Babylonian and Assyrian Literature | Page 4

bliss, the bosom of our fairest god,
Or hand of
love e'er grasp the venging rod.
Oh, come, dear Zir-ri,[7] tune your lyres and lutes,
And sing of love
with chastest, sweetest notes,
Of Accad's goddess Ishtar, Queen of
Love,
And Izdubar, with softest measure move;
Great Samas'[8]
son, of him dear Zir-ri sing!
Of him whom goddess Ishtar warmly
wooed,
Of him whose breast with virtue was imbued.
He as a giant

towered, lofty grown,
As Babil's[9] great pa-te-si[10] was he known,

His armèd fleet commanded on the seas
And erstwhile travelled on
the foreign leas;
His mother Ellat-gula[11] on the throne
From
Erech all Kardunia[12] ruled alone.
[Footnote 1: "Samu," heaven.]
[Footnote 2: "Happy Fields," celestial gardens, heaven.]
[Footnote 3: "Subartu," Syria.]
[Footnote 4: "Sari," plural form of "saros," a cycle or measurement of
time used by the Babylonians, 3,600 years.]
[Footnote 5: From the "Accadian Hymn to Ishtar," terra-cotta tablet
numbered "S, 954," one of the oldest hymns of a very remote date,
deposited in the British Museum by Mr. Smith. It comes from Erech,
one of the oldest, if not the oldest, city of Babylonia. We have inserted
a portion of it in its most appropriate place in the epic. See translation
in "Records of the Past," vol. v. p. 157.]
[Footnote 6: "Kisar," the consort or queen of Sar, father of all the
gods.]
[Footnote 7: "Zir-ri" (pronounced "zeer-ree"), short form of "Zi-aria,"
spirits of the running rivers--naiads or water-nymphs.]
[Footnote 8: "Samas," the sun-god.]
[Footnote 9: Babil, Babylon; the Accadian name was "Diu-tir," or
"Duran."]
[Footnote 10: "Pa-te-si," prince.]
[Footnote 11: "Ellat-gula," one of the queens or sovereigns of Erech,
supposed to have preceded Nammurabi or Nimrod on the throne. We
have identified Izdubar herein with Nimrod.]

[Footnote 12: "Kardunia," the ancient name of Babylonia.]
COLUMN II
THE FALL OF ERECH
O Moon-god,[1] hear my cry! With thy pure light
Oh, take my spirit
through that awful night
That hovers o'er the long-forgotten years,

To sing Accadia's songs and weep her tears!
'Twas thus I prayed,
when lo! my spirit rose
On fleecy clouds, enwrapt in soft repose;

And I beheld beneath me nations glide
In swift succession by, in all
their pride:
The earth was filled with cities of mankind,
And
empires fell beneath a summer wind.
The soil and clay walked forth
upon the plains
In forms of life, and every atom gains
A place in
man or breathes in animals;
And flesh and blood and bones become
the walls
Of palaces and cities, which soon fall
To unknown dust
beneath some ancient wall.
All this I saw while guided by the stroke

Of unseen pinions:
Then amid the smoke
That rose o'er burning cities, I beheld
White
Khar-sak-kur-ra's[2] brow arise that held
The secrets of the gods--that
felt the prore
Of Khasisadra's ark; I heard the roar
Of battling
elements, and saw the waves
That tossed above mankind's
commingled graves.
The mighty mountain as some sentinel
Stood
on the plains alone; and o'er it fell
A halo, bright, divine; its summit
crowned
With sunbeams, shining on the earth around
And o'er the
wide expanse of plains;--below
Lay Khar-sak-kal-ama[3] with light
aglow,
And nestling far away within my view
Stood Erech, Nipur,
Marad, Eridu,
And Babylon, the tower-city old,
In her own
splendor shone like burnished gold.
And lo! grand Erech in her
glorious days
Lies at my feet. I see a wondrous maze
Of vistas,
groups, and clustering columns round,
Within, without the
palace;--from the ground
Of outer staircases, massive, grand,

Stretch to the portals where the pillars stand.
A thousand carvèd

columns reaching high
To silver rafters in an azure sky,
And
palaces and temples round it rise
With lofty turrets glowing to the
skies,
And massive walls far spreading o'er the plains,
Here live and
move Accadia's courtly trains,
And see! the pit-u-dal-ti[4] at the gates,

And masari[5] patrol and guard the streets!
And yonder comes a
kis-ib, nobleman,
With a young prince; and see! a caravan
Winds
through the gates! With men the streets are filled!
And chariots, a
people wise and skilled
In things terrestrial, what science, art,
Here
reign! With laden ships from every mart
The docks are filled, and
foreign fabrics bring
From peoples, lands, where many an empire,
king,
Have lived and passed away, and naught have left
In history
or song. Dread Time hath cleft
Us far apart; their kings and kingdoms,
priests
And bards are gone, and o'er them sweep the mists
Of
darkness backward spreading through all time,
Their records swept
away in every clime.
Those alabaster stairs let us ascend,
And
through this lofty portal we will wend.
See! richest Sumir rugs
amassed, subdue
The tilèd pavement with its varied hue,
Upon the
turquoise ceiling sprinkled stars
Of gold and silver crescents in bright
pairs!
And gold-fringed scarlet curtains grace each door,
And from
the inlaid columns reach the floor:
From golden rods extending round
the halls,
Bright silken hangings drape the sculptured walls.
But part those scarlet hangings at the door
Of yon grand chamber!
tread the antique floor!
Behold the sovereign on her throne of bronze,

While crouching at her feet a lion fawns;
The glittering court with
gold and gems ablaze
With ancient splendor of the glorious days

Of
Accad's sovereignty. Behold the ring
Of dancing beauties circling
while they sing
With