Assyro-Babylonian literature -- Translations into English
The following poem is one of the numerous bilingual texts, written in the
original Accadian with an interlinear Assyrian translation, which have
been brought from the library of Assur-bani-pal, at Kouyunjik. The seven
evil spirits who are mentioned in it are elsewhere described as the seven
storm-clouds or winds whose leader seems to have been the dragon Tiamat
("the deep") defeated by Bel-Merodach in the war of the gods. It was these
seven storm-spirits who were supposed to attack the moon when it was
eclipsed, as described in an Accadian poem translated by Mr. Fox Talbot in
a previous volume of "Records of the Past." Here they are regarded as the
allies of the incubus or nightmare. We may compare them with the Maruts or
storm-gods of the Rig-Veda (see Max Müller, "Rig-Veda-Sanhita: the Sacred
Hymns of the Brahmans translated and explained," Vol. I). The author of
the present poem seems to have been a native of the Babylonian city of
Eridu, and his horizon was bounded by the mountains of Susiania, over
whose summits the storms raged from time to time. A fragment of another
poem relating to Eridu is appended, which seems to celebrate a temple
similar to that recorded by Maimonides in which the Babylonian gods
gathered round the image of the sun-god to lament the death of Tammuz.
A copy of the cuneiform text will be found in the "Cuneiform Inscriptions
of Western Asia," Vol. IV, pl. 15. M. Fr. Lenormant has translated a
portion of it in "_La Magie chez les Chaldéens"_ pp. 26, 27.
ACCADIAN POEM ON THE SEVEN EVIL SPIRITS
OBVERSE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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