“I know not what that man has done nor whereby he may be cured.”

Ea made answer to his son Marduk:

“O my son, what thou dost not know, what can I tell thee?

O, Marduk, what thou dost not know, what can I tell thee?

What I know, thou knowest,

Go my son Marduk,

Take him to the house of purification

Take away the spell from him, remove the spell from him.”

A very pessimistic view of life is shown by the following complaint of a sick man quoted by Jeremias: “The day is sighing, the night a flood of tears; weeping is the month and misery the year.”