Filled with compassion for my men,
I thus, with sore and heavy heart,
Have spoken to the cruel king:
'The Anti-suyu must have rest;
All her best men shan't die for thee,
By battle, fire, and disease—
They die in numbers terrible.
How many men have ne'er returned,
How many chiefs have met their death
For enterprises far away?'
For this I left the Inca's court,[1]
Saying that we must rest in peace;
Let none of us forsake our hearths,
And if the Inca still persists,
Proclaim with him a mortal feud.
- (Enter Hanco Huayllu, several chiefs, and a great crowd of soldiers and people.)
People. Long live our king, Ollantay!
Bring forth the standard and the fringe,
Invest him with the crimson fringe;
In Tampu now the Inca reigns,
He rises like the star of day.
- (The chiefs, soldiers, and people range themselves round. Ollantay is seated on the tiana by Hanco Huayllu, an aged Auqui or Prince.)
Hanco Huayllu. Receive from me the royal fringe,
'Tis given by the people's will.
- ↑ This, as we have seen, was not the reason why Ollantay fled from Cuzco; but, from a leader's point of view, it was an excellent reason to give to the people of Anti-suyu. The great wars of the Incas were, to some extent, a heavy drain upon the people, but the recruiting was managed with such skill, and was so equally divided among a number of provinces, that it was not much felt.
