



Produced by John B. Hare






APU OLLANTAY

A Drama Of The Time Of The Incas

Sovereigns Of Peru

About A.D. 1470


First Reduced To Writing By Dr. Valdez, Cuba Of Sicuani A.D. 1770


The Original Manuscript Copied By Dr. Justo Pastor Justiniani


This Justiniani Text Copied At Laris, In April 1863, By Clements R. Markham


A Free Translation Into English By Sir Clements Markham, K.C.B. [1910]



INTRODUCTION


The drama was cultivated by the Incas, and dramatic performances were
enacted before them.   Garcilasso de la Vega, Molina, and Salcamayhua
are the authorities who received and have recorded the information given
by the Amautas respecting the Inca drama.  Some of these dramas, and
portions of others, were preserved in the memories of members of Inca
and Amauta families.  The Spanish priests, especially the Jesuits of
Juli, soon discovered the dramatic aptitude of the people.  Plays were
composed and acted, under priestly auspices, which contained songs and
other fragments of the ancient Inca drama.  These plays were called
'Autos Sacramentales.'

But complete Inca dramas were also preserved in the memories of members
of the Amauta caste and, until the rebellion of 1781, they were acted.
The drama of Ollantay was first reduced to writing and arranged for
acting by Dr. Don Antonio Valdez, the Cura of Tinto.  It was acted
before his friend Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui[1] in about 1775.  Taking
the name of his maternal ancestor, the Inca Tupac Amaru, the ill-fated
Condorcanqui rose in rebellion, was defeated, taken, and put to death
under torture, in the great square of Cuzco.  In the monstrous sentence
'the representation of dramas as well as all other festivals which the
Indians celebrate in memory of their Incas' was prohibited.[2]  This
is a clear proof that before 1781 these Quichua dramas were acted.



The original manuscript of Valdez was copied by his friend Don Justo
Pastor Justiniani, and this copy was inherited by his son.  There was
another copy in the convent of San Domingo at Cuzco, but it is corrupt,
and there are several omissions and mistakes of a copyist.  Dr. Valdez
died, at a very advanced age, in 1816.  In 1853 the original manuscript
was in the possession of his nephew and heir, Don Narciso Cuentas of
Tinta.

The Justiniani copy was, in 1853, in the possession of Dr. Don Pablo
Justiniani, Cura of Laris, and son of Don Justo Pastor Justiniani.  He
is a descendant of the Incas.[3]  In April 1853 I went to Laris, a
secluded valley of the Andes, and made a careful copy of the drama of
Ollantay.  From this Justiniani text my first very faulty line-for-line
translation was made in 1871, as well as the present free translation.

The first printed notice of Ollantay appeared in the Museo Erudito, Nos.
5 to 9, published at Cuzco in 1837, and edited by Don Jose Palacios.
The next account of the drama, with extracts, was in the 'Antiguedades
Peruanas,' a work published in 1851 jointly by Dr. von Tschudi and Don
Mariaiao Rivero of Arequipa.  The complete text, from the copy in the
convent of San Domingo at Cuzco, was first published at Vienna in 1853
by Dr. von Tschudi in his 'Die Kechua Sprache.  It was obtained for him
by Dr. Ruggendas of Munich.  The manuscript was a corrupt version, and
in very bad condition, in parts illegible from damp.  In 1868 Don Jose
Barranca published a Spanish translation, from the Dominican text of von
Tschudi.  The learned Swiss naturalist, von Tschudi, published a revised
edition of his translation at Vienna in 1875, with a parallel German
translation.  In 1871 I printed the Justiniani text with a literal,
line-for-line translation, but with many mistakes, since corrected; and
in 1874, a Peruvian, Don Jose Fernandez Nodal, published the Quichua
text with a Spanish translation.

In 1878 Gavino Pacheco Zegarra published his version of Ollantay, with a
free translation in French.  His text is a manuscript of the drama which
he found in his uncle's library.  Zegarra, as a native of Peru whose
language was Quichua, had great advantages.  He was a very severe, and
often unfair, critic of his predecessors.

The work of Z