Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/369

 NOTIONS AS TO A FUTURE LIFE. 347 have come down to us. The poet celebrates the felicity of the just taking his food with the gods and become a god himself : Wash thy hands, purify thy hands, The gods, thine elders, will wash and purify their hands ; Eat the pure nourishment in the pure disks, Drink the pure water from the pure vases : Prepare to enjoy the peace of the just ! They have brought their pure water, Anat, the great spouse ot Anou, Has held thee in her sacred arms ; laou has transferred thee into a holy place ; He has transferred thee from his sacred hands ; He has transferred thee into the midst of honey and fat, He has poured magic water into thy mouth, And the virtue of the water has opened thy mouth. As to where this paradise was placed we have no certain in- formation. It could hardly have been a mere separate district of that abode of shades that is painted in such sombre colours. We must suppose that it was open to the sunlight ; it was perhaps on one of the slopes of the Northern Mountain, in the neigh- bourhood of the luminous summit on which the gods and goddesses had their home. The idea of a reward lor the just carries as its corollary that of a punishment for the unjust, but in spite of the logi- cal connection between the two notions, we cannot affirm that the Elysium of these Semites had a Tartarus by its side. No allusion to such a place has been found in any of the texts already translated. On the other hand, we find some evidence that the Assyrians believed in the resurrection of the dead. Marduk and his spouse Zarpanitu often bear the title of " those who make the dead live again " (inuballitk or niuballitJi- at miti or inituti}. The same epithet is sometimes given to other deities, especially to I star. As yet we do not know when and under what conditions renewed life was to be granted. O We need hardly add that the ideas that find expression in the Assyrian texts were by no means peculiar to the northern people. All Assyriologists agree that in everything connected with the intellect, the Assyrians invented nothing; they did nothing but adapt and imitate, translate and copy from the more prolific