The following poem is one of the numerous bilingual texts, written in the
original Accadian with an interlinear Assyrian translation, which have
been brought from the library of Assur-bani-pal, at Kouyunjik. The seven
evil spirits who are mentioned in it are elsewhere described as the seven
storm-clouds or winds whose leader seems to have been the dragon Tiamat
("the deep") defeated by Bel-Merodach in the war of the gods. It was these
seven storm-spirits who were supposed to attack the moon when it was
eclipsed, as described in an Accadian poem translated by Mr. Fox Talbot in
a previous volume of "Records of the Past." Here they are regarded as the
allies of the incubus or nightmare. We may compare them with the Maruts or
storm-gods of the Rig-Veda (see Max Müller, "Rig-Veda-Sanhita: the Sacred
Hymns of the Brahmans translated and explained," Vol. I). The author of
the present poem seems to have been a native of the Babylonian city of
Eridu, and his horizon was bounded by the mountains of Susiania, over
whose summits the storms raged from time to time. A fragment of another
poem relating to Eridu is appended, which seems to celebrate a temple
similar to that recorded by Maimonides in which the Babylonian gods
gathered round the image of the sun-god to lament the death of Tammuz.
A copy of the cuneiform text will be found in the "Cuneiform Inscriptions
of Western Asia," Vol. IV, pl. 15. M. Fr. Lenormant has translated a
portion of it in "_La Magie chez les Chaldéens"_ pp. 26, 27.