Babylonian and Assyrian Literature

by Unknown

And I should learn to love my mate,
In beast or singing bird or flower,
For kiss of love in hope could wait;
Perhaps I then would come that hour,
In form I have again!

And love you say, my queen, is there,
Where I can breathe with life anew?
But is it so? My Love, beware!
For some things oft are false, some true,
But I thee trust again!

We fly away! from gates away!
Oh, life of bliss! Oh, breath of balm!
With wings we tread the Silver Way,
To trailing vines and feathery palm,
To bower of love again."

COLUMN VI

ESCAPE OF TAMMUZ FROM HADES—HIS DEATH IN THE CLOUDS—FUNERAL PROCESSION OF THE GODS—ISHTAR'S ELEGY OVER THE DEATH OF TAMMUZ—HIS REVIVAL IN HADES, WHERE HE IS CROWNED AS THE LORD OF HADES—ISHTAR'S RETURN BRINGS LIGHT AND LOVE BACK TO EARTH.

But see! they pass from those dark gates and walls,
And fly upon the breeze from Hades' halls,
Hark! hark! the sounding harp is stilled! it falls
From Tammuz's hands! Oh, how its wailing calls
To you bright zi-ni[1] flying through the skies,
See! one sweet spirit of the wind swift flies
And grasps the wailing harp before it ends
Its wail of woe, and now beneath it bends,
With silent pinions listening to its strings,
Wild sobbing on the winds;—with wailing rings
The conscious harp, and trembles in her hands.
A rush of pinions comes from myriad lands,
With moanings sends afar the awful tale,
And mourners brings with every whispering gale.
And see! the queen's companion fainting sinks!
She lays him on that cloud with fleecy brinks!
And oh! his life is ebbing fast away!
She wildly falls upon his breast, and gray
Her face becomes with bitter agony.
She tearless kneels, wrapt in her misery
And now upon his breast she lays her head,
With tears that gods, alas! with men must shed;
She turning, sobs to her sweet waiting maids,
Who weeping o'er her stand with bended heads:
"Assemble, oh, my maids, in mourning here,
The gods! and spirits of the earth bring near!"

They come! they come! three hundred spirits high,
The heavenly spirits come! the I-gi-gi!
From Heaven's streams and mouths and plains and vales,
And gods by thousands on the wings of gales.
The spirits of the earth, An-un-na-ci,
Now join around their sisters of the sky.
Hark! hear her weeping to the heavenly throng,
Imploring them to chant their mournful song:

"With your gold lyres, the dirge, oh, sing with me!
And moan with me, with your sweet melody;
With swelling notes, as zephyrs softly wail,
And cry with me as sobbing of the gale.
O Earth! dear Earth! oh, wail with thy dead trees!
With sounds of mountain torrents, moaning seas!
And spirits of the lakes, and streams, and vales,
And Zi-ku-ri of mountains' trackless trail,
Join our bright legions with your queen! Oh, weep
With your sad tears, dear spirits of the deep!
Let all the mournful sounds of earth be heard,
The breeze hath carried stored from beast and bird;
Join the sweet notes of doves for their lost love
To the wild moans of hours,—wailing move;
Let choirs of Heaven and of the earth then peal,
All living beings my dread sorrow feel!
Oh, come with saddest, weirdest melody,
Join earth and sky in one sweet threnody!"

Ten thousand times ten thousand now in line,
In all the panoplies of gods divine;
A million crowns are shining in the light,
A million sceptres, robes of purest white!
Ten thousand harps and lutes and golden lyres
Are waiting now to start the Heavenly choirs.

And lo! a chariot from Heaven comes,
While halves rise from yonder sapphire domes;
A chariot incrusted with bright gems,
A blaze of glory shines from diadems.
See! in the car the queen o'er Tammuz bends,
And nearer the procession slowly wends,
Her regal diadem with tears is dimmed;
And her bright form by sorrow is redeemed
To sweeter, holier beauty in her woe;
Her tears a halo form and brighter flow.