[Footnote 1:  Sir George A. Cox, The Science of Mythology and Folk Lore, p. 96.]

Some later writers say that the drink which Quetzalcoatl quaffed was to confer immortality.  This is not stated in the earliest versions of the myth.  The beverage is health-giving and intoxicating, and excites the desire to seek Tlapallan, but not more.  It does not, as the Soma of the Vedas, endow with unending life.

Nevertheless, there is another myth which countenances this view and explains it.  It was told in the province of Meztitlan, a mountainous country to the northwest of the province of Vera Cruz.  Its inhabitants spoke the Nahuatl tongue, but were never subject to the Montezumas.  Their chief god was Tezcatlipoca, and it was said of him that on one occasion he slew Ometochtli (Two Rabbits), the god of wine, at the latter’s own request, he believing that he thus would be rendered immortal, and that all others who drank of the beverage he presided over would die.  His death, they added, was indeed like the stupor of a drunkard, who, after his lethargy has passed, rises healthy and well.  In this sense of renewing life after death, he presided over the native calendar, the count of years beginning with Tochtli, the Rabbit.[1] Thus we see that this is a myth of the returning seasons, and of nature waking to life again after the cold months ushered in by the chill rains of the late autumn.  The principle of fertility is alone perennial, while each individual must perish and die.  The God of Wine in Mexico, as in Greece, is one with the mysterious force of reproduction.

[Footnote 1:  Gabriel de Chaves, Relacion de la Provincia de Meztitlan, 1556, in the Colecion de Documentos Ineditos del Archivo de Indias, Tom. iv, p. 536.]

No writer has preserved such numerous traditions about the tricks of Tezcatlipoca in Tollan, as Father Sahagun.  They are, no doubt, almost verbally reported as he was told them, and as he wrote his history first in the Aztec tongue, they preserve all the quaintness of the original tales.  Some of them appear to be idle amplifications of story tellers, while others are transparent myths.  I shall translate a few of them quite literally, beginning with that of the mystic beverage.

The time came for the luck of Quetzalcoatl and the Toltecs to end; for there appeared against them three sorcerers, named Vitzilopochtli, Titlacauan and Tlacauepan,[1] who practiced many villanies in the city of Tullan.  Titlacauan began them, assuming the disguise of an old man of small stature and white hairs.  With this figure he approached the palace of Quetzalcoatl and said to the servants:—­

[Footnote 1:  Titlacauan was the common name of Tezcatlipoca.  The three sorcerers were really Quetzalcoatl’s three brothers, representing the three other cardinal points.]

“I wish to see the King and speak to him.”

“Away with you, old man;” said the servants.  “You cannot see him.  He is sick.  You would only annoy him.”