According to Sahagun’s description of the Mexican response to the Spanish, Moctezuma gave a speech that was similar to Cortés’. It’s probable that the Tlatelolcan informants of the friar mimicked Cortés’s words, “Thou hast come to arrive on earth,” after learning the philosophy supporting Cortés’s claim to sovereignty. You have come to rule your city, Mexico; you have arrived to sit on your mat, on your seat, which I have briefly cared over and protected for you. Because the monarchs who had come to watch you only a short while ago—Itzcoatl, Moctezuma the Elder, Axayacatl, Tizoc, and Auitzol—have left from this world.
This rendition of the speech identifies the five tlatoani, or kings, who had ruled before Moctezuma II and mimics the paratactic style used in Sahagun’s Nahuatl text. However, much as Cortés’s version does not identify him as the returning Quetzalcoatl, Moctezuma does not name Cortés as such, even if it suggests that he is a teotl or teule (god). Only in early sections of the book does such identification occur, when the Spaniards were given the god’s accoutrements or clothing while they were still on board their ships.
Although Bernal Díaz’s history and Cortés’s five letters both mention the tale of the Quetzalcoatl’s prophesied disappearance and return to recover the crown, the term Quetzalcoatl does not exist in either work. Like a third word in a triangle of yearning between Moctezuma and Cortés, his competitor, the god’s name is concealed. Furthermore, part of the unclear transference that unites the two individuals is the Aztec ruler’s standing as a monarch who was revered as a god by his people. For while Moctezuma’s opening sentence in Cortés’s second letter to Moctezuma ties Cortés to the legendary “chieftain” of long ago, who, like Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, seems to have been considered semidivine, it also disproves the notion that Moctezuma held such status:
I am aware that [Moctezuma’s people] have informed you, among other things, that I am a deity and that the walls of my homes are made of gold. As you can see, the dwellings are made of clay, lime, and stone. Then he lifted his clothing to reveal his body to me, adding, “See that I am of flesh and blood like you and all other men, and I am mortal and substantial.” as he clasped his arms and trunk in his hands. Observe how they have misled you.
Insisting that he is mortal “like you,” Moctezuma links the misconception about his divinity to the hope of a gold city that so many conquistadors would hold onto for years to come as they fought their way across North and South America in search of Quivira and El Dorado. Neither Cortés’ nor Moctezuma’s divinity is any more genuine than the other. The only thing we can be certain of is that they are equal. Moctezuma is welcomed by Cortés as a rival, a brother, and a friend. According to Aristotle, when the adversaries are not sworn foes but rather friends, family, or allies, the tragic struggle best arouses fear and sympathy.
René Girard’s analysis of tragedy in Violence and the Sacred replaces the traditional terminology with Freudian psychodynamics, enhancing our comprehension of how political conflicts are frequently rooted in mimetic wants rather than ideological differences. And Girard’s theories clarify the competition between Cortés and Moctezuma, despite the fact that they may seem absurd in the face of cultural differences. From the time Cortés discovers the presence of the Mexica, even before discovering the exact location or size of his realm, he desires what Moctezuma possesses. Girard states that “the rival desires the same object as the subject” and that “the subject desires the object because the rival desires it,” rather than “rivalry arising because of the fortuitous convergence of two desires upon the same object.”
Not because it is the sole means of completing the conquest, but rather because Moctezuma is surrounded by this legendary reputation, Cortés aspires to be a deity, an incarnation of Quetzalcoatl. When we see the conflict from Moctezuma’s point of view as well, the two adversaries are seen as mirror images of one another, and the rivalry is resolved through the Quetzalcoatl myth on a semidivine level.
According to Girard (Violence 161), “To say that the monstrous double is a god or that he is purely imaginary is to say the same thing in different terms.” It is my belief that Cortés and Moctezuma are hideous clones of one other, with their striking cultural differences barely masking their shared fate and interest. Their shared position becomes the absolutist seat of authority, which they contest (Moctezuma). Girard states that the antagonists of the plot are obligated to a reciprocal relationship of alternating kudos (fortune) in classical tragedy, referring specifically to Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus: “When one of the ‘brothers’ assumes the role of father and king, the other cannot but feel himself to be the disinherited son.”
This explains why the antagonists seldom ever recognize that their engagement is mutual. The Quetzalcoatl stories propagated by Cortés and Sahagun did in fact kinship Cortés and Moctezuma. Cortés claims the unidentified chieftain from the east as their common ancestor, but the Mexica rulers claim Quetzalcoatl as their ancestor and identify Cortés as his descendent in the “native” version. Furthermore, the events that followed the conquest were marked by a succession of cortés, Cuauhtémoc, Moctezuma, and their successors. at the first “act,”
Cortés arrived at Tenochtitlan, was warmly welcomed by Moctezuma, and then captured his opponent, imprisoning him in the palace for weeks while under Spanish protection. However, Moctezuma’s power decreased the longer he was held captive. His death eliminated his ability to exert pacifying authority over the citizens of the city and left the Spaniards vulnerable to the attack known as the noche triste on June 30, 1520, when Moctezuma’s people retaliated, killing thousands of Tlascalans and hundreds of Spaniards.
Cortés knew full well that his chances of success rested in usurping the Mexican monarchy, but his early triumph simply made him more open to challenge after challenge from other Spaniards and vengeance from the Mexican people.