him to endeavour to raise the royal family far above all others.
The play opens with a dialogue between Ollantay and Piqui Chaqui, his page, a witty and humorous lad. Ollantay talks of his love for the Princess Cusi Coyllur, and wants Piqui Chaqui to take a message to her, while the page dwells on the danger of loving in such a quarter, and evades the question of taking a message. Then to them enters the Uillac Uma, or High Priest of the Sun, who remonstrates with Ollantay—a scene of great solemnity, and very effective.
The next scene is in the Queen's palace. Anahuarqui, the Queen, is discovered with the Princess Cusi Coyllur, who bitterly laments the absence of Ollantay. To them enters the Inca Pachacuti, quite ignorant that his daughter has not only married Ollantay in secret, but that she is actually with child by him. Her mother keeps her secret. The Inca indulges in extravagant expressions of love for his daughter. Then boys and girls enter dancing and singing a harvest song. Another very melancholy yarahui is sung; both capable of being turned by the Princess into presages of the fate of herself and her husband.
In the third scene Ollantay prefers his suit to the Inca Pachacuti in octosyllabic quatrains, the first and last
married a daughter of the chief of Oma, the fourth married a girl of Tacucaray, the wife of the fifth was a daughter of a Cuzco chief. The sixth Inca married a daughter of the chief of Huayllacan, the seventh married a daughter of the chief of Ayamarca, and the eighth went to Anta for a wife. This Anta lady was the mother of Pachacuti. The wife of Pachacuti, named Anahuarqui, was a daughter of the chief of Choco. There was no rule about marrying sisters when Pachacuti succeeded. He introduced it by making his son Tupac Yupanqui marry his daughter Mama Ocllo, but this was quite unprecedented. The transgression of a rule which he had just made may account for his extreme severity.
