The Other Conquest (1998)

Elpidia Carrillo: Tecuichpo, Doña Isabel

Quotes 

• Hernando Cortés : [in Spanish, to Topiltzin]  Think what you will of us, but our missionaries have come to this godforsaken land only to save your souls.

  Tecuichpo : [in Nahuatl, "translating" to Topiltzin]  Their missionaries want our souls... but they don't know where to look for them.

• Hernando Cortés : [passing sentence on Topiltzin]  Captain Cristóbal Quijano of Seville will carry out the whipping of the Indian named Tepilsin -

  Tecuichpo : [interrupts]  Topiltzin! Cuauhtlahtohuac Topiltzin!

  Notario Ramón Quevedo : Should I listen to her?

  Hernando Cortés : No.

  [pause] 

  Hernando Cortés : Call him Tomás.

• Tecuichpo : How can you not realize that you're not what you think you are!

  Hernando Cortés : I am Don Hernando Cortés, Governor and Captain General of New Spain by the work and grace of this hand and of my own words. I have never needed anyone else!

• Hernando Cortés : [referring to the young friar who is "renouncing" to Aztec beliefs in Topiltzin's name]  Who is this sodomite? Why is he, and not Friar Diego, pronouncing Topiltzin's renouncement?

  Tecuichpo : Perhaps because Friar Diego doesn't approve of how you pay homage to the Lord, Don Hernando.

• Hernando Cortés : [Cortés slaps Tecuichpo]  I don't give a damn about your people!

  Tecuichpo : [She stares at him and exits the room] 

  Hernando Cortés : [to himself]  It is you I care for.

• Fray Diego de La Coruña : I'm not responsible for what they do in the name of God!

  Tecuichpo : Why have you come to take away what is ours?

• Tecuichpo : [Tecuichpo dictates to Topiltzin, who is forging a letter from Hernán Cortés to Emperor Charles V]  If laws must be broken so that I can rule... laws shall be broken.

• Fray Diego de La Coruña : What a strange Spanish class you were having! It might be the acoustics, but from over there... it sounded as if you two were barking.

  Tecuichpo : Some things can only be said in Mexican, Your Excellency.

  Fray Diego de La Coruña : Oh, yes, such as?

  Topiltzin : [in Nahuatl]  Tiquilnamiqui.

  Fray Diego de La Coruña : And that is?

  Topiltzin : [first lines in Spanish]  To search in the deepest part of yourself... both with your heart and with your liver.

• [Tecuichpo and Topiltzin make love in the monastery] 

  Tecuichpo : [in Nahuatl]  We are made of one piece.

  Topiltzin : [in Nahuatl]  Tecuichpo... the survival of our blood depends on us.

• Tecuichpo : [in Nahuatl, to Hernán Cortés]  My lord, my unending sorrow, you can harm me no more.

  [clutching her womb] 

  Tecuichpo : This is my body, this is my blood.

  [switches to Spanish, so he understands] 

  Tecuichpo : Make my blood flow if you must. It shall not be in vain.