Jonathan Davis

Omnium scientiarum princeps Salmantica docet²
The streets are bustling as the new semester begins,
Two imberbes³ enter an unmarked door, climb a stair, and sit in the corner of a noisy,
crowded tavern.
“Why are you leaving, hermanito?⁴”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Someday you’ll know.”
“Someday I’ll never see you again.”
“Someday you will read about me in a book.”
“Someday you’re going to write a book?”
“Someday others will write books about me.”
“I thought we were like brothers. What about your women, Hernanito?
“Someday they will hear about me from
someone who had read a book about me.”
“Some days you are the most audacious person,
Like the King of Salamanca.”
“I read a book; read and apply its principles, you will go far.”⁵
“You’re barely an hidalgo⁶.”
“Someday I will reign victoriously in my own country.”
“Some days I have no idea what you’re talking about,
But you always have cojones!”⁷
“Lawyers defend criminals, fools and themselves; I shall rule a new world.”
“You are master of words,
Like the poet who composed El Cid.”
“I’ll be more important that el Cid or Colón!”
“Have you told don Martín?”
“I’ve told no one, including you. Don’t forget that.”
You’re only 16.”
“There is a brave new world awaiting me.”
“But where is this brave new world?”
“The less you know the better. Someday…”
“I will read about it; I still can’t believe you are leaving me.”
“I leave you my women as your inheritance.
“No more walks along these hallowed streets, hermanito.”
“No more boring lectures sitting on benches in a freezing cold
room filled with sneezing, sniveling children of the nobles.”
“You really liked Julius Cæsar’s Gallic Wars; I hated Latin class, Hernanito.”
“No more standing in the freezing cold wind waiting for some
horse’s arse to allow us to enter, to bow to him, before we sit own.”
“This historic place, with its beautiful, monumental buildings is magical to me,
hermanito.”
“There are places that are far more beautiful, monumental and magical. Someday…”
“When will you leave?”
“This will be our last drink together. My plan’s success depends on your discretion.”

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    A college drop-out set sail in his mind’s eye from the Old World to conquer a new world, and there to build a newer new world more to his liking. Legally speaking, the conquest of Mexico was a crime because he did not have permission from the King of Spain. But if Julius Cæsar and Machiavelli had been his teachers, he would receive an A+ from each. After his victory over Moctezuma at Tenochtitlán, he had eleven children by six women, none were his legal wife (Spanish men were forbidden to marry Native-Americans). However, like many conquistarores, he took care of his family in his will, legitimizing his children before he died at the age of 62 in Spain, from what Yankee tourists to Mexico now call “Montezuma’s Revenge,” His bones were sent back to Mexico as per his request; they have been lost and found numerous times. Some would like to send his bones back to Spain; others would like to send his bones to join his soul in Hell, though anyone who is a practicing Catholic owes a debt of gratitude to Hernán Cortés (1485 – 1542), the man who brought that faith to Mexico.

  And the bones of the man who fought the French on the Cinco de Mayo with Benito Juárez? He ruled Mexico with an iron fist for 34 years but fled a revolution in 1910 (President Taft met him in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez in 1909 to offer U.S. support). He was the first president of Mexico born a Mexican, not a Spaniard, the first Mexican president to claim descent from the Aztecs, and he brought polygamous Mormons and pacifist Mennonites to Mexico to improve the economy. He corresponded with Cuban-Spanish revolutionary José Martí about the Yankee threat to Latin America, but he sold Mexico out to the Yankees. A bigger sin? Porfirio Díaz’s (1830-1915) bones are still in Paris waiting to come home to Mexico; he never really knew WWI was going on nearby.

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Dedicated to NMSU Professor Emeritus Jesus J. Barquet (https://langling.nmsu.edu/departmentdirectory/jesusj.barquet.html), from whom I took Literature of the Spanish Conquest and Spanish-American Film.

¹ Adapted from Julius Cæsar by William Shakespeare

² The Principles of All Sciences are Taught at Salamanca

³ Males who are too young to have facial hair

⁴ “My little brother,” a term of affection; Hernanito is the diminutive for Hernán.

⁵ The Prince by Machiavelli
⁶ [ee-DAHL-go] = low-ranking nobleman, who earned or bought his title

⁷ [koh-HOH-nehs] = “balls” (testicular fortitude).