Yet
the Babylonians constructed no epic poem like the Iliad, or at any
rate none such has yet been found.
the Babylonians constructed no epic poem like the Iliad, or at any
rate none such has yet been found.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v01 - A to Apu
51 (#65) ##############################################
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
.
51
(
"Forgive me, poor old love, for insulting your misfortunes.
Those scoundrels whom we always whipped have profited by my
sleep to pare down your frontiers; but little or great, rich or poor,
you are my mother, and I love you as a faithful son! Here is
Corsica, where the giant of our age was born; here is Toulouse,
where I first saw the light; here is Nancy, where I felt my heart
awakened - where, perhaps, she whom I call my Æglé waits for
me still! France! Thou hast a temple in my soul; this arm is
thine; thou shalt find me ever ready to shed my blood to the last
drop in defending or avenging thee!
ASSYRIAN LITER-
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND
ATURE
BY CRAWFORD H. TOY
ECENT discoveries have carried the beginnings of civilization
farther and farther back into the remote past. Scholars are
not agreed as to what region can lay claim to the greatest
literary antiquity. The oldest historical records are found in Egypt
and Babylonia, and each of these lands has its advocates, who claim
for it priority in culture. The data now at our command are not suf-
ficient for the decision of this question. It may be doubted whether
any one spot on the globe will ever be shown to have precedence in
time over all others, — whether, that is, it will appear that the civili-
zation of the world has proceeded from a single centre. But though
we are yet far from having reached the very beginnings of culture,
we know that they lie farther back than the wildest dreams of half a
century ago would have imagined. Established kingdoms existed in
Babylonia in the fourth millennium before the beginning of our era;
royal inscriptions have been found which are with great probability
assigned to about the year 3800 B. C. These are, it is true, of the
simplest description, consisting of a few sentences of praise to a deity
or brief notices of a campaign or of the building of a temple; but
they show that the art of writing was known, and that the custom
existed of recording events of the national history. We may thence
infer the existence of a settled civilization and of some sort of literary
productiveness.
The Babylonian-Assyrian writings with which we are acquainted
may be divided into the two classes of prose and poetry. The former
class consists of royal inscriptions (relating to military campaigns and
the construction of temples), chronological tables (eponym canons),
## p. 52 (#66) ##############################################
52
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
legal documents (sales, suits, etc. ), grammatical tables (paradigms and
vocabularies), lists of omens and lucky and unlucky days, and letters
and reports passing between kings and governors; the latter class
includes cosmogonic poems, an epic poem in twelve books, detached
mythical narratives, magic formulas and incantations, and prayers to
deities (belonging to the ritual service of the temples). The prose
pieces, with scarcely an exception, belong to the historical period, and
may be dated with something like accuracy. The same thing is true
of a part of the poetical material, particularly the prayers; but the
cosmogonic and other mythical poems appear to go back, at least so
far as their material is concerned, to a very remote antiquity, and it
is difficult to assign them a definite date.
Whether this oldest poetical material belongs to the Semitic Baby-
lonians or to a non-Semitic (Sumerian-Accadian) people is a question
not yet definitely decided. The material which comes into consid-
eration for the solution of this problem is mainly linguistic. Along
with the inscriptions, which are obviously in the Semitic-Babylonian
language, are found others composed of words apparently strange.
These are held by some scholars to represent a priestly, cryptographic
writing, by others to be true Semitic words in slightly altered form,
and by others still to belong to a non-Semitic tongue. This last view
supposes that the ancient poetry comes, in substance at any rate,
from a non-Semitic people who spoke this tongue; while on the other
hand, it is maintained that this poetry is so interwoven into Semitic
life that it is impossible to regard it as of foreign origin. The
majority of Semitic scholars are now of the opinion that the origin
of this early literature is foreign However this may be, it comes to
us in Babylonian dress, it has been elaborated by Babylonian hands,
has thence found its way into the literature of other Semitic peoples,
and for our purposes may be accepted as Babylonian. In any case it
carries us back to very early religious conceptions.
The cosmogonic poetry is in its outlines not unlike that of Hesiod,
but develops the ruder ideas at greater length. In the shortest (but
probably not the earliest) form of the cosmogony, the beginning of
all things is found in the watery abyss. Two abysmal powers
(Tiamat and Apsu), represented as female and male, mingle their
waters, and from them proceed the gods. The list of deities (as in
the Greek cosmogony) seems to represent several dynasties, a concep-
tion which may embody the belief in the gradual organization of the
world. After two less-known gods, called Lahmu and Lahamu, come
the more familiar figures of later Babylonian writing, Anu and Ea. At
this point the list unfortunately breaks off, and the creative function
which may have been assigned to the gods is lost, or has not yet
been discovered. The general similarity between this account and
## p. 53 (#67) ##############################################
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
53
that of Gen. i. is obvious: both begin with the abysmal chaos. Other
agreements between the two cosmogonies will be pointed out below.
The most interesting figure in this fragment is that of Tiamat. We
shall presently see her in the character of the enemy of the gods.
The two conceptions of her do not agree together perfectly, and the
priority in time must be assigned to the latter. The idea that the
world of gods and men and material things issued out of the womb
of the abyss is a philosophic generalization that is more naturally
assigned to a period of reflection.
In the second cosmogonic poem the account is more similar to that
of the second chapter of Genesis, and its present form originated in
or near Babylon. Here we have nothing of the primeval deep, but
are told how the gods made a beautiful land, with rivers and trees;
how Babylon was built and Marduk created man, and the Tigris and
the Euphrates, and the beasts and cities and temples. This also must
be looked on as a comparatively late form of the myth, since its hero
is Marduk, god of Babylon. As in the Bible account, men are created
before beasts, and the region of their first abode seems to be the same
as the Eden of Genesis.
Let us now turn to the poem in which the combat between Tiamat
and Marduk forms the principal feature. For some unexplained
reason Tiamat rebels against the gods. Collecting her hosts, among
them frightful demon shapes of all imaginable forms, she advances
for the purpose of expelling the gods from their seats. The affrighted
deities turn for protection to the high gods, Anu and Ea, who, how-
ever, recoil in terror from the hosts of the dragon Tiamat. Anshar
then applies to Marduk. The gods are invited to a feast, the situ-
ation is described, and Marduk is invited to lead the heavenly hosts
against the foe. He agrees on condition that he shall be clothed
with absolute power, so that he shall only have to say “Let it be,
and it shall be. To this the gods assent: a garment is placed before
him, to which he says “Vanish, and it vanishes, and when he com-
mands it to appear, it is present. The hero then dons his armor and
advances against the enemy. He takes Tiamat and slays her, routs
her host, kills her consort Kingu, and utterly destroys the rebel-
lion. Tiamat he cuts in twain. Out of one half of her he forms the
heavens, out of the other half the earth, and for the gods Anu and
Bel and Ea he makes a heavenly palace, like the abyss itself in
extent. To the great gods also he assigns positions, forms the stars,
establishes the year and month and the day. At this point the his-
tory is interrupted, the tablet being broken. The creation of the
heavenly bodies is to be compared with the similar account in
Gen. i. ; whether this poem narrates the creation of the rest of the
world it is impossible to say.
## p. 54 (#68) ##############################################
54
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
one.
In this history of the rebellion of Tiamat against the gods we have
a mythical picture of some natural phenomenon, perhaps of the con-
Alict between the winter and the enlivening sun of summer. The
poem appears to contain elements of different dates. The rude char-
acter of some of the procedures suggests an early time: Marduk slays
Tiamat by driving the wind into her body; the warriors who accom-
pany her have those composite forms familiar to us from Babylo-
nian and Egyptian statues, paintings, and seals, which are the product
of that early thought for which there was no essential difference
between man and beast. The festival in which the gods carouse is
of a piece with the divine Ethiopian feasts of Homer. On the other
hand, the idea of the omnipotence of the divine word, when Marduk
makes the garment disappear and reappear, is scarcely a primitive
It is substantially identical with the Biblical “Let it be, and it
was. ” It is probable that the poem had a long career, and in success-
ive recensions received the coloring of different generations. Tiamat
herself has a long history. Here she is a dragon who assaults the
gods; elsewhere, as we have seen, she is the mother of the gods;
here also her body forms the heaven and the earth. She appears in
Gen. i. 2 as the Tehom, the primeval abyss. In the form of the
hostile dragon she is found in numerous passages of the Old Testa-
ment, though under different names. She is an enemy of Yahwe,
god of Israel, and in the New Testament (Rev. xii. ) the combat
between Marduk and Tiamat is represented under the form of a fight
between Michael and the Dragon. In Christian literature Michael has
been replaced by St. George. The old Babylonian conception has been
fruitful of poetry, representing, as it does, in grand form the struggle
between the chaotic and the formative forces of the universe.
The most considerable of the old Babylonian poems, so far as
length and literary form are concerned, is that which has been com-
monly known as the Izdubar epic. The form of the name is not
certain : Mr. Pinches has recently proposed, on the authority of a
Babylonian text, to write it Gilgamesh, and this form has been
adopted by a number of scholars. The poem (discovered by George
Smith in 1872) is inscribed on twelve tablets, each tablet apparently
containing a separate episode.
The first tablet introduces the hero as the deliverer of his country
from the Elamites, an event which seems to have taken place before
2000 B. C. Of the second, third, fourth, and fifth tablets, only frag-
ments exist, but it appears that Gilgamesh slays the Elamite tyrant.
The sixth tablet recounts the love of Ishtar for the hero, to whom
she proposes marriage, offering him the tribute of the land.
The
reason he assigns for his rejection of the goddess is the number and
fatal character of her loves. Among the objects of her affection were
## p. 55 (#69) ##############################################
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
55
a wild eagle, a lion, a war-horse, a ruler, and a husbandman; and all
these came to grief. Ishtar, angry at her rejection, complains to her
father, Anu, and her mother, Anatu, and begs them to avenge her
wrong. Anu creates a divine bull and sends it against Gilgamesh,
who, however, with the aid of his friend Eabani, slays the bull.
Ishtar curses Gilgamesh, but Eabani turns the curse against her.
The seventh tablet recounts how Ishtar descends to the underworld
seeking some better way of attacking the hero. The description of
the Babylonian Sheol is one of the most effective portions of the
poem, and with it George Smith connects a well-known poem which
relates the descent of Ishtar to the underworld. The goddess goes
down to the house of darkness from which there is no exit, and
demands admittance of the keeper; who, however, by command of
the queen of the lower world, requires her to submit to the condi-
tions imposed on all who enter. There are seven gates, at each of
which he removes some portion of her ornaments and dress. Ishtar,
thus unclothed, enters and becomes a prisoner. Meantime the upper
earth has felt her absence. All love and life has ceased. Yielding
to the persuasions of the gods, Ea sends a messenger to demand
the release of the goddess. The latter passes out, receiving at each
gate a portion of her clothing. This story of Ishtar's love belongs to
one of the earliest stages of religious belief. Not only do the gods
appear as under the control of ordinary human passions, but there is
no consciousness of material difference between man and beast. The
Greek parallels are familiar to all. Of these ideas we find no trace
in the later Babylonian and Assyrian literature, and the poem was
doubtless interpreted by the Babylonian sages in allegorical fashion.
In the eighth and ninth tablets the death of Eabani is recorded,
and the grief of Gilgamesh. The latter then wanders forth in search
of Hasisadra, the hero of the Flood-story. After various adventures
he reaches the abode of the divinized man, and from him learns the
story of the Flood, which is given in the eleventh tablet.
This story is almost identical with that of the Book of Genesis.
The God Bel is determined to destroy mankind, and Hasisadra
receives directions from Ea to build a ship, and take into it provis-
ions and goods and slaves and beasts of the field. The ship is cov-
ered with bitumen. The flood is sent by Shamash (the sun-god).
Hasisadra enters the ship and shuts the door. So dreadful is the
tempest that the gods in affright ascend for protection to the heaven
of Anu. Six days the storm lasts. On the seventh comes calm.
Hasisadra opens a window and sees the mountain of Nizir, sends forth
a dove, which returns; then a swallow, which returns; then a raven,
which does not return; then, knowing that the flood has passed, sends
out the animals, builds an altar, and offers sacrifice, over which the
## p. 56 (#70) ##############################################
56
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
gods gather like flies. Ea remonstrates with Bel, and urges that here-
after, when he is angry with men, instead of sending a deluge, he
shall send wild beasts, who shall destroy them. Thereupon Bel makes
a compact with Hasisadra, and the gods take him and his wife and
people and place them in a remote spot at the mouth of the rivers.
It is now generally agreed that the Hebrew story of the Flood is
taken from the Babylonian, either mediately through the Canaanites
(for the Babylonians had occupied Canaan before the sixteenth cen-
tury B. C. ), or immediately during the exile in the sixth century.
The Babylonian account is more picturesque, the Hebrew more re-
strained and solemn. The early polytheistic features have been
excluded by the Jewish editors.
In addition to these longer stories there are a number of legends
of no little poetical and mythical interest. In the cycle devoted to
the eagle there is a story of the struggle between the eagle and the
serpent. The latter complains to the sun-god that the eagle has
eaten his young. The god suggests a plan whereby the hostile bird
may be caught: the body of a wild ox is to be set as a snare. Out
of this plot, however, the eagle extricates himself by his sagacity.
In the second story the eagle comes to the help of a woman who is
struggling to bring a man-child (apparently Etana) into the world.
In the third is portrayed the ambition of the hero Etana to ascend to
heaven. The eagle promises to aid him in accomplishing his design.
Clinging to the bird, he rises with him higher and higher toward the
heavenly space, reaching the abode of Anu, and then the abode of
Ishtar. As they rise to height after height the eagle describes the
appearance of the world lying stretched out beneath: at first it rises
like a huge mountain out of the sea; then the ocean appears as a
girdle encircling the land, and finally but as a ditch a gardener digs
to irrigate his land. When they have risen so high that the earth is
scarcely visible, Etana cries to the eagle to stop; so he does, but his
strength is exhausted, and bird and man fall to the earth.
Another cycle of stories deals with the winds. The god Zu longs
to have absolute power over the world. To that end he lurks about
the door of the sun-god, the possessor of the tablets of fate whereby
he controls all things. Each morning before beginning his journey,
the sun-god steps out to send light showers over the world. Watch-
ing his opportunity, Zu glides in, seizes the tablets of fate, and flies
away and hides himself in the mountains. So great horror comes
over the world: it is likely to be scorched by the sun-god's burning
beams.
Anu calls on the storm-god Ramman to conquer Zu, but he
is frightened and declines the task, as do other gods. Here, unfor-
tunately, the tablet is broken, so that we do not know by whom the
normal order was finally restored.
## p. 57 (#71) ##############################################
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
57
In the collection of cuneiform tablets disinterred at Amarna in 1887
was found the curious story of Adapa. The demigod Adapa, the son
of Ea, fishing in the sea for the family of his lord, is overwhelmed by
the stormy south wind and cast under the waves. In anger he breaks
the wings of the wind, that it may no longer rage in the storm.
Anu, informed that the south wind no longer blows, summons Adapa
to his presence. Ea instructs his son to put on apparel of mourning,
present himself at Anu's gate, and there make friends with the por-
ters, Tammuz and Iszida, so that they may speak a word for him to
Anu; going into the presence of the royal deity, he will be offered
food and drink which he must reject, and raiment and oil which
he must accept. Adapa carries out the instructions of his father to
the letter. Anu is appeased, but laments that Adapa, by rejecting
heavenly food and drink, has lost the opportunity to become immor-
tal. This story, the record of which is earlier than the sixteenth
century B. C. , appears to contain two conceptions : it is a mythical
description of the history of the south wind, but its conclusion pre-
sents a certain parallelism with the end of the story of Eden in
Genesis; as there Adam, so here Adapa, fails of immortality because
he infringes the divine command concerning the divine food. We
have here a suggestion that the story in Genesis is one of the cycle
which dealt with the common earthly fact of man's mortality.
The legend of Dibbarra seems to have a historical basis. The god
Dibbarra has devastated the cities of Babylonia with bloody wars.
Against Babylon he has brought a hostile host and slain its people, so
that Marduk, the god of Babylon, curses him. And in like manner
he has raged against Erech, and is cursed by its goddess Ishtar. He
is charged with confounding the righteous and unrighteous in indis-
criminate destruction. But Dibbarra determines to advance against
the dwelling of the king of the gods, and Babylonia is to be further
desolated by civil war. It is a poetical account of devastating wars
as the production of a hostile diety. It is obvious that these legends
have many features in common with those of other lands, myths of
conflict between wind and sun, and the ambition of heroes to scale
the heights of heaven. How far these similarities are the independ-
ent products of similar situations, and how far the results of loans,
cannot at present be determined.
The moral-religious literature of the Babylonians is not inferior in
interest to the stories just mentioned. The hymns to the gods are
characterized by a sublimity and depth of feeling which remind us of
the odes of the Hebrew Psalter. The penitential hymns appear to
contain expressions of sorrow for sin, which would indicate a high
development of the religious consciousness. These hymns, apparently
a part of the temple ritual, probably belong to a relatively late stage
## p. 58 (#72) ##############################################
58
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
of history; but they are none the less proof that devotional feeling in
ancient times was not limited to any one country.
Other productions, such as the hymn to the seven evil spirits
(celebrating their mysterious power), indicate a lower stage of reli-
gious feeling; this is specially visible in the magic formulas, which
portray a very early stratum of religious history. They recall the
Shamanism of Central Asia and the rites of savage tribes; but there
is no reason to doubt that the Semitic religion in its early stages
contained this magic element, which is found all the world over.
Riddles and Proverbs are found among the Babylonians, as among
all peoples. Comparatively few have been discovered, and these pre-
sent nothing of peculiar interest. The following may serve as speci-
mens:–«What is that which becomes pregnant without conceiving,
fat without eating ? ” The answer seems to be "A cloud. ” “My coal-
brazier clothes me with a divine garment, my rock is founded in the
sea” (a volcano). "I dwell in a house of pitch and brick, but over
me glide the boats » (a canal). «He that says, “Oh, that I might
exceedingly avenge myself! ) draws from a waterless well, and rubs
the skin without oiling it. ” « When sickness is incurable and hunger
unappeasable, silver and gold cannot restore health nor appease hun-
ger. ” As the oven waxes old, so the foe tires of enmity. ” “The
life of yesterday goes on every day. ” “When the seed is not good,
no sprout comes forth. ”
The poetical form of all these pieces is characterized by that paral-
lelism of members with which we are familiar in the poetry of the
Old Testament. It is rhythmical, but apparently not metrical: the
harmonious flow of syllables in any one line, with more or less beats
or cadences, is obvious; but it does not appear that syllables were
combined into feet, or that there was any fixed rule for the num-
ber of syllables or beats in a line. So also strophic divisions may
be observed, such divisions naturally resulting from the nature of all
narratives. Sometimes the strophe seems to contain four lines, some-
times more. No strophic rule has yet been established; but it seems
not unlikely that when the longer poetical pieces shall have been
more definitely fixed in form, certain principles of poetical composition
will present themselves. The thought of the mythical pieces and the
prayers and hymns is elevated and imaginative. Some of this poetry
appears to have belonged to a period earlier than 2000 B. C.
Yet
the Babylonians constructed no epic poem like the Iliad, or at any
rate none such has yet been found. Their genius rather expressed
itself in brief or fragmentary pieces, like the Hebrews and the Arabs.
The Babylonian prose literature consists almost entirely of short
chronicles and annals. Royal inscriptions have been found covering
the period from 3000 B. C. to 539 B. C. There are eponym canons,
1
## p. 59 (#73) ##############################################
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
59
statistical lists, diplomatic letters, military reports; but none of these
rise to the dignity of history. Several connected books of chronicles
have indeed been found; there is a synchronistic book of annals of
Babylonia and Assyria, there is a long Assyrian chronicle, and there
are annalistic fragments. But there is no digested historical narrative,
which gives a clear picture of the general civil and political situation,
or any analysis of the characters of kings, generals, and governors, or
any inquiry into causes of events. It is possible that narratives having
a better claim to the name of history may yet be discovered, resem-
bling those of the Biblical Book of Kings; yet the Book of Kings is
scarcely history -- neither the Jews nor the Babylonians and Assyrians
seem to have had great power in this direction.
One of the most interesting collections of historical pieces is that
recently discovered at Amarna. Here, out of a mound which repre-
sents a palace of the Egyptian King Amenhotep IV. , were dug up
numerous letters which were exchanged between the kings of Babylo-
nia and Egypt in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and numerous
reports sent to the Egyptian government by Egyptian governors of
Canaanite cities. These tablets show that at this early time there was
lively communication between the Euphrates and the Nile, and they
give a vivid picture of the chaotic state of affairs in Canaan, which
was exposed to the assaults of enemies on all sides. This country
was then in possession of Egypt, but at a still earlier period it must
have been occupied by the Babylonians. Only in this way can we
account for the surprising fact that the Babylonian cuneiform script
and the Babylonian language form the means of communication
between the east and west and between Egypt and Canaan. The
literary value of these letters is not great; their interest is chiefly
historic and linguistic. The same thing is true of the contract
tablets, which are legal documents: these cover the whole area of
Babylonian history, and show that civil law attained a high state of
perfection; they are couched in the usual legal phrases.
The literary monuments mentioned above are all contained in
tablets, which have the merit of giving in general contemporaneous
records of the things described. But an account of Babylonian liter-
ature would be incomplete without mention of the priest Berosus.
Having, as priest of Bel, access to the records of the temples, he
wrote a history of his native land, in which he preserved the sub-
stance of a number of poetical narratives, as well as the ancient
accounts of the political history. The fragments of his work which
have been preserved (see Cory's Ancient Fragments') exhibit a
number of parallels with the contents of the cuneiform tablets.
Though he wrote in Greek (he lived in the time of Alexander the
Great), and was probably trained in the Greek learning of his time,
## p. 60 (#74) ##############################################
60
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
his work doubtless represents the spirit of Babylonian historical writ-
ing. So far as can be judged from the remains which have come
down to us, its style is of the annalistic sort which appears in the
old inscriptions and in the historical books of the Bible.
The Babylonian literature above described must be understood to
include the Assyrian. Civilization was first established in Babylonia,
and there apparently were produced the great epic poems and the
legends. But Assyria, when she succeeded to the headship of the
Mesopotamian valley, in the twelfth century B. C. , adopted the litera-
ture of her southern sister. A great part of the old poetry has been
found in the library of Assurbanipal, at Nineveh (seventh century
B. C. ), where a host of scribes occupied themselves with the study of
the ancient literature. They seem to have had almost all the appa-
ratus of modern critical work. Tablets were edited, sometimes with
revisions. There are bilingual tablets, presenting in parallel columns
the older texts (called Sumerian-Accadian) and the modern version.
There are numerous grammatical and lexicographical lists. The rec-
ords were accessible, and often consulted. Assurbanipal, in bringing
back a statue of the goddess Nana from the Elamite region, says that
it was carried off by the Elamites 1635 years before; and Nabonidus,
the last king of Babylon (circa B. C. 550), a man devoted to temple
restoration, refers to an inscription of King Naram-Sin, of Agane, who,
he says, reigned 3200 years before. In recent discoveries made at
Nippur, by the American Babylonian Expedition, some Assyriologists
find evidence of the existence of a Babylonian civilization many cen-
turies before B. C. 4000 (the dates B. C. 5000 and B. C. 6000 have been
mentioned); the material is now undergoing examination, and it is too
early to make definite statements of date. See Peters in American
Journal of Archäology for January-March, 1895, and July-September,
1895; and Hilprecht, "The Babylonian Expedition of the University of
Pennsylvania, Vol. i. , Part 2, 1896.
The Assyrian and Babylonian historical inscriptions, covering as
they do the whole period of Jewish history down to the capture of
Babylon by Cyrus, are of very great value for the illustration of the
Old Testament. They have a literary interest also. Many of them
are written in semi-rhythmical style, a form which was favored by
the inscriptional mode of writing. The sentences are composed of
short parallel clauses, and the nature of the material induced a divis-
ion into paragraphs which resemble strophes. They are characterized
also by precision and pithiness of statement, and are probably as trust-
worthy as official records ever are.
**
estdag
## p. 61 (#75) ##############################################
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
61
I. THEOGONY
'N THE time when above the heaven was not named,
The earth beneath bore no name,
When the ocean, the primeval parent of both,
The abyss Tiamat the mother of both
.
.
The waters of both mingled in one,
No fields as yet were tilled, no moors to be seen,
When as yet of the gods not one had been produced,
No names they bore, no titles they had,
Then were born of the gods
Lachmu Lachamu came into existence.
Many ages past
Anshar, Kishar were born.
Many days went by. Anu
[Here there is a long lacuna. The lost lines completed the history of the
creation of the gods, and gave the reason for the uprising of Tiamat with her
hosts. What it was that divided the divine society into two hostile camps can
only be conjectured; probably Tiamat, who represents the unfriendly or chaotic
forces of nature, saw that her domain was being encroached on by the light-
gods, who stand for cosmic order. ]
II. REVOLT OF TIAMAT
came
Tº they gathered together, they came to Tiamat;
Angry they plan, restless by night and by day,
Prepare for war with gestures of rage and hate,
With combined might to begin the battle.
The mother of the abyss, she who created them all,
Unconquerable warriors, gave them giant snakes,
Sharp of tooth, pitiless in might,
With poison like blood she filled their bodies,
Huge poisonous adders raging, she clothed them with dread,
Filled them with splendor
He who sees them shuddering shall seize him,
They rear their bodies, none can resist their breast.
Vipers she made, terrible snakes
raging dogs, scorpion-men
fish men
Bearing invincible arms, fearless in the fight.
Stern are her commands, not to be resisted.
.
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
Of all the first-born gods, because he gave her help,
She raised up Kingu in the midst, she made him the greatest,
To march in front of the host, to lead the whole,
To begin the war of arms, to advance the attack,
Forward in the fight to be the triumpher.
This she gave into his hand, made him sit on the throne: -
By my command I make thee great in the circle of the gods;
Rule over all the gods I have given to thee,
The greatest shalt thou be, thou my chosen consort;
Be thy name made great over all the earth.
She gave him the tablets of fate, laid them on his breast.
Thy command be not gainsaid, thy word stand fast.
Thus lifted up on high, endued with Anu's rank,
Among the gods her children Kingu did bear rule.
[The gods, dismayed, first appeal to Anu for aid against Tiamat, but he
refuses to lead the attack. Anshar then sends to invite the gods to a feast. ]
Anshar opened his mouth,
To Gaga, his servant, spake he:
Go, O Gaga, my servant thou who delightest my soul,
To Lachmu Lachamu I will send thee
That the gods may sit at the feast,
Bread to eat, wine to drink,
To give the rule to Marduk.
Up Gaga, to them go,
And tell what I say to thee:-
Anshar, your son, has sent me,
Told me the desire of his heart.
[He repeats the preceding description of Tiamat's preparations, and an-
nounces that Marduk has agreed to face the foe. ]
I sent Anu, naught can he against her.
Nudimmud was afraid and turned cowering back,
Marduk accepted the task, the ruler of gods, your son,
Against Tiamat to march his heart impels him.
So speaks he to me:
If I succeed, I, your avenger,
Conquer Tiamat and save your lives.
Come, ye all, and declare me supreme,
In Upsukkenaku enter ye joyfully all.
With my mouth will I bear rule,
Unchangeable be whate'er I do,
The word of my lips be never reversed or gainsaid.
Come and to him give over the rule,
That he may go and meet the evil foe.
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
63
Gaga went, strode on his way,
Humbly before Lachmu and Lachamu, the gods, his
fathers,
He paid his homage and kissed the ground,
Bent lowly down and to them spake:-
Anshar, your son, has sent me,
Told me the desire of his heart.
(Gaga then repeats Anshar's message at length, and the narrative pro-
ceeds. )
Lachmu and Lachamu heard and were afraid,
The Igigi all lamented sore:
What change has come about that she thus hates us?
We cannot understand this deed of Tiamat.
With hurry and haste they went,
The great gods, all the dealers of fate,
with eager tongue, sat themselves down to the
feast.
Bread they ate, wine they drank,
The sweet wine entered their souls,
They drank their fill, full were their bodies.
[In this happy state they were ready to accept Marduk's conditions. ]
To Marduk, their avenger, they gave over the rule.
They lifted him up on a lofty throne,
Above his fathers he took his place as judge:-
Most honored be thou among the great gods,
Unequaled thy rule, thy word is Anu.
From this time forth thy command be not gainsaid;
To lift up and cast down be the work of thy hand;
The speech of thy mouth stand fast, thy word be irresistible,
None of the gods shall intrude on thy domain,
Fullness of wealth, the desire of the temples of the gods,
Be the portion of thy shrine, though they be in need.
Marduk, thou, our avenger,
Thine be the kingdom over all forever.
Sit thee down in might, noble be thy word,
Thy arms shall never yield, the foes they shall crush.
O lord, he who trusts in thee, him grant thou life,
But the deity who set evil on foot, her life pour out.
Then in the midst they placed a garment.
To Marduk their first-born thus spake they:-
Thy rule, O lord, be chief among the gods,
To destroy and to create — speak and let it be.
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
.
Open thy mouth, let the garment vanish.
.
Utter again thy command, let the garment appear.
He spake with his mouth, vanished the garment;
Again he commanded, and the garment appeared.
When the gods, his fathers, saw thus his word fulfilled,
Joyful were they and did homage: Marduk is king.
On him conferred sceptre and throne.
Gave him invincible arms to crush them that hate him.
Now go and cut short the life of Tiamat,
May the winds into a secret place carry her blood.
The ruler of the gods they made him, the gods, his fathers,
Wished him success and glory in the way on which he went.
He made ready a bow, prepared it for use,
Made ready a spear to be his weapon.
He took the
seized it in his right hand,
Bow and quiver hung at his side,
Lightning he fashioned flashing before him,
With glowing flame he filled its body,
A net he prepared to seize Tiamat,
Guarded the four corners of the world that nothing of her
should escape,
On South and North, on East and West
He laid the net, his father Anu's gift.
He fashioned the evil wind, the south blast, the tornado,
The four-and-seven wind, the wind of destruction and woe,
Sent forth the seven winds which he had made
Tiamat’s body to destroy, after him they followed.
Then seized the lord the thunderbolt, his mighty weapon,
The irresistible chariot, the terrible, he mounted,
To it four horses he harnessed, pitiless, fiery, swift,
Their teeth were full of venom covered with foam.
On it mounted Marduk the mighty in battle.
To right and left he looked, lifting his eye.
His terrible brightness surrounded his head.
Against her he advanced, went on his way,
To Tiamat lifted his face.
They looked at him, at him looked the gods,
The gods, his fathers, looked at him; at him looked the gods.
And nearer pressed the lord, with his eye piercing Tiamat.
On Kingu her consort rested his look.
As he so looked, every way is stopped.
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
65
His senses Kingu loses, vanishes his thought,
And the gods, his helpers, who stood by his side
Saw their leader powerless
But Tiamat stood, not turning her back.
With fierce lips to him she spake:
Then grasped the lord his thunderbolt, his mighty weapon,
Angry at Tiamat he hurled his words:
When Tiamat heard these words,
She fell into fury, beside herself was she.
Tiamat cried wild and loud
Till through and through her body shook.
She utters her magic formula, speaks her word,
And the gods of battle rush to arms.
Then advance Tiamat, and Marduk the ruler of the gods
To battle they rush, come on to the fight.
His wide-stretched net over her the lord did cast,
The evil wind from behind him he let loose in her face.
Tiamat opened her throat as wide as she might,
Into it he sent the evil wind before she could close her lips.
The terrible winds filled her body,
Her senses she lost, wide open stood her throat.
He seized his spear, through her body he ran it,
Her inward parts he hewed, cut to pieces her heart.
Her he overcame, put an end to her life,
Cast away her corpse and on it stood.
So he, the leader, slew Tiamat,
Her power he crushed, her might he destroyed.
Then the gods, her helpers, who stood at her side,
Fear and trembling seized them, their backs they turned,
Away they fled to save their lives.
Fast were they girt, escape they could not,
Captive he took them, broke in pieces their arms.
They were caught in the net, sat in the toils,
All the earth they filled with their cry.
Their doom they bore, held fast in prison,
And the eleven creatures, clothed with dread,
A herd of demons who with her went,
These he subdued, destroyed their power,
Crushed their valor, trod them under foot ;
And Kingu, who had grown great over them all,
Him he overcame with the god Kugga,
This,
Took from him the tablets of fate which were not rightfully
1-5
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
Stamped thereon his seal, and hung them on his breast.
When thus the doughty Marduk had conquered his foes,
His proud adversary to shame had brought,
Had completed Anshar's triumph over the enemy,
Had fulfilled Nudimmud's will,
Then the conquered gods he put in prison,
And to Tiamat, whom he had conquered, returned.
Under his foot the lord Tiamat's body trod,
With his irresistible club he shattered her skull,
Through the veins of her blood he cut;
Commanded the north wind to bear it to a secret place.
His fathers saw it, rejoiced and shouted.
Gifts and offerings to him they brought.
The lord was appeased seeing her corpse.
Dividing her body, wise plans he laid.
Into two halves like a fish he divided her,
Out of one half he made the vault of heaven,
A bar he set and guards he posted,
Gave them command that the waters pass not through.
Through the heaven he strode, viewed its spaces,
Near the deep placed Nudimmud's dwelling.
And the lord measured the domain of the deep,
A palace like it, Eshara, he built,
The palace Eshara which he fashioned as heaven.
Therein made he Anu, Bel, and Ea to dwell.
He established the station of the great gods,
Stars which were like them, constellations he set,
The year he established, marked off its parts,
Divided twelve months by three stars,
From the day that begins the year to the day that ends it
He established the station Nibir to mark its limits.
That no harm come, no one go astray,
The stations of Bel and Ea he set by its side.
Great doors he made on this side and that,
Closed them fast on left and right.
The moon-god he summoned, to him committed the night.
(Here the account breaks off; there probably followed the history of the
creation of the earth and of man. ]
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
67
III. FRAGMENTS OF A DESCENT TO THE UNDERWORLD
Tº T'spread my wings like a bird,
The underworld I turn,
I spread my wings like a bird,
I descend to the house of darkness, to the dwelling of
Irkalla,
To the house from which there is no exit,
The road on which there is no return,
To the house whose dwellers long for light,
Dust is their nourishment and mud their food,
Whose chiefs are like feathered birds,
Where light is never seen, in darkness they dwell.
In the house which I will enter
There is treasured up for me a crown,
With the crowned ones who of old ruled the earth,
To whom Anu and Bel have given terrible names,
Carrion is their food, their drink stagnant water.
There dwell the chiefs and unconquered ones,
There dwell the bards and the mighty men,
Monsters of the deep of the great gods.
It is the dwelling of Etana, the dwelling of Ner,
Of Ninkigal, the queen of the underworld
Her I will approach and she will see me.
ISHTAR'S DESCENT TO
THE UNDERWORLD
T°
[After a description substantially identical with the first half of the pre-
ceding poem, the story goes on :-)
THE gate of the underworld Ishtar came,
To the keeper of the gate her command she ad-
dressed:-
Keeper of the waters, open thy gate,
Open thy gate that I may enter.
If thou open not the gate and let me in,
I will strike the door, the posts I will shatter,
I will strike the hinges, burst open the doors,
I will raise up the dead devourers of the living,
Over the living the dead shall triumph.
The keeper opened his mouth and spake,
To the Princess Ishtar he cried :-
Stay, lady, do not thus,
Let me go and repeat thy words to Queen Ninkigal.
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
[He goes and gets the terrible queen's permission for Ishtar to enter on
certain conditions. ]
Through the first gate he caused her to pass,
The crown of her head he took away.
Why, o keeper, takest thou away the great crown of my
head ?
Thus, O lady, the goddess of the underworld doeth to all
her visitors at the entrance.
Through the second gate he caused her to pass,
The earrings of her ears he took away.
Why, O keeper, takest thou away the earrings of my ears?
So, O lady, the goddess of the underworld doeth to all that
enter her realm.
[And so at each gate till she is stripped of clothing. A long time Ninki-
gal holds her prisoner, and in the upper world love vanishes and men and
gods mourn. Ea sees that Ishtar must return, and sends his messenger to
bring her. ]
Go forth, O messenger,
Toward the gates of the underworld set thy face,
Let the seven gates of Hades be opened at thy presence,
Let Ninkigal see thee and rejoice at thy arrival,
That her heart be satisfied and her anger be removed.
Appease her by the names of the great gods.
Ninkigal, when this she heard,
Beat her breast and wrung her hands,
Turned away, no comfort would she take.
Go, thou messenger,
Let the great jailer keep thee,
The refuse of the city be thy food,
The drains of the city thy drink,
The shadow of the dungeon be thy resting-place,
The slab of stone be thy seat.
Ninkigal opened her mouth and spake,
To Simtar, her attendant, her command she gave.
Go, Simtar, strike the palace of judgment,
Pour over Ishtar the water of life, and bring her before me.
Simtar went and struck the palace of judgment,
On Ishtar he poured the water of life and brought her.
Through the first gate he caused her to pass,
And restored to her her covering cloak.
[And so through the seven gates till all her ornaments are restored. The
result of the visit to the underworld is not described. ]
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69
IV.
THE FLOOD
H Н
[The hero Gilgamesh (Izdubar), wandering in search of healing for his
sickness, finds Hasisadra (Xisutbros), the Babylonian Noah, wbo tells him the
story of the Flood. ]
ASISADRA spake to him, to Gilgamesh :--
To thee I will reveal, Gilgamesh, the story of my
deliverance,
And the oracle of the gods I will make known to thee.
The city Surippak, which, as thou knowest,
Lies on the Euphrates' bank,
Already old was this city
When the gods that therein dwell
To send a flood their heart impelled them,
All the great gods: their father Anu,
Their counsellor the warlike Bel,
Adar their throne-bearer and the Prince Ennugi.
The lord of boundless wisdom,
Ea, sat with them in council.
Their resolve he announced and so he spake :-
O thou of Surippak, son of Ubaratutu,
Leave thy house and build a ship.
They will destroy the seed of life.
Do thou preserve in life, and hither bring the seed of life
Of every sort into the ship.
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
.
51
(
"Forgive me, poor old love, for insulting your misfortunes.
Those scoundrels whom we always whipped have profited by my
sleep to pare down your frontiers; but little or great, rich or poor,
you are my mother, and I love you as a faithful son! Here is
Corsica, where the giant of our age was born; here is Toulouse,
where I first saw the light; here is Nancy, where I felt my heart
awakened - where, perhaps, she whom I call my Æglé waits for
me still! France! Thou hast a temple in my soul; this arm is
thine; thou shalt find me ever ready to shed my blood to the last
drop in defending or avenging thee!
ASSYRIAN LITER-
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND
ATURE
BY CRAWFORD H. TOY
ECENT discoveries have carried the beginnings of civilization
farther and farther back into the remote past. Scholars are
not agreed as to what region can lay claim to the greatest
literary antiquity. The oldest historical records are found in Egypt
and Babylonia, and each of these lands has its advocates, who claim
for it priority in culture. The data now at our command are not suf-
ficient for the decision of this question. It may be doubted whether
any one spot on the globe will ever be shown to have precedence in
time over all others, — whether, that is, it will appear that the civili-
zation of the world has proceeded from a single centre. But though
we are yet far from having reached the very beginnings of culture,
we know that they lie farther back than the wildest dreams of half a
century ago would have imagined. Established kingdoms existed in
Babylonia in the fourth millennium before the beginning of our era;
royal inscriptions have been found which are with great probability
assigned to about the year 3800 B. C. These are, it is true, of the
simplest description, consisting of a few sentences of praise to a deity
or brief notices of a campaign or of the building of a temple; but
they show that the art of writing was known, and that the custom
existed of recording events of the national history. We may thence
infer the existence of a settled civilization and of some sort of literary
productiveness.
The Babylonian-Assyrian writings with which we are acquainted
may be divided into the two classes of prose and poetry. The former
class consists of royal inscriptions (relating to military campaigns and
the construction of temples), chronological tables (eponym canons),
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
legal documents (sales, suits, etc. ), grammatical tables (paradigms and
vocabularies), lists of omens and lucky and unlucky days, and letters
and reports passing between kings and governors; the latter class
includes cosmogonic poems, an epic poem in twelve books, detached
mythical narratives, magic formulas and incantations, and prayers to
deities (belonging to the ritual service of the temples). The prose
pieces, with scarcely an exception, belong to the historical period, and
may be dated with something like accuracy. The same thing is true
of a part of the poetical material, particularly the prayers; but the
cosmogonic and other mythical poems appear to go back, at least so
far as their material is concerned, to a very remote antiquity, and it
is difficult to assign them a definite date.
Whether this oldest poetical material belongs to the Semitic Baby-
lonians or to a non-Semitic (Sumerian-Accadian) people is a question
not yet definitely decided. The material which comes into consid-
eration for the solution of this problem is mainly linguistic. Along
with the inscriptions, which are obviously in the Semitic-Babylonian
language, are found others composed of words apparently strange.
These are held by some scholars to represent a priestly, cryptographic
writing, by others to be true Semitic words in slightly altered form,
and by others still to belong to a non-Semitic tongue. This last view
supposes that the ancient poetry comes, in substance at any rate,
from a non-Semitic people who spoke this tongue; while on the other
hand, it is maintained that this poetry is so interwoven into Semitic
life that it is impossible to regard it as of foreign origin. The
majority of Semitic scholars are now of the opinion that the origin
of this early literature is foreign However this may be, it comes to
us in Babylonian dress, it has been elaborated by Babylonian hands,
has thence found its way into the literature of other Semitic peoples,
and for our purposes may be accepted as Babylonian. In any case it
carries us back to very early religious conceptions.
The cosmogonic poetry is in its outlines not unlike that of Hesiod,
but develops the ruder ideas at greater length. In the shortest (but
probably not the earliest) form of the cosmogony, the beginning of
all things is found in the watery abyss. Two abysmal powers
(Tiamat and Apsu), represented as female and male, mingle their
waters, and from them proceed the gods. The list of deities (as in
the Greek cosmogony) seems to represent several dynasties, a concep-
tion which may embody the belief in the gradual organization of the
world. After two less-known gods, called Lahmu and Lahamu, come
the more familiar figures of later Babylonian writing, Anu and Ea. At
this point the list unfortunately breaks off, and the creative function
which may have been assigned to the gods is lost, or has not yet
been discovered. The general similarity between this account and
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
53
that of Gen. i. is obvious: both begin with the abysmal chaos. Other
agreements between the two cosmogonies will be pointed out below.
The most interesting figure in this fragment is that of Tiamat. We
shall presently see her in the character of the enemy of the gods.
The two conceptions of her do not agree together perfectly, and the
priority in time must be assigned to the latter. The idea that the
world of gods and men and material things issued out of the womb
of the abyss is a philosophic generalization that is more naturally
assigned to a period of reflection.
In the second cosmogonic poem the account is more similar to that
of the second chapter of Genesis, and its present form originated in
or near Babylon. Here we have nothing of the primeval deep, but
are told how the gods made a beautiful land, with rivers and trees;
how Babylon was built and Marduk created man, and the Tigris and
the Euphrates, and the beasts and cities and temples. This also must
be looked on as a comparatively late form of the myth, since its hero
is Marduk, god of Babylon. As in the Bible account, men are created
before beasts, and the region of their first abode seems to be the same
as the Eden of Genesis.
Let us now turn to the poem in which the combat between Tiamat
and Marduk forms the principal feature. For some unexplained
reason Tiamat rebels against the gods. Collecting her hosts, among
them frightful demon shapes of all imaginable forms, she advances
for the purpose of expelling the gods from their seats. The affrighted
deities turn for protection to the high gods, Anu and Ea, who, how-
ever, recoil in terror from the hosts of the dragon Tiamat. Anshar
then applies to Marduk. The gods are invited to a feast, the situ-
ation is described, and Marduk is invited to lead the heavenly hosts
against the foe. He agrees on condition that he shall be clothed
with absolute power, so that he shall only have to say “Let it be,
and it shall be. To this the gods assent: a garment is placed before
him, to which he says “Vanish, and it vanishes, and when he com-
mands it to appear, it is present. The hero then dons his armor and
advances against the enemy. He takes Tiamat and slays her, routs
her host, kills her consort Kingu, and utterly destroys the rebel-
lion. Tiamat he cuts in twain. Out of one half of her he forms the
heavens, out of the other half the earth, and for the gods Anu and
Bel and Ea he makes a heavenly palace, like the abyss itself in
extent. To the great gods also he assigns positions, forms the stars,
establishes the year and month and the day. At this point the his-
tory is interrupted, the tablet being broken. The creation of the
heavenly bodies is to be compared with the similar account in
Gen. i. ; whether this poem narrates the creation of the rest of the
world it is impossible to say.
## p. 54 (#68) ##############################################
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
one.
In this history of the rebellion of Tiamat against the gods we have
a mythical picture of some natural phenomenon, perhaps of the con-
Alict between the winter and the enlivening sun of summer. The
poem appears to contain elements of different dates. The rude char-
acter of some of the procedures suggests an early time: Marduk slays
Tiamat by driving the wind into her body; the warriors who accom-
pany her have those composite forms familiar to us from Babylo-
nian and Egyptian statues, paintings, and seals, which are the product
of that early thought for which there was no essential difference
between man and beast. The festival in which the gods carouse is
of a piece with the divine Ethiopian feasts of Homer. On the other
hand, the idea of the omnipotence of the divine word, when Marduk
makes the garment disappear and reappear, is scarcely a primitive
It is substantially identical with the Biblical “Let it be, and it
was. ” It is probable that the poem had a long career, and in success-
ive recensions received the coloring of different generations. Tiamat
herself has a long history. Here she is a dragon who assaults the
gods; elsewhere, as we have seen, she is the mother of the gods;
here also her body forms the heaven and the earth. She appears in
Gen. i. 2 as the Tehom, the primeval abyss. In the form of the
hostile dragon she is found in numerous passages of the Old Testa-
ment, though under different names. She is an enemy of Yahwe,
god of Israel, and in the New Testament (Rev. xii. ) the combat
between Marduk and Tiamat is represented under the form of a fight
between Michael and the Dragon. In Christian literature Michael has
been replaced by St. George. The old Babylonian conception has been
fruitful of poetry, representing, as it does, in grand form the struggle
between the chaotic and the formative forces of the universe.
The most considerable of the old Babylonian poems, so far as
length and literary form are concerned, is that which has been com-
monly known as the Izdubar epic. The form of the name is not
certain : Mr. Pinches has recently proposed, on the authority of a
Babylonian text, to write it Gilgamesh, and this form has been
adopted by a number of scholars. The poem (discovered by George
Smith in 1872) is inscribed on twelve tablets, each tablet apparently
containing a separate episode.
The first tablet introduces the hero as the deliverer of his country
from the Elamites, an event which seems to have taken place before
2000 B. C. Of the second, third, fourth, and fifth tablets, only frag-
ments exist, but it appears that Gilgamesh slays the Elamite tyrant.
The sixth tablet recounts the love of Ishtar for the hero, to whom
she proposes marriage, offering him the tribute of the land.
The
reason he assigns for his rejection of the goddess is the number and
fatal character of her loves. Among the objects of her affection were
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
55
a wild eagle, a lion, a war-horse, a ruler, and a husbandman; and all
these came to grief. Ishtar, angry at her rejection, complains to her
father, Anu, and her mother, Anatu, and begs them to avenge her
wrong. Anu creates a divine bull and sends it against Gilgamesh,
who, however, with the aid of his friend Eabani, slays the bull.
Ishtar curses Gilgamesh, but Eabani turns the curse against her.
The seventh tablet recounts how Ishtar descends to the underworld
seeking some better way of attacking the hero. The description of
the Babylonian Sheol is one of the most effective portions of the
poem, and with it George Smith connects a well-known poem which
relates the descent of Ishtar to the underworld. The goddess goes
down to the house of darkness from which there is no exit, and
demands admittance of the keeper; who, however, by command of
the queen of the lower world, requires her to submit to the condi-
tions imposed on all who enter. There are seven gates, at each of
which he removes some portion of her ornaments and dress. Ishtar,
thus unclothed, enters and becomes a prisoner. Meantime the upper
earth has felt her absence. All love and life has ceased. Yielding
to the persuasions of the gods, Ea sends a messenger to demand
the release of the goddess. The latter passes out, receiving at each
gate a portion of her clothing. This story of Ishtar's love belongs to
one of the earliest stages of religious belief. Not only do the gods
appear as under the control of ordinary human passions, but there is
no consciousness of material difference between man and beast. The
Greek parallels are familiar to all. Of these ideas we find no trace
in the later Babylonian and Assyrian literature, and the poem was
doubtless interpreted by the Babylonian sages in allegorical fashion.
In the eighth and ninth tablets the death of Eabani is recorded,
and the grief of Gilgamesh. The latter then wanders forth in search
of Hasisadra, the hero of the Flood-story. After various adventures
he reaches the abode of the divinized man, and from him learns the
story of the Flood, which is given in the eleventh tablet.
This story is almost identical with that of the Book of Genesis.
The God Bel is determined to destroy mankind, and Hasisadra
receives directions from Ea to build a ship, and take into it provis-
ions and goods and slaves and beasts of the field. The ship is cov-
ered with bitumen. The flood is sent by Shamash (the sun-god).
Hasisadra enters the ship and shuts the door. So dreadful is the
tempest that the gods in affright ascend for protection to the heaven
of Anu. Six days the storm lasts. On the seventh comes calm.
Hasisadra opens a window and sees the mountain of Nizir, sends forth
a dove, which returns; then a swallow, which returns; then a raven,
which does not return; then, knowing that the flood has passed, sends
out the animals, builds an altar, and offers sacrifice, over which the
## p. 56 (#70) ##############################################
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
gods gather like flies. Ea remonstrates with Bel, and urges that here-
after, when he is angry with men, instead of sending a deluge, he
shall send wild beasts, who shall destroy them. Thereupon Bel makes
a compact with Hasisadra, and the gods take him and his wife and
people and place them in a remote spot at the mouth of the rivers.
It is now generally agreed that the Hebrew story of the Flood is
taken from the Babylonian, either mediately through the Canaanites
(for the Babylonians had occupied Canaan before the sixteenth cen-
tury B. C. ), or immediately during the exile in the sixth century.
The Babylonian account is more picturesque, the Hebrew more re-
strained and solemn. The early polytheistic features have been
excluded by the Jewish editors.
In addition to these longer stories there are a number of legends
of no little poetical and mythical interest. In the cycle devoted to
the eagle there is a story of the struggle between the eagle and the
serpent. The latter complains to the sun-god that the eagle has
eaten his young. The god suggests a plan whereby the hostile bird
may be caught: the body of a wild ox is to be set as a snare. Out
of this plot, however, the eagle extricates himself by his sagacity.
In the second story the eagle comes to the help of a woman who is
struggling to bring a man-child (apparently Etana) into the world.
In the third is portrayed the ambition of the hero Etana to ascend to
heaven. The eagle promises to aid him in accomplishing his design.
Clinging to the bird, he rises with him higher and higher toward the
heavenly space, reaching the abode of Anu, and then the abode of
Ishtar. As they rise to height after height the eagle describes the
appearance of the world lying stretched out beneath: at first it rises
like a huge mountain out of the sea; then the ocean appears as a
girdle encircling the land, and finally but as a ditch a gardener digs
to irrigate his land. When they have risen so high that the earth is
scarcely visible, Etana cries to the eagle to stop; so he does, but his
strength is exhausted, and bird and man fall to the earth.
Another cycle of stories deals with the winds. The god Zu longs
to have absolute power over the world. To that end he lurks about
the door of the sun-god, the possessor of the tablets of fate whereby
he controls all things. Each morning before beginning his journey,
the sun-god steps out to send light showers over the world. Watch-
ing his opportunity, Zu glides in, seizes the tablets of fate, and flies
away and hides himself in the mountains. So great horror comes
over the world: it is likely to be scorched by the sun-god's burning
beams.
Anu calls on the storm-god Ramman to conquer Zu, but he
is frightened and declines the task, as do other gods. Here, unfor-
tunately, the tablet is broken, so that we do not know by whom the
normal order was finally restored.
## p. 57 (#71) ##############################################
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
57
In the collection of cuneiform tablets disinterred at Amarna in 1887
was found the curious story of Adapa. The demigod Adapa, the son
of Ea, fishing in the sea for the family of his lord, is overwhelmed by
the stormy south wind and cast under the waves. In anger he breaks
the wings of the wind, that it may no longer rage in the storm.
Anu, informed that the south wind no longer blows, summons Adapa
to his presence. Ea instructs his son to put on apparel of mourning,
present himself at Anu's gate, and there make friends with the por-
ters, Tammuz and Iszida, so that they may speak a word for him to
Anu; going into the presence of the royal deity, he will be offered
food and drink which he must reject, and raiment and oil which
he must accept. Adapa carries out the instructions of his father to
the letter. Anu is appeased, but laments that Adapa, by rejecting
heavenly food and drink, has lost the opportunity to become immor-
tal. This story, the record of which is earlier than the sixteenth
century B. C. , appears to contain two conceptions : it is a mythical
description of the history of the south wind, but its conclusion pre-
sents a certain parallelism with the end of the story of Eden in
Genesis; as there Adam, so here Adapa, fails of immortality because
he infringes the divine command concerning the divine food. We
have here a suggestion that the story in Genesis is one of the cycle
which dealt with the common earthly fact of man's mortality.
The legend of Dibbarra seems to have a historical basis. The god
Dibbarra has devastated the cities of Babylonia with bloody wars.
Against Babylon he has brought a hostile host and slain its people, so
that Marduk, the god of Babylon, curses him. And in like manner
he has raged against Erech, and is cursed by its goddess Ishtar. He
is charged with confounding the righteous and unrighteous in indis-
criminate destruction. But Dibbarra determines to advance against
the dwelling of the king of the gods, and Babylonia is to be further
desolated by civil war. It is a poetical account of devastating wars
as the production of a hostile diety. It is obvious that these legends
have many features in common with those of other lands, myths of
conflict between wind and sun, and the ambition of heroes to scale
the heights of heaven. How far these similarities are the independ-
ent products of similar situations, and how far the results of loans,
cannot at present be determined.
The moral-religious literature of the Babylonians is not inferior in
interest to the stories just mentioned. The hymns to the gods are
characterized by a sublimity and depth of feeling which remind us of
the odes of the Hebrew Psalter. The penitential hymns appear to
contain expressions of sorrow for sin, which would indicate a high
development of the religious consciousness. These hymns, apparently
a part of the temple ritual, probably belong to a relatively late stage
## p. 58 (#72) ##############################################
58
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
of history; but they are none the less proof that devotional feeling in
ancient times was not limited to any one country.
Other productions, such as the hymn to the seven evil spirits
(celebrating their mysterious power), indicate a lower stage of reli-
gious feeling; this is specially visible in the magic formulas, which
portray a very early stratum of religious history. They recall the
Shamanism of Central Asia and the rites of savage tribes; but there
is no reason to doubt that the Semitic religion in its early stages
contained this magic element, which is found all the world over.
Riddles and Proverbs are found among the Babylonians, as among
all peoples. Comparatively few have been discovered, and these pre-
sent nothing of peculiar interest. The following may serve as speci-
mens:–«What is that which becomes pregnant without conceiving,
fat without eating ? ” The answer seems to be "A cloud. ” “My coal-
brazier clothes me with a divine garment, my rock is founded in the
sea” (a volcano). "I dwell in a house of pitch and brick, but over
me glide the boats » (a canal). «He that says, “Oh, that I might
exceedingly avenge myself! ) draws from a waterless well, and rubs
the skin without oiling it. ” « When sickness is incurable and hunger
unappeasable, silver and gold cannot restore health nor appease hun-
ger. ” As the oven waxes old, so the foe tires of enmity. ” “The
life of yesterday goes on every day. ” “When the seed is not good,
no sprout comes forth. ”
The poetical form of all these pieces is characterized by that paral-
lelism of members with which we are familiar in the poetry of the
Old Testament. It is rhythmical, but apparently not metrical: the
harmonious flow of syllables in any one line, with more or less beats
or cadences, is obvious; but it does not appear that syllables were
combined into feet, or that there was any fixed rule for the num-
ber of syllables or beats in a line. So also strophic divisions may
be observed, such divisions naturally resulting from the nature of all
narratives. Sometimes the strophe seems to contain four lines, some-
times more. No strophic rule has yet been established; but it seems
not unlikely that when the longer poetical pieces shall have been
more definitely fixed in form, certain principles of poetical composition
will present themselves. The thought of the mythical pieces and the
prayers and hymns is elevated and imaginative. Some of this poetry
appears to have belonged to a period earlier than 2000 B. C.
Yet
the Babylonians constructed no epic poem like the Iliad, or at any
rate none such has yet been found. Their genius rather expressed
itself in brief or fragmentary pieces, like the Hebrews and the Arabs.
The Babylonian prose literature consists almost entirely of short
chronicles and annals. Royal inscriptions have been found covering
the period from 3000 B. C. to 539 B. C. There are eponym canons,
1
## p. 59 (#73) ##############################################
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
59
statistical lists, diplomatic letters, military reports; but none of these
rise to the dignity of history. Several connected books of chronicles
have indeed been found; there is a synchronistic book of annals of
Babylonia and Assyria, there is a long Assyrian chronicle, and there
are annalistic fragments. But there is no digested historical narrative,
which gives a clear picture of the general civil and political situation,
or any analysis of the characters of kings, generals, and governors, or
any inquiry into causes of events. It is possible that narratives having
a better claim to the name of history may yet be discovered, resem-
bling those of the Biblical Book of Kings; yet the Book of Kings is
scarcely history -- neither the Jews nor the Babylonians and Assyrians
seem to have had great power in this direction.
One of the most interesting collections of historical pieces is that
recently discovered at Amarna. Here, out of a mound which repre-
sents a palace of the Egyptian King Amenhotep IV. , were dug up
numerous letters which were exchanged between the kings of Babylo-
nia and Egypt in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and numerous
reports sent to the Egyptian government by Egyptian governors of
Canaanite cities. These tablets show that at this early time there was
lively communication between the Euphrates and the Nile, and they
give a vivid picture of the chaotic state of affairs in Canaan, which
was exposed to the assaults of enemies on all sides. This country
was then in possession of Egypt, but at a still earlier period it must
have been occupied by the Babylonians. Only in this way can we
account for the surprising fact that the Babylonian cuneiform script
and the Babylonian language form the means of communication
between the east and west and between Egypt and Canaan. The
literary value of these letters is not great; their interest is chiefly
historic and linguistic. The same thing is true of the contract
tablets, which are legal documents: these cover the whole area of
Babylonian history, and show that civil law attained a high state of
perfection; they are couched in the usual legal phrases.
The literary monuments mentioned above are all contained in
tablets, which have the merit of giving in general contemporaneous
records of the things described. But an account of Babylonian liter-
ature would be incomplete without mention of the priest Berosus.
Having, as priest of Bel, access to the records of the temples, he
wrote a history of his native land, in which he preserved the sub-
stance of a number of poetical narratives, as well as the ancient
accounts of the political history. The fragments of his work which
have been preserved (see Cory's Ancient Fragments') exhibit a
number of parallels with the contents of the cuneiform tablets.
Though he wrote in Greek (he lived in the time of Alexander the
Great), and was probably trained in the Greek learning of his time,
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
his work doubtless represents the spirit of Babylonian historical writ-
ing. So far as can be judged from the remains which have come
down to us, its style is of the annalistic sort which appears in the
old inscriptions and in the historical books of the Bible.
The Babylonian literature above described must be understood to
include the Assyrian. Civilization was first established in Babylonia,
and there apparently were produced the great epic poems and the
legends. But Assyria, when she succeeded to the headship of the
Mesopotamian valley, in the twelfth century B. C. , adopted the litera-
ture of her southern sister. A great part of the old poetry has been
found in the library of Assurbanipal, at Nineveh (seventh century
B. C. ), where a host of scribes occupied themselves with the study of
the ancient literature. They seem to have had almost all the appa-
ratus of modern critical work. Tablets were edited, sometimes with
revisions. There are bilingual tablets, presenting in parallel columns
the older texts (called Sumerian-Accadian) and the modern version.
There are numerous grammatical and lexicographical lists. The rec-
ords were accessible, and often consulted. Assurbanipal, in bringing
back a statue of the goddess Nana from the Elamite region, says that
it was carried off by the Elamites 1635 years before; and Nabonidus,
the last king of Babylon (circa B. C. 550), a man devoted to temple
restoration, refers to an inscription of King Naram-Sin, of Agane, who,
he says, reigned 3200 years before. In recent discoveries made at
Nippur, by the American Babylonian Expedition, some Assyriologists
find evidence of the existence of a Babylonian civilization many cen-
turies before B. C. 4000 (the dates B. C. 5000 and B. C. 6000 have been
mentioned); the material is now undergoing examination, and it is too
early to make definite statements of date. See Peters in American
Journal of Archäology for January-March, 1895, and July-September,
1895; and Hilprecht, "The Babylonian Expedition of the University of
Pennsylvania, Vol. i. , Part 2, 1896.
The Assyrian and Babylonian historical inscriptions, covering as
they do the whole period of Jewish history down to the capture of
Babylon by Cyrus, are of very great value for the illustration of the
Old Testament. They have a literary interest also. Many of them
are written in semi-rhythmical style, a form which was favored by
the inscriptional mode of writing. The sentences are composed of
short parallel clauses, and the nature of the material induced a divis-
ion into paragraphs which resemble strophes. They are characterized
also by precision and pithiness of statement, and are probably as trust-
worthy as official records ever are.
**
estdag
## p. 61 (#75) ##############################################
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
61
I. THEOGONY
'N THE time when above the heaven was not named,
The earth beneath bore no name,
When the ocean, the primeval parent of both,
The abyss Tiamat the mother of both
.
.
The waters of both mingled in one,
No fields as yet were tilled, no moors to be seen,
When as yet of the gods not one had been produced,
No names they bore, no titles they had,
Then were born of the gods
Lachmu Lachamu came into existence.
Many ages past
Anshar, Kishar were born.
Many days went by. Anu
[Here there is a long lacuna. The lost lines completed the history of the
creation of the gods, and gave the reason for the uprising of Tiamat with her
hosts. What it was that divided the divine society into two hostile camps can
only be conjectured; probably Tiamat, who represents the unfriendly or chaotic
forces of nature, saw that her domain was being encroached on by the light-
gods, who stand for cosmic order. ]
II. REVOLT OF TIAMAT
came
Tº they gathered together, they came to Tiamat;
Angry they plan, restless by night and by day,
Prepare for war with gestures of rage and hate,
With combined might to begin the battle.
The mother of the abyss, she who created them all,
Unconquerable warriors, gave them giant snakes,
Sharp of tooth, pitiless in might,
With poison like blood she filled their bodies,
Huge poisonous adders raging, she clothed them with dread,
Filled them with splendor
He who sees them shuddering shall seize him,
They rear their bodies, none can resist their breast.
Vipers she made, terrible snakes
raging dogs, scorpion-men
fish men
Bearing invincible arms, fearless in the fight.
Stern are her commands, not to be resisted.
.
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
Of all the first-born gods, because he gave her help,
She raised up Kingu in the midst, she made him the greatest,
To march in front of the host, to lead the whole,
To begin the war of arms, to advance the attack,
Forward in the fight to be the triumpher.
This she gave into his hand, made him sit on the throne: -
By my command I make thee great in the circle of the gods;
Rule over all the gods I have given to thee,
The greatest shalt thou be, thou my chosen consort;
Be thy name made great over all the earth.
She gave him the tablets of fate, laid them on his breast.
Thy command be not gainsaid, thy word stand fast.
Thus lifted up on high, endued with Anu's rank,
Among the gods her children Kingu did bear rule.
[The gods, dismayed, first appeal to Anu for aid against Tiamat, but he
refuses to lead the attack. Anshar then sends to invite the gods to a feast. ]
Anshar opened his mouth,
To Gaga, his servant, spake he:
Go, O Gaga, my servant thou who delightest my soul,
To Lachmu Lachamu I will send thee
That the gods may sit at the feast,
Bread to eat, wine to drink,
To give the rule to Marduk.
Up Gaga, to them go,
And tell what I say to thee:-
Anshar, your son, has sent me,
Told me the desire of his heart.
[He repeats the preceding description of Tiamat's preparations, and an-
nounces that Marduk has agreed to face the foe. ]
I sent Anu, naught can he against her.
Nudimmud was afraid and turned cowering back,
Marduk accepted the task, the ruler of gods, your son,
Against Tiamat to march his heart impels him.
So speaks he to me:
If I succeed, I, your avenger,
Conquer Tiamat and save your lives.
Come, ye all, and declare me supreme,
In Upsukkenaku enter ye joyfully all.
With my mouth will I bear rule,
Unchangeable be whate'er I do,
The word of my lips be never reversed or gainsaid.
Come and to him give over the rule,
That he may go and meet the evil foe.
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
63
Gaga went, strode on his way,
Humbly before Lachmu and Lachamu, the gods, his
fathers,
He paid his homage and kissed the ground,
Bent lowly down and to them spake:-
Anshar, your son, has sent me,
Told me the desire of his heart.
(Gaga then repeats Anshar's message at length, and the narrative pro-
ceeds. )
Lachmu and Lachamu heard and were afraid,
The Igigi all lamented sore:
What change has come about that she thus hates us?
We cannot understand this deed of Tiamat.
With hurry and haste they went,
The great gods, all the dealers of fate,
with eager tongue, sat themselves down to the
feast.
Bread they ate, wine they drank,
The sweet wine entered their souls,
They drank their fill, full were their bodies.
[In this happy state they were ready to accept Marduk's conditions. ]
To Marduk, their avenger, they gave over the rule.
They lifted him up on a lofty throne,
Above his fathers he took his place as judge:-
Most honored be thou among the great gods,
Unequaled thy rule, thy word is Anu.
From this time forth thy command be not gainsaid;
To lift up and cast down be the work of thy hand;
The speech of thy mouth stand fast, thy word be irresistible,
None of the gods shall intrude on thy domain,
Fullness of wealth, the desire of the temples of the gods,
Be the portion of thy shrine, though they be in need.
Marduk, thou, our avenger,
Thine be the kingdom over all forever.
Sit thee down in might, noble be thy word,
Thy arms shall never yield, the foes they shall crush.
O lord, he who trusts in thee, him grant thou life,
But the deity who set evil on foot, her life pour out.
Then in the midst they placed a garment.
To Marduk their first-born thus spake they:-
Thy rule, O lord, be chief among the gods,
To destroy and to create — speak and let it be.
## p. 64 (#78) ##############################################
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
.
Open thy mouth, let the garment vanish.
.
Utter again thy command, let the garment appear.
He spake with his mouth, vanished the garment;
Again he commanded, and the garment appeared.
When the gods, his fathers, saw thus his word fulfilled,
Joyful were they and did homage: Marduk is king.
On him conferred sceptre and throne.
Gave him invincible arms to crush them that hate him.
Now go and cut short the life of Tiamat,
May the winds into a secret place carry her blood.
The ruler of the gods they made him, the gods, his fathers,
Wished him success and glory in the way on which he went.
He made ready a bow, prepared it for use,
Made ready a spear to be his weapon.
He took the
seized it in his right hand,
Bow and quiver hung at his side,
Lightning he fashioned flashing before him,
With glowing flame he filled its body,
A net he prepared to seize Tiamat,
Guarded the four corners of the world that nothing of her
should escape,
On South and North, on East and West
He laid the net, his father Anu's gift.
He fashioned the evil wind, the south blast, the tornado,
The four-and-seven wind, the wind of destruction and woe,
Sent forth the seven winds which he had made
Tiamat’s body to destroy, after him they followed.
Then seized the lord the thunderbolt, his mighty weapon,
The irresistible chariot, the terrible, he mounted,
To it four horses he harnessed, pitiless, fiery, swift,
Their teeth were full of venom covered with foam.
On it mounted Marduk the mighty in battle.
To right and left he looked, lifting his eye.
His terrible brightness surrounded his head.
Against her he advanced, went on his way,
To Tiamat lifted his face.
They looked at him, at him looked the gods,
The gods, his fathers, looked at him; at him looked the gods.
And nearer pressed the lord, with his eye piercing Tiamat.
On Kingu her consort rested his look.
As he so looked, every way is stopped.
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
65
His senses Kingu loses, vanishes his thought,
And the gods, his helpers, who stood by his side
Saw their leader powerless
But Tiamat stood, not turning her back.
With fierce lips to him she spake:
Then grasped the lord his thunderbolt, his mighty weapon,
Angry at Tiamat he hurled his words:
When Tiamat heard these words,
She fell into fury, beside herself was she.
Tiamat cried wild and loud
Till through and through her body shook.
She utters her magic formula, speaks her word,
And the gods of battle rush to arms.
Then advance Tiamat, and Marduk the ruler of the gods
To battle they rush, come on to the fight.
His wide-stretched net over her the lord did cast,
The evil wind from behind him he let loose in her face.
Tiamat opened her throat as wide as she might,
Into it he sent the evil wind before she could close her lips.
The terrible winds filled her body,
Her senses she lost, wide open stood her throat.
He seized his spear, through her body he ran it,
Her inward parts he hewed, cut to pieces her heart.
Her he overcame, put an end to her life,
Cast away her corpse and on it stood.
So he, the leader, slew Tiamat,
Her power he crushed, her might he destroyed.
Then the gods, her helpers, who stood at her side,
Fear and trembling seized them, their backs they turned,
Away they fled to save their lives.
Fast were they girt, escape they could not,
Captive he took them, broke in pieces their arms.
They were caught in the net, sat in the toils,
All the earth they filled with their cry.
Their doom they bore, held fast in prison,
And the eleven creatures, clothed with dread,
A herd of demons who with her went,
These he subdued, destroyed their power,
Crushed their valor, trod them under foot ;
And Kingu, who had grown great over them all,
Him he overcame with the god Kugga,
This,
Took from him the tablets of fate which were not rightfully
1-5
## p. 66 (#80) ##############################################
66
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
Stamped thereon his seal, and hung them on his breast.
When thus the doughty Marduk had conquered his foes,
His proud adversary to shame had brought,
Had completed Anshar's triumph over the enemy,
Had fulfilled Nudimmud's will,
Then the conquered gods he put in prison,
And to Tiamat, whom he had conquered, returned.
Under his foot the lord Tiamat's body trod,
With his irresistible club he shattered her skull,
Through the veins of her blood he cut;
Commanded the north wind to bear it to a secret place.
His fathers saw it, rejoiced and shouted.
Gifts and offerings to him they brought.
The lord was appeased seeing her corpse.
Dividing her body, wise plans he laid.
Into two halves like a fish he divided her,
Out of one half he made the vault of heaven,
A bar he set and guards he posted,
Gave them command that the waters pass not through.
Through the heaven he strode, viewed its spaces,
Near the deep placed Nudimmud's dwelling.
And the lord measured the domain of the deep,
A palace like it, Eshara, he built,
The palace Eshara which he fashioned as heaven.
Therein made he Anu, Bel, and Ea to dwell.
He established the station of the great gods,
Stars which were like them, constellations he set,
The year he established, marked off its parts,
Divided twelve months by three stars,
From the day that begins the year to the day that ends it
He established the station Nibir to mark its limits.
That no harm come, no one go astray,
The stations of Bel and Ea he set by its side.
Great doors he made on this side and that,
Closed them fast on left and right.
The moon-god he summoned, to him committed the night.
(Here the account breaks off; there probably followed the history of the
creation of the earth and of man. ]
## p. 67 (#81) ##############################################
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
67
III. FRAGMENTS OF A DESCENT TO THE UNDERWORLD
Tº T'spread my wings like a bird,
The underworld I turn,
I spread my wings like a bird,
I descend to the house of darkness, to the dwelling of
Irkalla,
To the house from which there is no exit,
The road on which there is no return,
To the house whose dwellers long for light,
Dust is their nourishment and mud their food,
Whose chiefs are like feathered birds,
Where light is never seen, in darkness they dwell.
In the house which I will enter
There is treasured up for me a crown,
With the crowned ones who of old ruled the earth,
To whom Anu and Bel have given terrible names,
Carrion is their food, their drink stagnant water.
There dwell the chiefs and unconquered ones,
There dwell the bards and the mighty men,
Monsters of the deep of the great gods.
It is the dwelling of Etana, the dwelling of Ner,
Of Ninkigal, the queen of the underworld
Her I will approach and she will see me.
ISHTAR'S DESCENT TO
THE UNDERWORLD
T°
[After a description substantially identical with the first half of the pre-
ceding poem, the story goes on :-)
THE gate of the underworld Ishtar came,
To the keeper of the gate her command she ad-
dressed:-
Keeper of the waters, open thy gate,
Open thy gate that I may enter.
If thou open not the gate and let me in,
I will strike the door, the posts I will shatter,
I will strike the hinges, burst open the doors,
I will raise up the dead devourers of the living,
Over the living the dead shall triumph.
The keeper opened his mouth and spake,
To the Princess Ishtar he cried :-
Stay, lady, do not thus,
Let me go and repeat thy words to Queen Ninkigal.
## p. 68 (#82) ##############################################
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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
[He goes and gets the terrible queen's permission for Ishtar to enter on
certain conditions. ]
Through the first gate he caused her to pass,
The crown of her head he took away.
Why, o keeper, takest thou away the great crown of my
head ?
Thus, O lady, the goddess of the underworld doeth to all
her visitors at the entrance.
Through the second gate he caused her to pass,
The earrings of her ears he took away.
Why, O keeper, takest thou away the earrings of my ears?
So, O lady, the goddess of the underworld doeth to all that
enter her realm.
[And so at each gate till she is stripped of clothing. A long time Ninki-
gal holds her prisoner, and in the upper world love vanishes and men and
gods mourn. Ea sees that Ishtar must return, and sends his messenger to
bring her. ]
Go forth, O messenger,
Toward the gates of the underworld set thy face,
Let the seven gates of Hades be opened at thy presence,
Let Ninkigal see thee and rejoice at thy arrival,
That her heart be satisfied and her anger be removed.
Appease her by the names of the great gods.
Ninkigal, when this she heard,
Beat her breast and wrung her hands,
Turned away, no comfort would she take.
Go, thou messenger,
Let the great jailer keep thee,
The refuse of the city be thy food,
The drains of the city thy drink,
The shadow of the dungeon be thy resting-place,
The slab of stone be thy seat.
Ninkigal opened her mouth and spake,
To Simtar, her attendant, her command she gave.
Go, Simtar, strike the palace of judgment,
Pour over Ishtar the water of life, and bring her before me.
Simtar went and struck the palace of judgment,
On Ishtar he poured the water of life and brought her.
Through the first gate he caused her to pass,
And restored to her her covering cloak.
[And so through the seven gates till all her ornaments are restored. The
result of the visit to the underworld is not described. ]
## p. 69 (#83) ##############################################
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
69
IV.
THE FLOOD
H Н
[The hero Gilgamesh (Izdubar), wandering in search of healing for his
sickness, finds Hasisadra (Xisutbros), the Babylonian Noah, wbo tells him the
story of the Flood. ]
ASISADRA spake to him, to Gilgamesh :--
To thee I will reveal, Gilgamesh, the story of my
deliverance,
And the oracle of the gods I will make known to thee.
The city Surippak, which, as thou knowest,
Lies on the Euphrates' bank,
Already old was this city
When the gods that therein dwell
To send a flood their heart impelled them,
All the great gods: their father Anu,
Their counsellor the warlike Bel,
Adar their throne-bearer and the Prince Ennugi.
The lord of boundless wisdom,
Ea, sat with them in council.
Their resolve he announced and so he spake :-
O thou of Surippak, son of Ubaratutu,
Leave thy house and build a ship.
They will destroy the seed of life.
Do thou preserve in life, and hither bring the seed of life
Of every sort into the ship.
