Apu Ollantay | Page 2

published in 1851 jointly by Dr. von Tschudi and Don Mariaiao Rivero of Arequipa. The complete text, from the copy in the convent of San Domingo at Cuzco, was first published at Vienna in 1853 by Dr. von Tschudi in his 'Die Kechua Sprache. It was obtained for him by Dr. Ruggendas of Munich. The manuscript was a corrupt version, and in very bad condition, in parts illegible from damp. In 1868 Don Jose Barranca published a Spanish translation, from the Dominican text of von Tschudi. The learned Swiss naturalist, von Tschudi, published a revised edition of his translation at Vienna in 1875, with a parallel German translation. In 18711 printed the Justiniani text with a literal, line- for-line translation, but with many mistakes, since corrected; and in 1874, a Peruvian, Don Jose Fernandez Nodal, published the Quichua text with a Spanish translation.
In 1878 Gavino Pacheco Zegarra published his version of Ollantay, with a free translation in French. His text is a manuscript of the drama which he found in his uncle's library. Zegarra, as a native of Peru whose language was Quichua, had great advantages. He was a very severe, and often unfair, critic of his predecessors.
The work of Zegarra is, however, exceedingly valuable. He was not only a Quichua scholar, but also accomplished and well read. His notes on special words and on the construction of sentences are often very interesting. But his conclusions respecting several passages which are in the Justiniani text, but not in the others, are certainly erroneous. Thus he entirely spoils the dialogue between the Uillac Uma and Piqui Chaqui by omitting the humorous part contained in the Justiniani text; and makes other similar omissions merely because the passages are not in his text. Zegarra gives a useful vocabulary at the end of all the words which occur in the drama.
The great drawback to the study of Zegarra's work is that he invented a number of letters to express the various modifications of sound as they appealed to his ear. No one else can use them, while they render the reading of his own works difficult and intolerably tiresome.
The last publication of a text of Ollantay was by the Rev. J. H. Gybbon Spilsbury, at Buenos Ayres in 1907, accompanied by Spanish, English, and French translations in parallel columns.
There is truth in what Zegarra says, that the attempts to translate line for line, by von Tschudi and myself, 'fail to convey a proper idea of the original drama to European readers, the result being alike contrary to the genius of the modern languages of Europe and to that of the Quichua language.' Zegarra accordingly gives a very free translation in French.
In the present translation I believe that I have always preserved the sense of the original, without necessarily binding myself to the words. The original is in octosyllabic lines. Songs and important speeches are in quatrains of octosyllabic lines, the first and last rhyming, and the second and third. I have endeavoured to keep to octosyllabic lines as far as possible, because they give a better idea of the original; and I have also tried to preserve the form of the songs and speeches.
The drama opens towards the close of the reign of the Inca Pachacuti, the greatest of all the Incas, and the scene is laid at Cuzco or at Ollantay-tampu, in the valley of the Vilcamayu. The story turns on the love of a great chief, but not of the blood-royal, with a daughter of the Inca. This would not have been prohibited in former reigns, for the marriage of a sister by the sovereign or his heir, and the marriage of princesses only with princes of the blood-royal, were rules first introduced by Pachacuti.[FN#4] His imperial power and greatness led him to endeavour to raise the royal family far above all others.
[FN#4] The wives of the Incas were called ccoya. The ccoya of the second Inca was a daughter of the chief of Sanoc. The third Inca married a daughter of the chief of Oma, the fourth married a girl of Tacucaray, the wife of the fifth was a daughter of a Cuzco chief. The sixth Inca married a daughter of the chief of Huayllacan, the seventh married a daughter of the chief of Ayamarca, and the eighth went to Anta for a wife. This Anta lady was the mother of Pachacuti. The wife of Pachacuti, named Anahuarqui, was a daughter of the chief of Choco. There was no rule about marrying sisters when Pachacuti succeeded. He introduced it by making his son Tupac Yupanqui marry his daughter Mama Ocllo, but this was quite unprecedented. The transgression of a rule which he had just made may account for his extreme severity.
The play opens with a dialogue between Ollantay and Piqui Chaqui,