Part XIII

, Plate 33; and Ebellog, _Assurtexte_, I, No. 6.]

[Footnote 3: The _biru_ was the distance which a man would travel in two hours.]

The literary form of the text of the Seven Tablets fulfils the requirements of Semitic poetry in general. The lines usually fall into couplets, the second line being the antiphon of the first, e.g.:--

"When in the height heaven was not named, And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name."

Each line, or verse, falls into two halves, and a well-marked caesura divides each line, or verse, into two equally accented parts. And the half-lines can be further resolved into two halves, each containing a single accented word or phrase. This is proved by tablet Spartali ii, 265A, where the scribe writes his lines and spaces the words in such a way as to show the subdivision of the lines. Thus we have:--

_enuma_ | _elish_ || _la nabu_| _shamamu_ _shaplish_| _ammatum_|| _shuma_ | _la zakrat_

Here there is clearly a rhythm which resembles that found in the poems of the Syrians and Arabs, but there are many instances of its inconsistent use in several parts of the text. Both rhyme and alliteration appear to be used occasionally.

THE SEVEN TABLETS OF CREATION.--TRANSLATION.

FIRST TABLET.[1]

[Footnote 1: This translation is made from transcripts of the British Museum fragments (_Cuneiform Texts_,