Babylonian and Assyrian Literature | Page 5

amorous forms in moving melody,
The
measure keep to music's harmony.
Hear! how the music swells from
silver lute
And golden-stringèd lyres and softest flute
And harps
and tinkling cymbals, measured drums,
While a soft echo from the
chamber comes.

But see! the sovereign lifts her jewelled hand,
The music ceases at the
Queen's command;
And lo! two chiefs in warrior's array,
With
golden helmets plumed with colors gay,
And golden shields, and
silver coats of mail,
Obeisance make to her with faces pale,

Prostrate themselves before their sovereign's throne
In silence brief
remain with faces prone,
Till Ellat-gula[6] speaks: "My chiefs, arise!

What word have ye for me? what new surprise?"
Tur-tau-u,[7]
rising, says, "O Dannat[8] Queen!
Thine enemy, Khum-baba[9] with
Rim-siu[10]
With clanging shields, appears upon the hills,
And
Elam's host the land of Sumir fills."
"Away, ye chiefs! sound loud the
nappa-khu![11]
Send to their post each warrior bar-ru!"[12]
The
gray embattlements rose in the light
That lingered yet from Samas'[13]
rays, ere Night
Her sable folds had spread across the sky.
Thus
Erech stood, where in her infancy
The huts of wandering Accads had
been built
Of soil, and rudely roofed by woolly pelt
O'erlaid upon
the shepherd's worn-out staves,
And yonder lay their fathers'
unmarked graves.
Their chieftains in those early days oft meet

Upon the mountains where they Samas greet,
With their rude
sacrifice upon a tree
High-raised that their sun-god may shining see

Their offering divine; invoking pray
For aid, protection, blessing
through the day.
Beneath these walls and palaces abode
The spirit
of their country--each man trod
As if his soul to Erech's weal
belonged,
And heeded not the enemy which thronged
Before the
gates, that now were closed with bars
Of bronze thrice fastened.
See the thousand cars
And chariots arrayed across the plains!
The
marching hosts of Elam's armèd trains,
The archers, slingers in
advance amassed,
With black battalions in the centre placed,
With
chariots before them drawn in line,
Bedecked with brightest trappings
iridine,
While gorgeous plumes of Elam's horses nod
Beneath the
awful sign of Elam's god.
On either side the mounted spearsmen far

Extend; and all the enginery of war
Are brought around the walls
with fiercest shouts,
And from behind their shields each archer

shoots.
Thus Erech is besieged by her dread foes,
And she at last must feel
Accadia's woes,
And feed the vanity of conquerors,
Who boast o'er
victories in all their wars.
Great Subartu[14] has fallen by Sutu[15]

And Kassi,[16] Goim[17] fell with Lul-lu-bu,[18]
Thus
Khar-sak-kal-a-ma[19] all Eridu[20]
O'erran with Larsa's allies;
Subartu
With Duran[21] thus was conquered by these sons
Of
mighty Shem and strewn was Accad's bones
Throughout her plains,
and mountains, valleys fair,
Unburied lay in many a wolf's lair.
Oh,
where is Accad's chieftain Izdubar,
Her mightiest unrivalled prince of
war?
The turrets on the battlemented walls
Swarm with skilled bowmen,
archers--from them falls
A cloud of wingèd missiles on their foes,

Who swift reply with shouts and twanging bows;
And now amidst the
raining death appears
The scaling ladder, lined with glistening spears,

But see! the ponderous catapults now crush
The ladder, spearsmen,
with their mighty rush
Of rocks and beams, nor in their fury slacked

As if a toppling wall came down intact
Upon the maddened mass
of men below.
But other ladders rise, and up them flow
The tides of
armèd spearsmen with their shields;
From others bowmen shoot, and
each man wields
A weapon, never yielding to his foe,
For death
alone he aims with furious blow.
At last upon the wall two soldiers
spring,
A score of spears their corses backward fling.
But others
take their place, and man to man,
And spear to spear, and sword to
sword, till ran
The walls with slippery gore; but Erech's men
Are
brave and hurl them from their walls again.
And now the
battering-rams with swinging power
Commence their thunders,
shaking every tower;
And miners work beneath the crumbling walls,

Alas! before her foemen Erech falls.

Vain are suspended chains
against the blows
Of dire assaulting engines.
Ho! there goes
The eastern wall with Erech's strongest tower!
And

through the breach her furious foemen pour:
A wall of steel
withstands the onset fierce,
But thronging Elam's spears the lines
soon pierce,
A band of chosen men there fight to die,
Before their
enemies disdain to fly;
The masari[22] within the breach thus died,

And with their dying shout the foe defied.
The foes swarm through
the breach and o'er the walls,
And Erech in extremity loud calls

Upon the gods for aid, but prays for naught,
While Elam's soldiers, to
a frenzy wrought,
Pursue and slay, and sack the city old
With
fiendish shouts for blood and yellow gold.
Each man that falls the foe
decapitates,
And bears the reeking death to Erech's gates.
The gates
are hidden 'neath the pile of heads
That climbs above the walls, and
outward spreads
A heap of ghastly plunder bathed in blood.
Beside
them calm scribes of the victors stood,
And careful note the butcher's
name, and check
The list; and for each head a price they make.

Thus pitiless the sword of Elam gleams
And the best blood of Erech
flows in streams.
From Erech's walls some fugitives escape,
And
others in Euphrates wildly leap,
And hide beneath its rushes on the
bank
And many 'neath the yellow waters sank.
The harper of the Queen, an agèd man,
Stands lone upon the bank,
while he doth scan
The horizon with anxious, careworn face,
Lest