"This has turned out well for us. First they must cut them [the flowers],"[188] said the Lords of Xibalba. "Where shall they go to get the flowers?" they said to themselves.
"Surely you will give us our flowers tomorrow early;[189] go, then, to cut them,"[190] the Lords of Xibalba said to Hunahpú and Xbalanqué.
"Very well," they replied. "At dawn[191] we shall play ball again," they said upon leaving.
And immediately the boys entered the House of Knives, the second place of torture in Xibalba. And what the lords wanted was that they would be cut to pieces by the knives, and would be quickly killed; that is what they wished in their hearts.
But the [boys] did not die. They spoke at once to the knives[192] and said to them:
"Yours shall be the flesh of all the animals," they said to the knives. And they did not move again, but all the knives were quiet.
Thus they passed the night in the House of Knives, and calling all the ants, they said to them: "Come, Cutting Ants,[193] come, zompopos,[194] and all of you go at once, go and bring all the kinds of flowers that we must cut for the lords."
"Very well," they said, and all the ants went to bring the flowers from the gardens of Hun-Camé and Vucub-Camé.
Previously [the lords] had warned the guards of the flowers of Xibalba: "Take care of our flowers, do not let them be taken by the boys who shall come to cut them. But how could [the boys] see and cut the flowers?[195] Not at all. Watch, then, all night!"
"Very well," they answered. But the guards of the garden heard nothing. Needlessly they shouted up into the branches of the trees in the garden. There they were all night, repeating their same shouts and songs.
"Ixpurpuvec! Ixpurpuvec!" one shouted.
"Puhuyú! Puhuyú!" the other answered.[196]
Puhuyú was the name of the two who watched the garden of Hun-Camé and Vucub-Camé.[197] But they did not notice the ants who were robbing them of what they were guarding, turning around and moving here and there, cutting the flowers, climbing the trees to cut the flowers, and gathering them from the ground at the foot of the trees.
[188] Nabe mi x-e ca chaco.
[189] Quitzih ta agab ch'y ya ri ca cotzih. Here agab, agabá means at dawn, or daybreak, when night is over, and only by following this interpretation does this part of the story agree with that which appears farther on.
[190] Ca chacom puch. Until now, the meaning of the verb chacón from chacá and chaqué, "to cut bunches of flowers," has escaped translators of the Popol Vuh.
[191] Agabá the same as in the previous paragraph.
[192] Ta x-e cha chire cha. Brasseur de Bourbourg observes here that the Quiché delighted in these plays on words. In this entire chapter the author uses the word cha, which means to talk, to say, lance, knife, glass, etc. The same may be said of the word cah used, as has been said in a previous note, as an adjective, a verb, and an adverb.
[193] Chai-zanic, cutting ants.
[194] Chequen-zanic, red or black ants which travel by night and cut the tender leaves and flowers. In Guatemala they are commonly known as zompopos, a Mexican word.
[195] ¿Ana-vi x-pe vi r'ilo ca chacón cumal? Again the verb chacón, in the sense of cutting branches or flowers.
[196] Purpuvec and puhuy are the names which the Quiché and Cakchiquel still give to the red or barn owl. They are words which imitate the call of these birds. "Puhuy, Pupuek, a night bird which travels when the moon is up, at night," says the Vocabulario de los P. P. Franciscanos. The birds of which the text speaks here seem to be rather the bird commonly called the churn owl. This word imitates the choppy call of those birds which are to be heard at a distance in the night. Puhuy is the Maya name of one of these night birds. The Vocabulario de las lenguas Quiché y Cakchiquel defines these words as follows: Xpurpugüek, cuerpo-ruin; Puhuyú, chotacabra. Both names apply to the same bird, a member of the Caprimulgidae family.
[197] Ri Puhuyú u bi e caib chi chahal ticon, u ticon Hun-Camé, Vucub-Camé.
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