Commanded the north wind to bear it to a secret place. His fathers saw it, rejoiced and shouted. Gifts and offerings to him they brought. The lord was appeased seeing her corpse. Dividing her body, wise plans he laid. Into two halves like a fish he divided her, Out of one half he made the vault of heaven, A bar he set and guards he posted, Gave them command that the waters pass not through. Through the heaven he strode, viewed its spaces, Near the deep placed Nudimmud's dwelling. And the lord measured the domain of the deep, A palace like it, Eshara, he built, The palace Eshara which he fashioned as heaven. Therein made he Anu, Bel, and Ea to dwell. He established the station of the great gods, Stars which were like them, constellations he set, The year he established, marked off its parts, Divided twelve months by three stars, From the day that begins the year to the day that ends it He established the station Nibir to mark its limits. That no harm come, no one go astray, The stations of Bel and Ea be set by its side. Great doors he made on this side and that, Closed them fast on left and right. * * * * * The moon-god he summoned, to him committed the night. [Here the account breaks off; there probably followed the history of the creation of the earth and of man.] III. FRAGMENTS OF A DESCENT TO THE UNDERWORLD To the underworld I turn, I spread my wings like a bird, I descend to the house of darkness, to the dwelling of Irkalla, To the house from which there is no exit, The road on which there is no return, To the house whose dwellers long for light, Dust is their nourishment and mud their food, Whose chiefs are like feathered birds, Where light is never seen, in darkness they dwell. In the house which I will enter There is treasured up for me a crown, With the crowned ones who of old ruled the earth, To whom Anu and Bel have given terrible names, Carrion is their food, their drink stagnant water. There dwell the chiefs and unconquered ones, There dwell the bards and the mighty men, Monsters of the deep of the great gods. It is the dwelling of Etana, the dwelling of Ner, Of Ninkigal, the queen of the underworld.... Her I will approach and she will see me. ISHTAR'S DESCENT TO THE UNDERWORLD [After a description substantially identical with the first half of the preceding poem, the story goes on:--]