Lecture VI. Cosmologies. 349
he created the green herb of the field, [381]
the earth, the marsh, the jungle,
the cow and its young, the calf, the sheep and its young, the
lamb of the fold,
the grove and the forest,
the goat, (and) the gazelle multiplied (?) for him.
Bel-Merodach^302 filled a space at the edge of the sea,
[there] he made an enclosure of reeds,
he constructed [a site?],
he created [the reeds], he created the trees,
he laid [a platform] in the place,
[he moulded bricks], the structure he formed;
[he built houses], he founded cities,
[cities he founded and] filled them with living things;
Nippur he built, Ê-kur he erected,
Erech he built, Ê-ana he erected,^303
[the deep he created, Eridu he built].”It is evident that the poem was written by one who lived on
the marshy shores of the Persian Gulf, and had watched how
land could be formed by tying the reeds in bundles and building
with them a weir. It was in this way that the first cultivators of
Eridu protected their fields from the tide, or reclaimed the land
from the sea. None but those who had actually seen the process
could have devised a cosmology which thus applied it to the
creation of the world. To the question—“How did this world
come into existence?”the primitive inhabitant of Eridu seemed
to have a ready answer: he too was able to create new land, out of
which the rush and the herb could grow, where the cattle could
be pastured, and the house built. What he could do, the gods
had doubtless done at the beginning of time; all things must have
come from the primeval deep, and the earth itself was but an islet
(^302) Originally Ea.
(^303) These two lines do not belong to the original poem.