Chaldea: From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria

by Zénaïde A. Ragozin

28. There is another hymn of the same kind, not less remarkable for its artistic and regular construction than for its beauty of feeling and diction. The penitent speaks five double lines, and the priest adds two more, as though endorsing the prayer and supporting it with the weight of his own sacred character. This gives very regular strophes, of which, unfortunately, only two have been well preserved:—

Penitent.—"I, thy servant, full of sighs, I call to thee. Whoever is beset with sin, his ardent supplication thou acceptest. If thou lookest on a man with pity, that man liveth. Ruler of all, mistress of mankind! Merciful one, to whom it is good to turn, who dost receive sighs!" Priest.—"While his god and his goddess are wroth with him he calls on thee. Thy countenance turn on him, take hold of his hand."

Penitent.—"Besides thee there is no deity to lead in righteousness. Kindly look on me, accept my sighs. Speak: how long? and let thine heart be appeased. When, O Lady, will thy countenance turn on me? Even like doves I moan, I feed on sighs." Priest.—"His heart is full of woe and trouble, and full of sighs. Tears he sheds and breaks out into lamentation."[AG]

29. Such is a not incomplete outline of this strange and primitive religion, the religion of a people whose existence was not suspected twenty-five years ago, yet which claims, with the Egyptians and the Chinese, the distinction of being one of the oldest on earth, and in all probability was older than both. This discovery is one of the most important conquests of modern science, not only from its being highly interesting in itself, but from the light it throws on innumerable hitherto obscure points in the history of the ancient world, nay, on many curious facts which reach down to our own time. Thus, the numerous Turanian tribes which exist in a wholly or half nomadic condition in the immense plains of Eastern and South-eastern Russia, in the forests and wastes of Siberia, on the steppes and highlands of Central Asia, have no other religion now than this of the old Shumiro-Accads, in its earliest and most material shape. Everything to them is a spirit or has a spirit of its own; they have no worship, no moral teaching, but only conjuring, sorcerers, not priests. These men are called Shamans and have great influence among the tribes. The more advanced and cultivated Turanians, like the Mongols and Mandchous, accord to one great Spirit the supremacy over all others and call that Spirit which they conceive as absolutely good, merciful and just, "Heaven," just as the Shumiro-Accads invoked "Ana." This has been and still is the oldest national religion of the Chinese. They say "Heaven" wherever we would say "God," and with the same idea of loving adoration and reverent dread, which does not prevent them from invoking the spirit of every hill, river, wind or forest, and numbering among this host also the souls of the deceased. This clearly corresponds to the second and higher stage of the Accadian religion, and marks the utmost limit which the Yellow Race have been able to attain in spiritual life. True, the greater part of the Chinese now have another religion; they are Buddhists; while the Turks and the great majority of the Tatars, Mongols and Mandchous, not to speak of other less important divisions, are Mussulmans. But both Buddhism and Mahometanism are foreign religions, which they have borrowed, adopted, not worked out for themselves. Here then we are also met by that fatal law of limitation, which through all ages seems to have said to the men of yellow skin and high cheek-bones, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further." Thus it was in Chaldea. The work of civilization and spiritual development begun by the people of Shumir and Accad was soon taken out of their hands and carried on by newcomers from the east, those descendants of Noah, who "found a plain in the land of Shinar and dwelt there."

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.

Professor Louis Dyer, of Harvard University, has attempted a rendering into English verse of the famous incantation of the Seven Maskim. The result of the experiment is a translation most faithful in the spirit and main features, if not always literal; and which, by his kind permission, we here offer to our readers.

A CHARM.

I.

Seven are they, they are seven; In the caverns of ocean they dwell, They are clothed in the lightnings of heaven, Of their growth the deep waters can tell; Seven are they, they are seven.