No More Learning

The brigand opened it with the eagerness of a custom-house


## p. 39 (#53) ##############################################

EDMOND ABOUT
39
officer. He drew from it a little English dressing-case, a vial of
English salts, a box of pastilles of English mint, and a hundred
and some odd francs in English money.
"Now,” said the impatient beauty, you can let us go: we
have nothing more for you. ” They indicated to her, by a men-
acing gesture, that the session was not ended. The chief of the
band squatted down before our spoils, called “the good old man,”
counted the money in his presence, and delivered to him the sum
of forty-five francs. Mrs. Simons nudged me on the elbow. "You
see,” said she, “the monk and Dimitri have betrayed us: he is
dividing the spoils with them. ”
“No, madam,” replied I, immediately. “Dimitri has received
a mere pittance from that which they had stolen from him. It is
a thing which is done everywhere. On the banks of the Rhine,
when a traveler is ruined at roulette, the conductor of the game
gives him something wherewith to return home. ”
« But the monk ? ”
“He has received a tenth part of the booty in virtue of an
immemorial custom. Do not reproach him, but rather be thank-
ful to him for having wished to save us, when his convent was
interested in our capture. ”
This discussion was interrupted by the farewells of Dimitri.
They had just set him at liberty.
“Wait for me,” said I to him: “we will return together. ” He
shook his head sadly, and answered me in English, so as to be
understood by the ladies:-
“You are prisoners for some days, and you will not see Ath-
ens again before paying a ransom. I am going to inform the
milord. Have these ladies any messages to give me for him ? »
« Tell him,” cried Mrs. Simons, “to run to the embassy, to
go then to the Piræus and find the admiral, to complain at the
foreign office, to write to Lord Palmerston! They shall take us
away from here by force of arms, or by public authority, but I
do not intend that they shall disburse a penny for my liberty. ”
"As for me,” replied I, without so much passion, "I beg you
to tell my friends in what hands you have left me. If some hun-
dreds of drachms are necessary to ransom a poor devil of a nat-
uralist, they will find them without trouble. These gentlemen of
the highway cannot rate me very high. I have a mind, while
you are still here, to ask them what I am worth at the lowest
price. ”


## p. 40 (#54) ##############################################

40
EDMOND ABOUT
It is not they
"It would be useless, my dear Mr. Hermann!
who fix the figures of your ransom. ”
“And who then ? »
« Their chief, Hadgi-Stavros. ”
HADGI-STAVROS
From "The King of the Mountains)
The
seven
HE camp of the King was a plateau, covering a surface of
or eight hundred metres. I looked in vain for the
tents of our conquerors. The brigands are not sybarites,
and they sleep under the open sky on the 30th of April. I saw
neither spoils heaped up nor treasures displayed, nor any of those
things which one expects to find at the headquarters of a band
of robbers. Hadgi-Stavros makes it his business to have the
booty sold ; every man receives his pay in money, and employs it
as he chooses. Some make investments in commerce, others take
mortgages on houses in Athens, others buy land in their villages ;
no one squanders the products of robbery. Our arrival inter-
rupted the breakfast of twenty-five or thirty men, who flocked
around us with their bread and cheese. The chief supports his
soldiers; there is distributed to them every day one ration of
bread, oil, wine, cheese, caviare, allspice, bitter olives, and meat
when their religion permits it. The epicures who wish to eat
mallows or other herbs are at liberty to gather delicacies in the
mountains.
The office of the King was as much like an office as the camp
of the robbers was like a camp. Neither tables nor chairs nor
movables of any sort were to be seen there. Hadgi-Stavros was
seated cross-legged on a square carpet in the shade of a fir-tree.
Four secretaries and two servants were grouped around him. A
boy of sixteen or eighteen was occupied incessantly in filling,
lighting, and cleaning the chibouk of his master. He carried in
his belt a tobacco-pouch, embroidered with gold and fine mother-
of-pearl, and a pair of silver pincers intended for taking up coals.
Another servant passed the day in preparing cups of coffee,
glasses of water, and sweetmeats to refresh the royal mouth. The
secretaries, seated on the bare rock, wrote on their knees, with
pens made of reeds.
Each of them had at hand a long copper
box containing reeds, penknife, and inkhorn. Some tin cylinders,


## p. 41 (#55) ##############################################

EDMOND ABOUT
41
like those in which our soldiers roll up their discharges, served
as a depository for the archives. The paper was not of native
manufacture, and for a good reason. Every leaf bore the word
BATH in capital letters.
The King was a fine old man, marvelously well preserved,
straight, slim, supple as a spring, spruce and shining as a new
sabre. His long white moustachios hung under his chin like two
marble stalactites. The rest of his face was carefully shaved, the
skull bare even to the occiput, where a long tress of white hair
was rolled up under his hat. The expression of his features ap-
peared to me calm and thoughtful. A pair of small, clear blue
eyes and a square chin announced an indomitable will. His face
was long, and the position of the wrinkles lengthened it still more.
All the creases of the forehead were broken in the middle, and
seemed to direct themselves toward the meeting of the eyebrows;
two wide and deep furrows descended perpendicularly to the
corners of the lips, as if the weight of the moustachios had
drawn in the muscles of the face.
I have seen a good many septuagenarians ; I have even dis-
sected one who would have reached a hundred years, if the dili-
gence of Osnabrück had not passed over his body : but I do not
remember to have observed a more green and robust old age
than that of Hadgi-Stavros. He wore the dress of Tino and of
all the islands of the Archipelago. His red cap formed a large
crease at its base around his forehead. He had a vest of black
cloth, faced with black silk, immense blue pantaloons which con-
tained more than twenty metres of cotton cloth, and great boots
of Russia leather, elastic and stout. The only rich thing in his
costume was a scarf embroidered with gold and precious stones,
which might be worth two or three thousand francs. It inclosed
in its folds an embroidered cashmere purse, a Damascus sanjar
in a silver sheath, a long pistol mounted in gold and rubies, and
the appropriate baton.
Quietly seated in the midst of his employees, Hadgi-Stavros
moved only the ends of his fingers and his lips; the lips to dic-
tate his correspondence, the fingers to count the beads in his
chaplet. It was one of those beautiful chaplets of milky amber
which do not serve to number prayers, but to amuse the solemn
idleness of the Turk.
He raised his head at our approach, guessed at a glance the
occurrence which had brought us there, and said to us, with a


## p. 42 (#56) ##############################################

42
EDMOND ABOUT
gravity which had in it nothing ironical, “You are welcome! Be
seated. ”
«Sir, cried Mrs. Simons, "I am an English woman, and — »
He interrupted the discourse by making his tongue smack against
the teeth of his upper jaw — superb teeth, indeed! «Presently,”
said he: "I am occupied. ” He understood only Greek, and Mrs.
Simons knew only English; but the physiognomy of the King was
so speaking that the good lady comprehended easily without the
aid of an interpreter.
Selections from «The King of the Mountains) used by permission of
J. E. Tilton and Company
THE VICTIM
L*
From "The Man with the Broken Ear): by permission of Henry Holt, the
Translator
ÉON took his bunch of keys and opened the long oak box on
which he had been seated. The lid being raised, they saw
a great leaden casket which inclosed a magnificent walnut
box carefully polished on the outside, lined on the inside with
white silk, and padded.
The others brought their lamps and candles near, and the
colonel of the Twenty-third of the line appeared as if he were in
a chapel illuminated for his lying in state.
One would have said that the man was asleep. The perfect
preservation of the body attested the paternal care of the mur-
derer. It was truly a remarkable preparation, and would have
borne comparison with the finest European mummies described by
Vicq d'Azyr in 1779, and by the younger Puymaurin in 1787. The
part best preserved, as is always the case, was the face. A11 the
features had maintained a proud and manly expression. If any
old friend of the colonel had been at the opening of the third
box, he would have recognized him at first sight. Undoubtedly
the point of the nose was a little sharper, the nostrils less ex-
panded and thinner, and the bridge a little more marked, than in
the year 1813. The eyelids were thinned, the lips pinched, the
corners of the mouth drawn down, the cheek bones too promi-
nent, and the neck visibly shrunken, which exaggerated the prom-
inence of the chin and larynx. But the eyelids were closed with-
out contraction, and the sockets much less hollow than one could
have expected; the mouth was not at all distorted, like the mouth


## p. 43 (#57) ##############################################

EDMOND ABOUT
43
of a corpse; the skin was slightly wrinkled, but had not changed
color, - it had only become a little more transparent, showing
after a fashion the color of the tendons, the fat, and the muscles,
wherever it rested directly upon them. It also had a rosy tint
which is not ordinarily seen in embalmed corpses. Dr. Martout
explained this anomaly by saying that if the colonel had actually
been dried alive, the globules of the blood were not decomposed,
but simply collected in the capillary vessels of the skin and sub-
jacent tissues, where they still preserved their proper color, and
could be seen more easily than otherwise on account of the semi-
transparency of the skin.
The uniform had become much too large, as may be readily
understood, though it did not seem at a casual glance that the
members had become deformed. The hands were dry and angu-
lar, but the nails, although a little bent inward toward the root,
had preserved all their freshness. The only very noticeable
change was the excessive depression of the abdominal walls, which
seemed crowded downward to the posterior side; at the right, a
slight elevation indicated the place of the liver. A tap of the
finger on the various parts of the body produced a sound like
that from dry leather. While Léon was pointing out these details
to his audience and doing the honors of his mummy, he awk-
wardly broke off the lower part of the right ear, and a little
piece of the colonel remained in his hand. This trifling accident
might have passed unnoticed had not Clémentine, who followed
with visible emotion all the movements of her lover, dropped her
candle and uttered a cry of affright. All gathered around her.
Léon took her in his arms and carried her to a chair. M. Re-
nault ran after salts. She was as pale as death, and seemed on
the point of fainting. She soon recovered, however, and reas-
sured them all by a charming smile.
"Pardon me,” she said, for such a ridiculous exhibition of
terror; but what Monsieur Léon was saying to us - and then -
that figure which seemed sleeping - it appeared to me that the
poor man was going to open his mouth and cry out, when he
was injured. "
Léon hastened to close the walnut box, while M. Martout
picked up the piece of ear and put it in his pocket. But Clé.
mentine, while continuing to smile and make apologies, was
overcome by a fresh access of emotion and melted into tears.
The engineer threw himself at her feet, poured forth excuses


## p. 44 (#58) ##############################################

EDMOND ABOUT
44
»
and tender phrases, and did all he could to console her inexpli-
cable grief.
Clémentine dried her eyes, looked prettier than ever, and
sighed fit to break her heart, without knowing why.
« Beast that I am! ” muttered Léon, tearing his hair. « On the
day when I see her again after three years' absence, I can think
of nothing more soul-inspiring than showing her mummies! He
launched a kick at the triple coffin of the colonel, saying, “I wish
the devil had the confounded colonel ! »
“No! ” cried Clémentine, with redoubled energy and emotion.
“Do not curse him, Monsieur Léon! He has suffered so much!
Ah! poor, poor, unfortunate man! »
Mlle. Sambucco felt a little ashamed. She made excuses for
her niece, and declared that never, since her tenderest childhood,
had she manifested such extreme sensitiveness.
Clémen-
tine was no sensitive plant. She was not even a romantic school-
girl. Her youth had not been nourished by Anne Radcliffe, she
did not trouble herself about ghosts, and she would go through the
house very tranquilly at ten o'clock at night without a candle.
When her mother died, some months before Léon's departure, she
did not wish to have any one share with her the sad satisfaction
of watching and praying in the death chamber.
« This will teach us,” said the aunt, “what staying up after
ten o'clock does. What! it is midnight, within a quarter of an
hour! Come, my child; you will recover fast enough after you
get to bed. ”
Clémentine arose submissively; but at the moment of leaving
the laboratory she retraced her steps, and with a caprice more
inexplicable than her grief, she absolutely demanded to see the
mummy of the colonel again. Her aunt scolded in vain; in spite
of the remarks of Mlle. Sambucco and all the others present, she
reopened the walnut box, knelt down beside the mummy, and
kissed it on the forehead.
« Poor man! ” said she, rising. “How cold he is! Monsieur
Léon, promise me that if he is dead you will have him laid in
consecrated ground!
"As you please, mademoiselle. I intended to send him to the
anthropological museum, with my father's permission; but you
know that we can refuse you nothing. ”
Selections from «The Man with the Broken Ear) used by permission of
Henry Holt and Company
>>
(
»


## p. 45 (#59) ##############################################

EDMOND ABOUT
45
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY
From «The Man with the Broken Ear): by permission of Henry Holt, the
Translator
F
»
ORTHWITH the colonel marched and opened the windows with
a precipitation which upset the gazers among the crowd.
“People,” said he, “I have knocked down a hundred beggarly
pandours, who respect neither sex nor infirmity. For the benefit
of those who are not satisfied, I will state that I call myself
Colonel Fougas of the Twenty-third. And Vive l'Empéreur ! ”
A confused mixture of plaudits, cries, laughs, and jeers an-
swered this unprecedented allocution. Léon Renault hastened out
to make apologies to all to whom they were due. He invited a
few friends to dine the same evening with the terrible colonel,
and of course he did not forget to send a special messenger to
Clémentine. Fougas, after speaking to the people, returned to his
hosts, swinging himself along with a swaggering air, set himself
astride a chair, took hold of the ends of his mustache, and said:
“Well! Come, let's talk this over. I've been sick, then ? ”
“Very sick. ”
«That's incredible! I feel entirely well; I'm hungry; and more-
over, while waiting for dinner I'll try a glass of your schnick. ”
Mme. Renault went out, gave an order, and returned in an
instant.
“But tell me, then, where I am ? ” resumed the colonel. By
these paraphernalia of work, I recognize a disciple of Urania; pos-
sibly a friend of Monge and Berthollet. But the cordial friendli-
ness impressed on your countenances proves to me that you are
not natives of this land of sauerkraut. Yes, I believe it from the
beatings of my heart. Friends, we have the same fatherland.
The kindness of your reception, even were there no other indica-
tions, would have satisfied me that you are French. What acci-
dents have brought you so far from our native soil ? Children of
my country, what tempest has thrown you upon this inhospitable
shore ? "
"My dear colonel,” replied M. Nibor, if you want to become
very wise, you will not ask so many questions at once. Allow us
the pleasure of instructing you quietly and in order, for you have
a great many things to learn. ”
The colonel flushed with anger, and answered sharply:-
"At all events, you are not the man to teach them to me, my
little gentleman! ”
>


## p. 46 (#60) ##############################################

46
EDMOND ABOUT
A drop of blood which fell on his hand changed the current of
his thoughts.
«Hold on! ” said he: "am I bleeding ? ”
« That will amount to nothing: circulation is re-established,
and — and your broken ear— »
He quickly carried his hand to his ear, and said: –
It's certainly so. But devil take me if I recollect this acci-
dent! "
"I'll make you a little dressing, and in a couple of days there
will be no trace of it left. »
“Don't give yourself the trouble, my dear Hippocrates: a pinch
of powder is a sovereign cure! ”
M. Nibor set to work to dress the ear in a little less military
fashion. During his operations Léon re-entered.
«Ah! ah ! ” said he to the doctor: "you are repairing the harm
I did. ”
«Thunderation ! » cried Fougas, escaping from the hands of
M. Nibor SO as to seize Léon by the collar, was it you, you
rascal, that hurt my ear? ”
Léon was very good-natured, but his patience failed him. He
pushed his man roughly aside.
“Yes, sir: it was I who tore your ear, in pulling it; and if
that little misfortune had not happened to me, it is certain that
you would have been to-day six feet under ground. It is I who
saved your life, after buying you with my money when you were
not valued at more than twenty-five louis. It is I who have
passed three days and two nights in cramming charcoal under
It is my father who gave you the clothes you now
have on.
You are in our house.
Drink the little glass of brandy
Gothon just brought you; but for God's sake give up the habit
of calling me rascal, of calling my mother Good Mother,' and
of Alinging our friends into the street and calling them beggarly
pandours! ”
The colonel, all dumbfounded, held out his hand to Léon, M.
Renault, and the doctor, gallantly kissed the hand of Mme.
Renault, swallowed at a gulp a claret glass filled to the brim with
brandy, and said, in a subdued voice:-
«Most excellent friends, forget the vagaries of an impulsive
but generous soul. To subdue my passions shall hereafter be my
law. After conquering all the nations in the universe, it is well
to conquer one's self. ”
your boiler.


## p. 47 (#61) ##############################################

EDMOND ABOUT
47
This said, he submitted his ear to M. Nibor, who finished
dressing it.
"But,” said he, summoning up his recollections, they did not
shoot me, then ? »
"No. "
“And I wasn't frozen to death in the tower ? ”
"Not quite. ”
“Why has my uniform been taken off? I see! I am a pris-
oner! ”
“You are free. ”
«Free! Vive l'Empereur! But then there's not a moment to
lose! How many leagues is it to Dantzic ? »
“It's very far. ”
“What do you call this chicken-coop of a town? ”
« Fontainebleau. ”
“ Fontainebleau! In France ? ”
« Préfecture of Seine-et-Marne. We are going to introduce
to you the sub-préfect, whom you just pitched into the street. ”
“What the devil are your sub-préfects to me? I have a
message from the Emperor to General Rapp, and I must start
this very day for Dantzic. God knows whether I'll be there in
time! ”
"My poor colonel, you will arrive too late. Dantzic is given
up. ”
« That's impossible! Since when ? ”
«About forty-six years ago. ”
« Thunder! I did not understand that you were — mocking
me!
M. Nibor placed in his hand a calendar, and said, “See for
yourself! It is now the 17th of August, 1859; you went to sleep
in the tower of Liebenfeld on the uth of November, 1813: there
have been, then, forty-six years, within three months, during
which the world has moved on without you. ”
« Twenty-four and forty-six: but then I would be seventy years
old, according to your statement! ”
«Your vitality clearly shows that you are still twenty-four. ”
He shrugged his shoulders, tore up the calendar, and said,
beating the floor with his foot, «Your almanac is a humbug! ”
M. Renault ran to his library, took up half a dozen books at
haphazard, and made him read, at the foot of the title-pages, the
dates 1826, 1833, 1847, and 1858.


## p. 48 (#62) ##############################################

48
EDMOND ABOUT
"Pardon me! ” said Fougas, burying his head in his hands.
“What has happened to me is so new! I do not think that
another human being was ever subjected to such a trial. I am
seventy years old ! »
Good Mme. Renault went and got a looking-glass from the
bath-room and gave it to him, saying:-
« Look! »
He took the glass in both hands, and was silently occupied in
resuming acquaintance with himself, when a hand-organ came into
the court and began playing Partant pour la Syrie. '
Fougas threw the mirror to the ground, and cried out:-
"What is that you are telling me? I hear the little song of
Queen Hortense !
M. Renault patiently explained to him, while picking up the
pieces of the mirror, that the pretty little song of Queen Hor-
tense had become a national air, and even an official one, since
the regimental bands had substituted that gentle melody for the
fierce Marseillaise; and that our soldiers, strange to say, had
not fought any the worse for it. But the colonel had already
opened the window, and was crying out to the Savoyard with the
organ:-
«Eh! Friend! A napoleon for you if you will tell me in
what year I am drawing the breath of life ! »
The artist began dancing as lightly as possible, playing on his
musical instrument.
“Advance at the order! ” cried the colonel, “and keep that
devilish machine still! ”
"A little penny, my good monsieur! ”
"It is not a penny that I'll give you, but a napoleon, if you'll
tell what year it is. ”
"Oh, but that's funny! Hi-hi-hi! »
«And if you don't tell me quicker than this amounts to, I'll
cut your ears off ! ”
The Savoyard ran away, but he came back pretty soon, having
meditated, during his flight, on the maxim Nothing risk, noth-
ing gain. ”
“Monsieur,” said he, in a wheedling voice, “this is the year
eighteen hundred and fifty-nine. ”
“Good ! » cried Fougas. He felt in his pockets for money, and
found nothing there. Léon saw his predicament, and flung twenty
francs into the court. Before shutting the window, ne pointed


## p. 49 (#63) ##############################################

EDMOND ABOUT
49
1
out, to the right, the façade of a pretty little new building, where
the colonel could distinctly read:
-
AUDRET ARCHITECTE
MDCCCLIX
(
»
»
(
A perfectly satisfactory piece of evidence, and one which did
not cost twenty francs.
Fougas, a little confused, pressed Léon's hand and said to
him:
"My friend, I do not forget that Confidence is the first duty
from Gratitude toward Beneficence. But tell me of our country!
I tread the sacred soil where I received my being, and I am
ignorant of the career of my native land. France is still the
queen of the world, is she not ? »
“Certainly,” said Léon.
“How is the Emperor ? »
« Well. ”
«And the Empress ? ”
"Very well. "
“And the King of Rome ? »
“The Prince Imperial ? He is a very fine child. ”
“How ? A fine child!
A fine child! And you have the face to say that this
is 1859! ”
M. Nibor took up the conversation, and explained in a few
words that the reigning sovereign of France was not Napoleon I. ,
but Napoleon III.
“But then,” cried Fougas, “my Emperor is dead! ”
« Yes. ”
"Impossible! Tell me anything you will but that! My Em-
peror is immortal. ”
M. Nibor and the Renaults, who were not quite professional
historians, were obliged to give him a summary of the history of
our century. Some one went after a big book, written by M. de
Norvins and illustrated with fine engravings by Raffet. He only
believed in the presence of Truth when he could touch her with
his hand, and still cried out almost every moment, That's im-
possible! This is not history that you are reading to me: it is a
romance written to make soldiers weep! ”
This young man must indeed have had a strong and well-tem-
pered soul; for he learned in forty minutes all the woful events
1-4


## p. 50 (#64) ##############################################

50
EDMOND ABOUT
which fortune had scattered through eighteen years, from the first
abdication up to the death of the King of Rome.
Less happy
than his old companions in arms, he had no interval of repose
between these terrible and repeated shocks, all beating upon his
heart at the same time. One could have feared that the blow
might prove mortal, and poor Fougas die in the first hour of his
recovered life. But the imp of a fellow yielded and recovered
himself in quick succession like a spring. He cried out with
admiration on hearing of the five battles of the campaign in
France; he reddened with grief at the farewells of Fontainebleau.
The return from the Isle of Elba transfigured his handsome and
noble countenance; at Waterloo his heart rushed in with the last
army of the Empire, and there shattered itself. Then he clenched
his fists and said between his teeth, "If I had been there at the
head of the Twenty-Third, Blücher and Wellington would have
seen another fate! ” The invasion, the truce, the martyr of St.
Helena, the ghastly terror of Europe, the murder of Murat,- the
idol of the cavalry,—the deaths of Ney, Bruno, Mouton-Duvernet,
and so many other whole-souled men whom he had known, ad-
mired, and loved, threw him into a series of paroxysms of rage;
but nothing crushed him. In hearing of the death of Napoleon,
he swore that he would eat the heart of England; the slow agony
of the pale and interesting heir of the Empire inspired him with
a passion to tear the vitals out of Austria. When the drama was
over, and the curtain fell on Schönbrunn, he dashed away his
tears and said, “It is well. I have lived in a moment a man's
entire life. Now show me the map of France! ”
Léon began to turn over the leaves of an atlas, while M.
Renault attempted to continue narrating to the colonel the history
of the Restoration, and of the monarchy of 1830. But Fougas's
interest was in other things.
«What do I care,” said he, “if a couple of hundred babblers
of deputies put one king in place of another ? Kings! I've seen
enough of them in the dirt. If the Empire had lasted ten years
longer, I could have had a king for a bootblack. ”
When the atlas was placed before him, he at once cried out
with profound disdain, « That France ? »
“That France ? ” But soon two tears of
pitying affection, escaping from his eyes, swelled the rivers
Ardèche and Gironde. He kissed the map and said, with an
emotion which communicated itself to nearly all those who were
present :


## p. 51 (#65) ##############################################

ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
.
51
(
"Forgive me, poor old love, for insulting your misfortunes.
Those scoundrels whom we always whipped have profited by my
sleep to pare down your frontiers; but little or great, rich or poor,
you are my mother, and I love you as a faithful son! Here is
Corsica, where the giant of our age was born; here is Toulouse,
where I first saw the light; here is Nancy, where I felt my heart
awakened - where, perhaps, she whom I call my Æglé waits for
me still! France! Thou hast a temple in my soul; this arm is
thine; thou shalt find me ever ready to shed my blood to the last
drop in defending or avenging thee!
ASSYRIAN LITER-
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND
ATURE
BY CRAWFORD H. TOY
ECENT discoveries have carried the beginnings of civilization
farther and farther back into the remote past. Scholars are
not agreed as to what region can lay claim to the greatest
literary antiquity. The oldest historical records are found in Egypt
and Babylonia, and each of these lands has its advocates, who claim
for it priority in culture. The data now at our command are not suf-
ficient for the decision of this question. It may be doubted whether
any one spot on the globe will ever be shown to have precedence in
time over all others, — whether, that is, it will appear that the civili-
zation of the world has proceeded from a single centre. But though
we are yet far from having reached the very beginnings of culture,
we know that they lie farther back than the wildest dreams of half a
century ago would have imagined. Established kingdoms existed in
Babylonia in the fourth millennium before the beginning of our era;
royal inscriptions have been found which are with great probability
assigned to about the year 3800 B. C. These are, it is true, of the
simplest description, consisting of a few sentences of praise to a deity
or brief notices of a campaign or of the building of a temple; but
they show that the art of writing was known, and that the custom
existed of recording events of the national history. We may thence
infer the existence of a settled civilization and of some sort of literary
productiveness.
The Babylonian-Assyrian writings with which we are acquainted
may be divided into the two classes of prose and poetry. The former
class consists of royal inscriptions (relating to military campaigns and
the construction of temples), chronological tables (eponym canons),


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52
ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
legal documents (sales, suits, etc. ), grammatical tables (paradigms and
vocabularies), lists of omens and lucky and unlucky days, and letters
and reports passing between kings and governors; the latter class
includes cosmogonic poems, an epic poem in twelve books, detached
mythical narratives, magic formulas and incantations, and prayers to
deities (belonging to the ritual service of the temples). The prose
pieces, with scarcely an exception, belong to the historical period, and
may be dated with something like accuracy. The same thing is true
of a part of the poetical material, particularly the prayers; but the
cosmogonic and other mythical poems appear to go back, at least so
far as their material is concerned, to a very remote antiquity, and it
is difficult to assign them a definite date.
Whether this oldest poetical material belongs to the Semitic Baby-
lonians or to a non-Semitic (Sumerian-Accadian) people is a question
not yet definitely decided. The material which comes into consid-
eration for the solution of this problem is mainly linguistic. Along
with the inscriptions, which are obviously in the Semitic-Babylonian
language, are found others composed of words apparently strange.
These are held by some scholars to represent a priestly, cryptographic
writing, by others to be true Semitic words in slightly altered form,
and by others still to belong to a non-Semitic tongue. This last view
supposes that the ancient poetry comes, in substance at any rate,
from a non-Semitic people who spoke this tongue; while on the other
hand, it is maintained that this poetry is so interwoven into Semitic
life that it is impossible to regard it as of foreign origin. The
majority of Semitic scholars are now of the opinion that the origin
of this early literature is foreign However this may be, it comes to
us in Babylonian dress, it has been elaborated by Babylonian hands,
has thence found its way into the literature of other Semitic peoples,
and for our purposes may be accepted as Babylonian. In any case it
carries us back to very early religious conceptions.
The cosmogonic poetry is in its outlines not unlike that of Hesiod,
but develops the ruder ideas at greater length. In the shortest (but
probably not the earliest) form of the cosmogony, the beginning of
all things is found in the watery abyss. Two abysmal powers
(Tiamat and Apsu), represented as female and male, mingle their
waters, and from them proceed the gods. The list of deities (as in
the Greek cosmogony) seems to represent several dynasties, a concep-
tion which may embody the belief in the gradual organization of the
world. After two less-known gods, called Lahmu and Lahamu, come
the more familiar figures of later Babylonian writing, Anu and Ea. At
this point the list unfortunately breaks off, and the creative function
which may have been assigned to the gods is lost, or has not yet
been discovered. The general similarity between this account and


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ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE
53
that of Gen. i. is obvious: both begin with the abysmal chaos. Other
agreements between the two cosmogonies will be pointed out below.
The most interesting figure in this fragment is that of Tiamat. We
shall presently see her in the character of the enemy of the gods.
The two conceptions of her do not agree together perfectly, and the
priority in time must be assigned to the latter. The idea that the
world of gods and men and material things issued out of the womb
of the abyss is a philosophic generalization that is more naturally
assigned to a period of reflection.
In the second cosmogonic poem the account is more similar to that
of the second chapter of Genesis, and its present form originated in
or near Babylon. Here we have nothing of the primeval deep, but
are told how the gods made a beautiful land, with rivers and trees;
how Babylon was built and Marduk created man, and the Tigris and
the Euphrates, and the beasts and cities and temples. This also must
be looked on as a comparatively late form of the myth, since its hero
is Marduk, god of Babylon. As in the Bible account, men are created
before beasts, and the region of their first abode seems to be the same
as the Eden of Genesis.
Let us now turn to the poem in which the combat between Tiamat
and Marduk forms the principal feature. For some unexplained
reason Tiamat rebels against the gods. Collecting her hosts, among
them frightful demon shapes of all imaginable forms, she advances
for the purpose of expelling the gods from their seats. The affrighted
deities turn for protection to the high gods, Anu and Ea, who, how-
ever, recoil in terror from the hosts of the dragon Tiamat. Anshar
then applies to Marduk. The gods are invited to a feast, the situ-
ation is described, and Marduk is invited to lead the heavenly hosts
against the foe. He agrees on condition that he shall be clothed
with absolute power, so that he shall only have to say “Let it be,
and it shall be. To this the gods assent: a garment is placed before
him, to which he says “Vanish, and it vanishes, and when he com-
mands it to appear, it is present. The hero then dons his armor and
advances against the enemy. He takes Tiamat and slays her, routs
her host, kills her consort Kingu, and utterly destroys the rebel-
lion. Tiamat he cuts in twain. Out of one half of her he forms the
heavens, out of the other half the earth, and for the gods Anu and
Bel and Ea he makes a heavenly palace, like the abyss itself in
extent. To the great gods also he assigns positions, forms the stars,
establishes the year and month and the day. At this point the his-
tory is interrupted, the tablet being broken. The creation of the
heavenly bodies is to be compared with the similar account in
Gen. i. ; whether this poem narrates the creation of the rest of the
world it is impossible to say.


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