E-TEMEN-AN-KI TEMPLE. ROYAL CITY of BÂB-ILIM. BÂBIRUŠ
YEAR 5 of the THIRD DÂRIUŠ, MONTH 6, ULŰLU
NIGHT
“Here it is, Master!”
Bęl-rę’ušu anxiously rushes into the candlelit room waving a small clay tablet in his hand.
“Careful with that!” Kî-Nabű yells. “It is not a damn army standard you are waving over your head! You want to get kicked out of Bît Ţuppi like Aia-râm for dropping one of the tablets of the Book of Heaven?”
Bęl-rę’ušu swallows hard and catches his breath. “Sorry, Master!” He bows his head and with trembling fingers quietly puts the clay tablet on the wooden table in front of his old master. “Aia-râm said Demon Šakku bit him in the arm―”
Kî-Nabű gives him a sharp look.
“A demon in the Great House of Bęl Marduk?”
Bęl-rę’ušu takes a quick step back and hides his red face in the darkness.
Kî-Nabű shakes his head and takes a deep breath and holds it for a short moment.
If the North wind had blown during the eclipse, gods would have had mercy upon the King of the Lands…
Kî-Nabű reluctantly leans forward in his tall worn chair and pulls the flickering candle closer. He reads the latest entry in the Book of Heaven.
E-nű-ma ilu Anu ilu ĘA ilu BĘl…
When the great gods Anu, Ęa and Bęl
established the bounds of Heaven and Earth in council…
Year 5 of Artašatu who is called Dâriuš, Month 6, Ulűlu
Day 13: Sunset to Moonrise: 8°
There was an Eclipse of the Moon.
Nânna was covered at the moment when Nębiru set and Ninurta rose.
During totality, the West wind blew.
During clearing, the East wind blew.
During the eclipse, there were deaths and plagues.
His old eyes betray him. He pulls the flickering candle and the hardening clay tablet closer. He carefully reads the words again, rubbing his fingers on words pressed hard into the wet clay, every word. “Amurrű… West wind… then Şitân… East wind… no wind from the north.” He mumbles to himself, shaking his head. “No ištânu? Are they sure?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Ninurta, god of war―” He looks up and narrows his eyes, searching for the boy. “Bęl-rę’ušu?”
Bęl-rę’ušu quickly takes a step forward into the light of the burning candle. “Father?”
Kî-Nabű opens his eyes wide. He considers his young son under his white brow for a long moment, shaking his head. He then scorns him impatiently.
“I am your father at home. Here, I am Ummâni dannuti and you are my šamallű and no more, until you have mastered the art of your fathers.”
“Yes, Master.” Bęl-rę’ušu gathers himself quickly.
Kî-Nabű shakes his head and takes a deep breath slowly. “Did you forget to bring the commentary again?”
“No, Master!” Bęl-rę’ušu quickly bows and puts another small clay tablet in front of his father, the chief diviner and scribe of the royal court in Bâb-ilim.
Kî-Nabű rubs his tired eyes and lifts the second clay tablet, bringing it closer. He reads the commentary under his breath.
Šumma NÂNNA Ina Tâmartîšu MÂ…
If the Moon is observed, then…
The omen foretells the eclipse of the Persian Empire.
The Eclipse of the Moon took place in Zibbâtu, close to Saguš, in month 6, Ulűlu, which is unfavorable for the Great King of the Lands.
Western wind at the beginning of the eclipse foretells that doom is to come from the West.
Nębiru, which could have taken away the evil of the Eclipse of Nânna, had already set.
Ninurta, the god of war, has risen.
Kî-Nabű puts down the clay tablet and strokes his short brittle white beard.
Something was missing… what was it?
Total Eclipse of the Moon on the day 13, in month 6, Ulűlu, in the last year of King Nabű-Na’id had only meant that the Moon-God wanted a new high priestess of royal blood, the daughter of the king, to tend to his service in Bâb-ilim.
He looks up and narrows his eyes again at Bęl-rę’ušu lingering quietly before him. “Anything else?”
Bęl-rę’ušu hesitates for a long moment, fearful of offending the ears of the gods with carelessly chosen words and attracting the attention of the dark spirits who roamed at night. He finally leans his head forward and points with his finger toward the open window and utters in a hushed voice, “The moon―”
Kî-Nabű leans back a little and looks at his son impatiently and grunts.
“Do I have to pull every word out of your mouth? What about the moon?”
Bęl-rę’ušu looks around the dimly lit room and touches his right arm, feeling the sacred Amulet of Lamassu tightly tied around it.
“Moon turned the color of clotted blood, Master.” He brings his hands to his lips to hide his words from Šakku, the seven-headed demon serpent, lurking in dark shadows, always ready to strike and cause pain.
Kî-Nabű closes his eyes and shifts slightly in his tall worn chair. “Ah!”
He leans back further and rests his old bones on older wood.
“That is the missing piece!”
For thousands and thousands of years, since after the days of the Great Flood that had swept across the Lands and purified the Earth, his priestly ancestors had been the Watchers of the Heavens, observing the skies faithfully from the crowns of the high mountains and the platters of the lowlands.
And from the Crown of E-temen-an-ki, the Foundation of the Heaven on Earth… a duty and an honor that was bestowed upon them by the kings who had descended from the heavens… sent by the great gods… in former days… before the living memory… long ago…
Everything was foretold by the heavenly movements of the sun and the moon and the heavenly bodies and the little stars.
And the secrets of the great gods and the great heavens had been faithfully passed down to Tupšar E-nű-ma Anu Eâ Bęl… Scribes of the Book of Heaven…
… father to son, man to man, generation to generation… from time immemorial…
Nothing was ever new except for what was forgotten from the living memory of men.
Precious Arabâya incense smolders slowly in the fire altar, scenting the warm room.
Kî-Nabű takes a deep breath. He shifts his bones again and leans back deeper in his old chair.
The moon…
Moon was the heavenly sign of the Persians.
His old face creases and folds in pain.
Men were flawed… created by the great gods from kneading of common clay with the blood of a rebel god who had been slaughtered by the great gods for his arrogance… lowly clay mixed with the shattered bits and pieces of the condemned soul of the rebel god to make him serve the great gods and suffer endlessly… till the end of heavens… till the end of time… trapped and caged eternally in tombs of dying and rotting mortal clay.
Men were forgetful… but the great gods made men remember… that men were servants of the great gods and no more. And when men forgot… and when the rebel god stirred again restlessly in his clay tomb, remembering who he used to be, the great gods who had spilled his godly blood struck back, struck hard, and struck fast… reminding the rebel god of the first sin…
Great gods spit on the mortal clay…
Great gods spit on the rebel god…
But the rebel god was still powerful… even in bits and pieces.
He was once one of the great gods of council… one of the seven who decreed destinies… he wanted to be free… wanted to be a great god again… wanted to rule over other great gods… wanted to spill their godly blood as they had spilled his… his dark wrath endless… his blood thirst insatiable…
And when clay turned to dust… men forgot… men always forgot… and now they were stirring again…
“Well, it looks like the great gods have sat in council again and have deliberated what is to come. They have planned another colossal calamity for men. What would I give to be a little kakkubu in the Vault of Heaven where the great gods of council gather to hear Enlil plot―” Kî-Nabű says to himself looking at the commentary. “Bęl-rę’ušu, when was the first of such calamities?”
“It was the Great Flood of the former days, Master, when men had disrupted the restful sleep of the great gods again. Great god Enlil―”
“Yes,” Kî-Nabű interrupts and nods. “Great god Enlil has already written it all in the Tablet of Destinies, fate that cannot be changed. Now the heavenly bodies are whispering in my ears, revealing what little I am humbly permitted to record of their godly intentions in the Book of Heaven.” He points to the sky and says, “As I always say, Bęl-rę’ušu, evil in the sky above is a sign of evil on the earth below.” He starts rubbing his eyes mindlessly, his eyes close restlessly.
“The moon of the mighty Persians has eclipsed and has turned bloody.”
The age of the splendid Great Kings, sons of A-ha-ma-ni-iš and the worshippers of the U-ra-ma-az-da of the Persians, had come to pass… just as the times of Šarru-kîn and Ha-am-mu-ra-pi and Gilgâmeš and Aššur-bâni-apli and Nabű-Kudurrî-Űşur before them…
The doom was coming from the other side of the stormy seas. Clay armies of the Lord of Darkness, servant of the rebel god, were coming, sheathed in full metal arm and armor. The King of the Race of Wrath was leading the armed armies of the Lord of Darkness into the Lands and Waters of the Persians… and the Sun of Bâb-ilim too was fated to share the fate of the Persian Moon…
The age of chaos was to be unleashed upon the dirt of earth… it was written in the stars… it had been foretold for generations…
For six thousand years the Wise Lord of gods and the Lord of Darkness were to join in battle across the Lands of the Persians, fighting with words and swords and spears…
And their battle was for the souls of the men. For the whole soul of the rebel god… collected bit by bit, piece by piece, released from the broken clay vessel tombs… freed from the clay servants of the great gods…
… turning into truth in the hands of the great gods…
… turning into lies in the hands of the rebel god…
And what was to come of it too was foretold by the lips of the heavens.
Great gods had bestowed their divine glory unto the Persian Kings.
Bęl Marduk had called Ku-raš the Elder to Bâb-ilim and had made him the truthful guardian of the restless blackheaded clay mortals.
The Persian Kings had become powerful and they had gathered all the Lands and all the People under their kingly powers… they had become the Great Kings, the Kings of Kings, the Kings of the Lands, the Kings of the Lands Across-the-River and the Lands Beyond the Sea too… the Kings of all the Lands and all the People…
… the first Empire Builders…
And they had grown arrogant and had forgotten the ways of the great gods.
Ka-ši-ar-šâ, son of Da-ri-a-muš, had taken the golden statue of the Bęl to Ű-pe-e on River Diglat to punish Bâb-ilim and that had angered Bęl Marduk.
In the year he was born, nearly seventy years ago, the Royal Son of the House, the Younger Ku-raš, had cursed his Royal Brother with his last dying breath when his royal blood had been spilled and splattered by his royal brother, the Great King, on the Lands at Kuišta, not that far from the other side of Bâb-ilim.
The King of the Lands, the Second Ar-tak-šat-su, had lived a long and fruitful life and the bloody curse of his Royal Brother was all but forgotten.
But the heavens had a long memory… stretching forward and backward and in every other direction… and they never forgot the dying curse of a wronged Son of the Royal House of ancient royal blood. The warm winds of Ulűlu and Karbašiyaš and Belilit that had bathed the dead body of the favored Royal Son remembered and guarded his memory whenever they blew hot and restless across the highlands and the lowlands and the flatlands of the Lands and Waters of the Persians.
Ű-ma-su, the bastard son of the Second Ar-tak-šat-su, had treacherously put to the sword or to the poison almost all the Royal Sons of the Royal House of Hakhâmaniš to secure his royal throne.
Royal blood had been spilled to keep the royal crown…
Bęl-rę’ušu leans slightly forward into the dim light.
“Master? The Persian pirradaziš is waiting impatiently!” he says in a worried voice. “What shall I tell him?”
Kî-Nabű opens his eyes and looks out the open window for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He sees the night stars. Great gods and stars move this way and that way in his eyes. He shakes his head and slowly leans forward in his chair and asks quietly, “How old is Mâr Bît Šarri, the Persian Crown-Prince Tiršata? You were six when he was born.”
“Master, Mâr Bît Šarri will turn seven in the next cycle of the sun.”
Kî-Nabű closes his eyes again and leans back in his chair. The lines around his olden eyes sharpen and deepen with pain. He opens his eyes again and the bloody sight of the headless young royal body drenched in his own royal blood still haunts him.
He shakes his head from side to side.
“Well, well, nothing lasts forever, after all!”
Persians were the first, but they were not the only ones… great gods were not fools!
More empires were to come, bigger and mightier, and they too were to ebb and flow like the waves of the deep watery oceans…
… wax and wane like the cycles of the silvery moon…
Their powers rising and setting like the mighty sun of the heavenly skies…
An Eastern Empire setting like the moon…
A Western Empire rising like the sun…
… knotted together in the battle of the great gods… for the fate of all the heavens.
But at a distance, another Eastern Lion was rising and an Eastern Dragon too knotted with a Phoenix…
And a three-legged bird to soar majestically over the eastern skies of the Land of the Calm Mornings on the other side of the Land of the Phoenix and the Dragon.
And suns set,
And moons rise… again…
… by and by…
“Well, at least the royal blood of the rightful Younger Ku-raš, born to Persian Purple, will be avenged from the descendants of his bloody wrongful vanquishers. Bęl Marduk is finally holding the feet of the Persian Royal Sons to the burning sins of their Royal Fathers. May the great gods and goddesses known and unknown have mercy.”
Kî-Nabű draws another deep breath. His old body fills with new pain again. Every bone hurts.
He had lived far too long… the life of a court scribe was not an easy life… and it had become much harder after death had taken his beloved wife after a long illness.
The great gods had given him a son and had taken his wife in return.
He prays quietly under his breath, “My Lords, Bęl Marduk and Nabű, in all my years, I have served you well. My life is written before you. When I was sleeping, death crept quietly into my bedroom and took her and set her feet toward the Gates of Arallű from which she shall not return. My life is finished. What can I do without her, who will take care of me? Please be merciful to your old faithful obedient servant! Do not abandon me!”
A cool breeze lazily fills the warm room.
A great golden dragonfly suddenly flies into the room and crashes carelessly into the burning flame of the flickering candle and flies out again with a burning wing.
Kî-Nabű’s eyes chase after the dragonfly. He bites his lip and mumbles under his breath, “Ku-li-li, are you taking my prayer to the great gods of destinies on your fiery wings?”
He takes a deep breath and mumbles to himself.
“My Lord, let there be truth in my words… Who really knows the will of the great gods?”
He nods to himself and then leans forward in his chair, turning the clay tablet over in front of him and starts writing on the other side of the commentary.
BÂRŰTU
Divination
The Royal Son of the House of A-ha-ma-ni-iš who is called Hakhâmaniš will become purified for the Persian Throne but his dark head will not be golden crowned.
A king has come with the armies of the West.
There will be abundance and riches on his path.
For eight years he will exercise kingship. He will defeat the Persian Royal Army. He will relentlessly pursue his enemies.
Ninurta, the god of war, with the hands of a lion and claws of an eagle, will favor him for eight unbroken years.
Kî-Nabű puts down his tablet marker on the wooden table, pushes the hardening clay tablet and the flickering candle away from him, looking out the window at the darkening heavens.
All the great gods and goddesses were sleeping, Anu and Ęa and Enlil…
Bęl Marduk and Nabű and Šamaš and Nânna and Ištar…
A long moment passes in silence.
Sounds of life and living from the Royal City of Bâb-ilim float in the room.
Then he chants an ancient prayer to the stars, the gods and goddesses of the night, under his lips.
“ilî Mušîti,
“veiled is the night, the holy places are quiet and dark. I call to you, all the stars, gods and goddesses of the night, the bright ones, whom Bęlu has created. Stand by me in this night, on this side of me and on that side of me. Take my prayers to Šamaš, the Divine Judge, the Father of the Fatherless, beg him to undo the evil. Let the evil pass by the King of the Lands in the night.”
He opens his hands and prays to Ištar, the great goddess of love.
“O Ištar, the glorious one, who reigns among the Igîgî, who soothes the angry gods,
iltu Ištar, šu-pu-u-tum la-ab-bat ilu Igîgî mu-kan-ni-šat ilâni šab-su-ti,
forgive my transgression, accept my prayer,
mi-e-ši hab-la-ti-ia li-ki-e un-ni-ni-ia,
say the words, so at your command, may the angry gods have mercy…
ki-bi-ma ina ki-bi-ti-ki ilu zi-nu-u li-is-lim…
let your mercy be upon me, be my life.
ta-ai-ra-tu-ki rab-ba-a-ti lib-ša-a eli-ia, um-ma lu-u a-na-ku-ma.
Kî-Nabű mindlessly rubs the deep lines on his forehead and continues.
“My goddess, lay thy punishment on he who is sinful, be merciful that the innocent not be destroyed.”
“My goddess is queen.”
iltu bęlti-ma šar-rat.
He then points with his old finger to the clay tablets and says quietly to his young šamallű, “Take these to Kęnu-nâ’id and tell him that Kî-Nabű said that these tablets should be kept in the royal archives forever, after they are fully baked. Do not drop them on the way!”
“Master, I will be careful! But― what shall I tell the Persian pirradaziš?”
Kî-Nabű leans back again in his chair. His body disappears in the darkness of the night. His voice writes on the skin of a woeful heart.
“Tell the Persian pirradaziš to tell the following to the Persian King:
“To the King, My Lord Dâriuš, from his loyal subject, Kî-Nabű:
“Good health to Your Majesty. May the great gods Marduk and Nabű bless Your Majesty. May U-ra-ma-az-da and all the gods whose names Your Majesty has invoked bless Your Majesty a thousand times more. Seven times and again seven times more I kneel before Your Majesty and kiss the ground at your feet.
“As to Your Majesty asking me: Kî-Nabű, what is the meaning of the Eclipse of the Moon on day 13 past the beginning of the month 6, Ulűlu? This omen is not like the others. It is a fair warning the great gods have given to Your Majesty.
“Total Eclipse of the Moon on day 13, the Day of Darkness in the month 6, Ulűlu, is inauspicious for Your Majesty. The hainâ has come for the blood and crown and gold and lands and women of Your Majesty. On the day of the battle, Your Majesty must array the Royal Army facing the setting sun. Your Majesty must avoid facing the rising sun. May he who plans evil against the King of the Kings receive the punishment of the great gods and die a shameful death.
“Your Majesty should invoke all the great gods who have your Lands in their keeping and pray to them with your hands raised to the heavens and perform sacred sacrifices to avert the coming evil.
“I pray to Bęlet Arba-ilu, Nânâ, the daughter of Nânna, the Moon-God, who dwells in the City of Arba-ilu and watches over the Land of the Black Eagle, to bless Your Majesty who holds fast the hem of her gown.
“Let Nânâ, the thirdborn goddess, hear my prayers and accept your offerings and fulfill your desires.
“My Lord, the great gods have given you the world from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun. May the great gods extend your rule forever.”
