|Table of Contents
|CHAPTER 7TH. [p.622]
How the Sun was made and what took place afterwards.
In the thirteenth year of this second cycle of thirteen, which is in the twenty-sixth year after the deluge, we have seen how the gods agreed to make the sun, and how they made war in order to give it something to eat, Quiçalcoatl wanted to make his son the sun, of whom he was the father hut who had no mother, and at the same time talocatecli, the god of water, made to himself a son by Chalchiutli, 12 his wife, which is the moon, eating nothing until (here there is a lacuna in the original), and they drew blood from their ears, 24 and with this they fasted, and they drew blood from their ears, and their body in their prayers and sacrifices; and this being done Quiçalcoatl took his son and heated him red hot in a great fire, from whence he issued as a sun to illumine the earth; and after the fire died out, Talocatecli, 25 came and threw his own son in the cinders from whence he issued forth as the moon, for which reason he appears ashy colored and obscure. In the last year of this thirteen, the sun began to give his light, for before that time it had always been night, and the moon began to run after the sun, and never to catch up with him, and they traversed the air perpetually without ever arriving at the heavens.