Str. II (end),
The gods were to be caused to sit in a seat of joy of heart,
He made mankind.
Str. III (beginning),
Aruru had made the seed of mankind with him.
He made the beasts of the field and the living creatures of the desert; etc.
The age of this Babylonian story of the Creation probably goes back to at least the middle of the second millennium of our chronology, and in this very ancient specimen of Semitic poetry we find this poetic form fully developed.
EXAMPLES FROM THE KORAN
It seems hardly possible to believe that the Arab prophet, who regarded it as an insult to be described as a poet, should have employed definite literary forms, and more particularly the strophe combined with the responsion, in his revelations. Yet such is the fact. In most cases the strophes rise and fall in harmony with his abrupt and agitated style (similar strophes occur in the prophetic books), but regular strophes are to be found, and in those that rise and fall we can trace a definite law which altogether excludes the idea of chance. The occurrence of the strophe combined with the responsion in the Koran, is a point of the utmost importance to the hypothesis of strophic composition, because the correctness of the arrangement of the Koran in lines seems to be assured both by the rhyme and by tradition. I will bring to your notice in this place an example of the regular strophe from the Koran. In the thirty-sixth surah we come upon a passage framed, as it were, between two verses, which form the inclusion.