Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/18

 Babylonian Noah, "so long as we seal (i.e., conclude treaties), so long as brothers quarrel, so long as there is hatred on earth, so long as rivers swell in flood, no image (for purposes of exorcism?) will be made of death."

The laments over the lot and doom of death are often striking. In one of the religious texts from the library of Asurbanipal we read of one "the joy of whose heart is the fear of the gods," and to whom, nevertheless, "the day is sighing, the night weeping, the month wailing, the year lamentation: Into dark bonds was I cast; a dagger pierced me; the wound was deep; in the night it suffered me not to breathe freely for a moment; my joints were torn and loosened; on my couch  as a bull, as a sheep, was I wet with my urine;  no exorciser expelled my sickness; no priest put an end to my infirmity; no god helped; none took my hand; no god had compassion on me; no goddess came to my side; the grave was open;  ere I was yet dead was the funeral dirge due." Then at length redemption drew nigh. Another instance runs as follows: "Death is the covering of my couch; already have I struck up the lament (lit., tones of the flute)." It is in keeping with the character of Babylonian mourning that at a certain episode in the story of the Flood, Istar "shrieked like a woman in travail, because the corpses of