History of the Incas | Page 8

labourers, and complains of the spiritual destitution of his adopted land. He finally returns to Cuzco and gives an account of a very magnificent pageant and tilting match. But this story should have preceded the mournful narrative of the fate of Tupac Amaru; for the event took place at the time of the baptism of Melchior Carlos, and before the Viceroy Toledo became a regicide. Ocampo's story is that of an honest old soldier, inclined to be garrulous, but an eye-witness of some most interesting events in the history of Peru.
I think it is an appropriate sequel to the history by Sarmiento, because it supplies material for judging whether the usurpation and tyranny were on the side of the Incas or of their accuser.
[Illustration: Facsimile (reduced) of PAGE II OF THE SARMIENTO MS. 1572. From the original, G?ttingen University Library. Reproduced and printed for the Hakluyt Society by Donald Macbeth.]

THE
SECOND PART
OF THE
GENERAL HISTORY
CALLED
"INDICA"
WHICH WAS COMPOSED
BY
THE CAPTAIN PEDRO SARMIENTO DE GAMBOA
BY ORDER OF
THE MOST EXCELLENT LORD DON FRANCISCO DE TOLEDO VICEROY GOVERNOR AND CAPTAIN-GENERAL OF THE KINGDOMS OF PERU AND MAYOR-DOMO OF THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD OF CASTILLE
1572
[Illustration: Facsimile (reduced) of PAGE I OF THE SARMIENTO MS. 1572. From the original, G?ttingen University Library. Reproduced and printed for the Hakluyt Society by Donald Macbeth.]

TO HIS SACRED C?SARIAN MAJESTY THE KING, DON FELIPE, OUR LORD.
Among the excellencies, O sovereign and catholic Philip, that are the glorious decorations of princes, placing them on the highest pinnacle of estimation, are, according to the father of Latin eloquence, generosity, kindness, and liberality. And as the Roman Consuls held this to be the principal praise of their glory, they had this title curiously sculptured in marble on the Quirinal and in the forum of Trajan---"Most powerful gift in a Prince is liberality[12]." For this kings who desired much to be held dear by their own people and to be feared by strangers, were incited to acquire the name of liberal. Hence that royal sentence became immortal "It is right for kings to give." As this was a quality much valued among the Greeks, the wise Ulysses, conversing with Antinous[13], King of the Ph?acians, said---"You are something like a king, for you know how to give, better than others." Hence it is certain that liberality is a good and necessary quality of kings.
[Note 12: "Primum signum nobilitatis est liberalitas."]
[Note 13: Alcinous.]
I do not pretend on this ground, most liberal monarch, to insinuate to your Majesty the most open frankness, for it would be very culpable on my part to venture to suggest a thing which, to your Majesty, is so natural that you would be unable to live without it. Nor will it happen to so high minded and liberal a lord and king, what befell the Emperor Titus who, remembering once, during supper time, that he had allowed one day to pass without doing some good, gave utterance to this laudable animadversion of himself. "O friends! I have lost a day[14]." For not only does your Majesty not miss a day, but not even an hour, without obliging all kinds of people with benefits and most gracious liberality. The whole people, with one voice, says to your Majesty what Virgil sang to Octavianus Augustus:
"Nocte pluit tota, redeunt spectacula mane, Divisum imperium cum Jove C?sar habet."
[Note 14: "Amici! diem perdidi." Suetonius.]
But what I desire to say is that for a king who complies so well with the obligation of liberality, and who gives so much, it is necessary that he should possess much; for nothing is so suitable for a prince as possessions and riches for his gifts and liberalities, as Tully says, as well as to acquire glory. For it is certain, as we read in Sallust that "in a vast empire there is great glory[15]"; and in how much it is greater, in so much it treats of great things. Hence the glory of a king consists in his possessing many vassals, and the abatement of his glory is caused by the diminution of the number of his subjects.
[Note 15: Proem of Catiline.]
Of this glory, most Christian king, God Almighty gives you so large a share in this life that all the enemies of the holy catholic church of Christ our Lord tremble at your exalted name; whence you most justly deserve to be named the strength of the church. As the treasure which God granted that your ancestors should spend, with such holy magnanimity, on worthy and holy deeds, in the extirpation of heretics, in driving the accursed Saracens out of Spain, in building churches, hospitals and monasteries, and in an infinite number of other works of charity and justice, with the zeal of zealous fathers of their country, not only entitled them to the most holy title of catholics, but the most merciful and