TRANSLATOR:
E. A. SPEISER
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The material here
offered is intended to be representative rather than
exhaustive. It is not always possible to draw a sharp line
between Akkadian compositions devoted to myths and related
material, and those that concern other types of religious
literature, not to mention special categories of historical
nature. Furthermore, considerations of space and time have
tended to exclude sundry literary remains whose bearing on
the purpose of this work is not immediately apparent. It is
hoped, however, that nothing of genuine relevance has been
omitted.
As regards the order
of the individual subjects, it was deemed advisable to
present in succession the two major survivals of this group
of texts, namely, The Creation Epic and The Epic of Gilgamesh.
The
alternative procedure would have been to group some of the
minor subjects with the one epic, and some with the other.
The present arrangement has a sound biblical precedent in
the order of the books of the Prophets.
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In translating
material which has come down to us in poetic form, there
arises the inevitable conflict between adherence to the
force and flavor of the original idiom-as that idiom is
understood-and adherence to the given poetic form. In the
present instance, preference was given to the demands of
meaning, whenever necessary. Elsewhere slight exceptions
have been made in an effort to reflect the measures of the
Akkadian versenormally a unit of two distinct halves with
two beats in each half. Where the text presents an overlong
line as a result of a mechanical combination of two verses,
the added verse has been indented in the translation so as
not to alter the line count of the text. In lines grown
unwieldy for other reasons-such as theological addition in
the original, or the helplessness of the translator when
confronted with the economy or the elusiveness of the
Akkadian idiom-indentation has likewise proved to be a
convenient device.
The strong temptation
to indicate logical transitions in the context by means of
paragraphing has been resisted on the ground that such
divisions might be regarded as arbitrary. Where, however,
the text suggests paragraphing by means of horizontal lines
(as in The
Epic of Gilgamesh), the translation has followed suit by
resorting to added spacing.
Virtually all of the
material included under this heading has had the benefit of
painstaking study over a period of many years. The principal
editions of the texts and the latest discussions and
translations arc listed in the respective introductions to
the individual subjects. Each revision is indebted to some
extent to its various predecessors. My own debt to my
colleagues, past-and present, is too great to be
acknowledged in detail. I have tried, however, to note
explicitly such appropriated improvements and observations
as may not as yet have become the common property of
Assyriological scholarship. In fairness to others, it was
necessary also to call attention to the occasional
departures for which I alone must bear the responsibility.
The existing gaps in the texts, at any rate, and the lacunae
in our understanding of what is extant, are still much too
formidable for anything like a definitive
translation.
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The
Creation Epic
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The struggle between
cosmic order and chaos was to the ancient Mesopotamians a
fateful drama that was renewed at the turn of each new year.
The epic which deals with these events was therefore the
most significant expression of the religious
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literature of
Mesopotamia. The work, consisting of seven tablets, was
known in Akkadian as Enfima elil "When on high," after its opening words. It
was recited with due solemnity on the fourth day of the New
Year's festival.
Portions of this work
were first made available in modern times by George Smith,
in The
Chaldean 4ccount of Genesis (i876). The flow of material has continued
intermittently ever since. We owe these texts to three main
sources: (a) The British excavations at Nineveh; the
relevant texts have been published in CT, xiii (iooi) and in
L. W. King's The Seven Tablets of Creation
(2
V@S.,'1902). (b) Ile German excavations at Ashur; texts in
E. Ebeling's Keilschrifttexte aus 4ssur religibsen
Inhalts (1915
ff-)- (c) 'Me British-American excavations at Kish; texts in
S. Lang@o'n's Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts
(1923 ff-;
Vol. vi). Scattered fragments have appeared in the
periodical publications. A convenient compilation of the
texts has been given by A. Deimcl in his Enuma Elil (2nd ed., 1936). This book
contains a useful textual apparatus, but it does not
altogether eliminate the need for comparison with the basic
publications. In recent years, large gaps in Tablet VIT have
been filled by E. Ebeling in M,40G, xit (1939), part 4, and these additions have
been supplemented and elucidated by W. von Soden in Z,4,
xlvii (i942), 1-26. The only part that still is largely
unknown is Tablet V.
The various studies
and translations of this epic are too numerous for a
complete survey. The more recent ones include: S. Langdon,
The Babylonian
Epic of Creation (1923); E. Ebeling, 40T, io8 ff.; R. Labat,
Le po@me
babylonien de la creation (1935); and A. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis
(1942). For
the sake of ready reference, I have retained the line count
employed by Labat. Heidel's careful translation could
scarcely be overestimated in its usefulness. Except for the
portions of Tablet VII, which have appeared since, it
constituted the fullest rendering possible at the time of
its publication. Attention should also be called to W. von
Soden's grammatical study, Der hymnischepische Dialckt des
Akkadischen, ZA, XL-XLI (1932 f.), and to A. L Oppcnheim's
notes on Mesopotamian Mythology 1, Orient-
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alia,
xvi (I947),
207-38.
There is as yet no
general agreement as regards the date of composition. None
of the extant texts antedates the first millennium B.C. On
the internal evidence, however, of the context and the
linguistic criteria, the majority of the scholars would
assign the epic to the Old Babylonian period, i.e. the early
part of the second millennium B.C. 'Mere does not appear to
be any convincing reason against this earlier dating.
The poem is cast in
metric form. One seventh-century copy of Tablet IV, for
instance, still shows plainlv the division of lines into
halves, thus bringing out the two beats of each half.
Theological, political, and exegetical considerations have
led to various chanies and additions, but these are readily
recognized for the most part thanks to the underlying metric
framework.' Unfortunately, a translation cannot make use of
this type of evidence, however obvious it may be. In
general, the successive revisions have marred the poetic
effect of the whole. Nevertheless, enough passages have come
down intact to bear witness to a genuine literary
inspiration in many instances.
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