And thereafter ten days passed away, and it was the time of the great yearly feast of Tammuz, the beautiful god of spring.
XVIII
THE FEAST OF TAMMUZ
The midsummer month, Abû, dedicated to the "Queen of the Bow," was ushered in with heat intense, suffocating, and unendurable. The second day of the month was the sixteenth of the siege—so-called. The camp of the Elamite remained perfectly passive. No preparations for fighting had been made, neither battering-ram nor catapult constructed, not an arrow let fly from the bow, not a pebble from the sling. The great body of stout warriors from the vigorous north remained in demoralizing idleness, broiling in their tents, sleeping by day, living and suffering at night, while the city they coveted lay quiet, half lifeless, on the plain before them.
The time had come for the great religious festival celebrated each year in the Babylonian temples by priest, king, and people, in honor of Istar's murdered spouse, Tammuz, the young god of spring, slain by the fierce bolts of high-riding Shamash. This feast was of three days' duration, and began at the hour of the first sacrifice on the morning of the second of the month. It was the most important festival in the calendar, and never yet in the history of the city had its celebration, for any reason whatsoever, been neglected. And this year the royal decree concerning it was issued as usual.
In the week that preceded the prospective holiday, however, the lord of Babylon was subject to some unaccountable forebodings with regard to this feast. Outwardly, as any one could see, the city was quiet enough. Inwardly it seethed. This, of course, Belshazzar knew. But of the extent or the trend of the plot, neither he nor any of his partisans was aware. His ears could not hear what was talked of at noon in the houses of Zicarû. His eyes could not see the well-hidden rooms in which priests and people met to talk over wrongs that the citizens had never thought of before, but which their indefatigable preceptors skilfully pointed out to them. Nor did Belshazzar much heed the harangues that daily followed morning sacrifice in every temple. He hardly noticed how immense were the crowds in attendance at sacrifice now; and those of the lords and the soldiers that did notice, refused to think lucidly, but put it all down to anxiety over the siege and a wish to propitiate the gods. Still, blind, deaf, utterly insensible as were the king and all his councillors to the only open evidences of treachery in the city, there was no one of them that did not, however vaguely, feel treachery in the air, and dread accordingly.
In the days between the fall of Sippar and the feast, Nabonidus had not once, so far as his son knew, been inquired for by man, woman, or priest in the Great City. If anything were said in the palace it was in whispers too careful to reach the royal ears. Belitsum, still overcome by the prophet's dream, had gone into an uncertain retirement; but the remainder of the harem went thoughtlessly and light-heartedly about their occupations, adding to their usual aimless lives the pleasure of preparing for the great holiday, now so near at hand.
The demi-god Tammuz, beloved of the love-goddess (as Spring and Love have been forever wedded in myth and song) had no proper place of worship in Babylon. His romantic death, however, was celebrated in every temple of the city and the suburbs on the same days. From time immemorial it had been the custom for the royal household—men, women, children, slaves, officers, and servants—to remove into the great hall of the temple of Bel-Marduk, where the high-priest was accustomed to officiate.[12] Here for three days they remained, engaged in mingled prayer and revelry, the one forbidden refreshment being that only one which could betoken forgetfulness of the gods and the purposes of the feast—sleep.