CHAPTER XXXVII
THE FIGHT BETWEEN MARDUK AND TIĀMAT
Following my usual course of ending the chapter on each nation with a legend or story, in which fish or ichthyic monsters figure as direct or indirect agents of some important event, I subjoin the only myth in Assyrian literature which comes within this category, viz. the famous fight between Marduk and Tiāmat, the monstrous creature of the deep.
Tiāmat, with her consort Apsū, had revolted against the gods and brought into being a brood of monsters to destroy them. So formidable seemed her forces that all appeals by Anshar, the leader of the gods, to Anu, and then to Ea, were made in vain. No god would “face the music,” till Marduk was prevailed upon to become their champion. Nor does this grand refusal seem unnatural, when we read of Tiāmat’s dimensions.
“Fifty Kasbu, or more correctly Biru (i.e. 300 miles), was her length, one Kasbu (six miles) was her breadth, half a rod was her mouth;” and the rest of her body of proportionate bulk![992] Nor again is it unnatural that at—
“The lashing of the water with her tail, All the Gods in heaven were afraid.”
How pigmy in comparison with Tiāmat appears the decadent sea-dragon mentioned by Ignatius, on whose gut, 120 feet long, in the library of Constantinople were written in letters of gold the Iliad and the Odyssey!
Allied with Tiāmat in her fight were—
“Spawned sea-serpents, Sharp of teeth and cruel of fang.”
“With poison instead of blood she has filled their bodies, And mighty tempests, and the fishman,[993] and the ram,[994] They bear merciless weapons without fear of the fight.”