn XVI Totochtin, the Rabbits, Gods of the Drunkards, Hymn XVII Atlaua, Singing and Dancing, Hymn XVIII INTRODUCTION. As in a previous number of the Library of Aboriginal American Literature I have discussed in detail the character of the ancient Mexican poetry, I shall confine myself at present to the history of the present collection. We owe its preservation to the untiring industry of Father Bernardino de Sahagun, one of the earliest missionaries to Mexico, and the author of by far the most important work on the religion, manners and customs of the ancient Mexicans. By long residence and close application Sahagun acquired a complete mastery of the Nahuatl tongue. He composed his celebrated _Historia de las Cosas de la Nueva Espana_ primarily in the native language, and from this original wrote out a Spanish translation, in some parts considerably abbreviated. This incomplete reproduction is that which was published in Spanish by Lord Kingsborough and Bustamente, and in a French rendering with useful notes by Dr. Jourdanet and M. Remi Simeon. So far as I know, the only complete copy of the Nahuatl original now in existence is that preserved in the Bibliotheca Laurentio-Mediceana in Florence, where I examined it in April, 1889. It is a most elaborate and beautiful MS., in three large volumes, containing thirteen hundred and seventy-eight illustrations, carefully drawn by hand, mostly colored, illustrative of the native mythology, history, arts and usages, besides many elaborate head and tail pieces to the chapters. There is another Nahuatl MS. of Sahagun's history in the private library of the King of Spain at Madrid, which I examined in May, 1888, and of which I published a collation in the _Memoires de la Societe Internationale des Americanistes_, for that year. It is incomplete, embracing only the first six books of the _Historia_, and should be considered merely as a _borrador_ or preliminary sketch for the Florentine copy. It contains, however, a certain amount of material not included in the latter, and has been peculiarly useful to me in the preparation of the present volume, as not only affording another reading of the text, valuable for comparison, but as furnishing a gloss or Nahuatl paraphrase of most of the hymns, which does not appear in the Florentine MS. As evidently the older of the two, I have adopted the readings of the Madrid MS. as my text, and given the variants of the Florentine MS. at the end of each hymn. Neither MS. attempts any translation of the hymns. That at Madrid has no Spanish comment whatever, while that at Florence places opposite the hymns the following remarks, which are also found in the printed copies, near the close of the Appendix of the Second Book of the _Historia_:--