Beowulf in his famous battle with the Dragon stands out as nobler and braver than Marduk, inasmuch as he, a man, to free his country from the Dragon’s toll of death and ravage, of his own volition seeks out the monster. He “attacks alone, for being altogether fearless he scorned to take an army against the foe,” whereas Marduk—the god—was compelled to the duel, since he was unable to enlist a single god. Beowulf “counted not the worm’s warring for aught,” whereas Marduk among his preparations,
“Made a net to enclose the inward parts of Tiāmat And the four winds he set so that nothing of her might escape.”
The protagonists (literally protagonists, for behind Marduk cowered the shrinking gods, and behind Tiāmat her spouse and her spawned monsters) on meeting consume time, quite in the grand Homeric manner, by launching taunts and reproaches at each other.
Eventually Marduk, after spreading out his net to catch her, seems to have anticipated the gassing tactics of the Huns by many millenniums, and owing to the absence of a mask with even greater success, for—
“The evil wind, that was behind, he let loose in her face,[995] As Tiāmat opened her mouth to its full extent. He drove in the evil wind, while she had not yet shut her lips. The terrible winds filled her belly, And her courage was taken from her and her mouth she opened wide. His spear he seized, and broke through her belly, He severed her inward parts, he pierced her heart.”
THE FIGHT BETWEEN MARDUK AND TIĀMAT.
Then for a while Marduk rested but, arising,
“He split her body up like a flat fish into two halves. One half of her he set in place as a covering for the heavens. He fixed a bolt, he stationed watchmen, And bade them not to let her waters come forth.”