Part 20 (1/2)

Poetic imagery had originally a magical significance; if the ocean was compared to a dragon, it was because it was supposed to be inhabited by a storm-causing dragon; the wind whispered because a spirit whispered in it. Love lyrics were charms to compel the love G.o.d to wound or possess a maiden's heart--to fill it, as an Indian charm sets forth, with ”the yearning of the Apsaras (fairies)”; satires conjured up evil spirits to injure a victim; and heroic narratives chanted at graves were statements made to the G.o.d of battle, so that he might award the mighty dead by transporting him to the Valhal of Odin or Swarga of Indra.

Similarly, music had magical origin as an imitation of the voices of spirits--of the piping birds who were ”Fates”, of the wind high and low, of the thunder roll, of the bellowing sea. So the G.o.d Pan piped on his reed bird-like notes, Indra blew his thunder horn, Thor used his hammer like a drumstick, Neptune imitated on his ”wreathed horn”

the voice of the deep, the Celtic oak G.o.d Dagda tw.a.n.ged his windy wooden harp, and Angus, the Celtic G.o.d of spring and love, came through budding forest ways with a silvern harp which had strings of gold, echoing the tuneful birds, the purling streams, the whispering winds, and the rustling of scented fir and blossoming thorn.

Modern-day poets and singers, who voice their moods and cast the spell of their moods over readers and audiences, are the representatives of ancient magicians who believed that moods were caused by the spirits which possessed them--the rhythmical wind spirits, those harpers of the forest and songsters of ocean.

The following quotations from Mr. R.C. Thompson's translations of Babylonian charms will serve to ill.u.s.trate their poetic qualities:--

Fever like frost hath come upon the land.

Fever hath blown upon the man as the wind blast, It hath smitten the man and humbled his pride.

Headache lieth like the stars of heaven in the desert and hath no praise; Pain in the head and s.h.i.+vering like a scudding cloud turn unto the form of man.

Headache whose course like the dread windstorm none knoweth.

Headache roareth over the desert, blowing like the wind, Flas.h.i.+ng like lightning, it is loosed above and below, It cutteth off him, who feareth not his G.o.d, like a reed ...

From amid mountains it hath descended upon the land.

Headache ... a rus.h.i.+ng hag-demon, Granting no rest, nor giving kindly sleep ...

Whose shape is as the whirlwind.

Its appearance is as the darkening heavens, And its face as the deep shadow of the forest.

Sickness ... breaking the fingers as a rope of wind ...

Flas.h.i.+ng like a heavenly star, it cometh like the dew.

These early poets had no canons of Art, and there were no critics to disturb their meditations. Many singers had to sing and die ere a critic could find much to say. In ancient times, therefore, poets had their Golden Age--they were a law unto themselves. Even the ”minors”

were influential members of society.

CHAPTER XI.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF BABYLONIA

Rise of the Sun G.o.d--Amorites and Elamites struggle for Ascendancy--The Conquering Ancestors of Hammurabi--Sumerian Cities Destroyed--Widespread Race Movements--Phoenician Migration from Persian Gulf--Wanderings of Abraham and Lot--Biblical References to Hitt.i.tes and Amorites--Battles of Four Kings with Five--Amraphel, Arioch, and Tidal--Hammurabi's Brilliant Reign--Elamite Power Stamped Out--Babylon's Great General and Statesman--The Growth of Commerce, Agriculture, and Education--An Ancient School--Business and Private Correspondence--A Love Letter--Postal System--Hammurabi's Successors--The Earliest Ka.s.sites--The Sealand Dynasty--Hitt.i.te Raid on Babylon and Hyksos Invasion of Egypt.

Sun wors.h.i.+p came into prominence in its most fully developed form during the obscure period which followed the decline of the Dynasty of Isin. This was probably due to the changed political conditions which brought about the ascendancy for a time of Larsa, the seat of the Sumerian sun cult, and of Sippar, the seat of the Akkadian sun cult.

Larsa was selected as the capital of the Elamite conquerors, while their rivals, the Amorites, appear to have first established their power at Sippar.

Babbar, the sun G.o.d of Sippar, whose Semitic name was Shamash, must have been credited with the early successes of the Amorites, who became domiciled under his care, and it was possibly on that account that the ruling family subsequently devoted so much attention to his wors.h.i.+p in Merodach's city of Babylon, where a sun temple was erected, and Shamash received devout recognition as an abstract deity of righteousness and law, who reflected the ideals of well organized and firmly governed communities.

The first Amoritic king was Sumu-ab.u.m, but little is known regarding him except that he reigned at Sippar. He was succeeded by Sumu-la-ilu, a deified monarch, who moved from Sippar to Babylon, the great wall of which he either repaired or entirely reconstructed in his fifth year.

With these two monarchs began the brilliant Hammurabi, or First Dynasty of Babylonia, which endured for three centuries. Except Sumu-ab.u.m, who seems to stand alone, all its kings belonged to the same family, and son succeeded father in unbroken succession.

Sumu-la-ilu was evidently a great general and conqueror of the type of Thothmes III of Egypt. His empire, it is believed, included the rising city states of a.s.syria, and extended southward as far as ancient Lagash.

Of special interest on religious as well as political grounds was his a.s.sociation with Kish. That city had become the stronghold of a rival family of Amoritic kings, some of whom were powerful enough to a.s.sert their independence. They formed the Third Dynasty of Kish. The local G.o.d was Zamama, the Tammuz-like deity, who, like Nin-Girsu of Lagash, was subsequently identified with Merodach of Babylon. But prominence was also given to the moon G.o.d Nannar, to whom a temple had been erected, a fact which suggests that sun wors.h.i.+p was not more p.r.o.nounced among the Semites than the Arabians, and may not, indeed, have been of Semitic origin at all. Perhaps the lunar temple was a relic of the influential Dynasty of Ur.