The Seven Tablets of Creation. Description of Their Contents.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Budge, E. A. Wallis (Ernest Alfred Wallis), Sir
The literary form of the text of the Seven Tablets fulfils the requirements of Semitic poetry in general. The lines usually fall into couplets, the second line being the antiphon of the first, e.g.:--
"When in the height heaven was not named, And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name."
Each line, or verse, falls into two halves, and a well-marked caesura divides each line, or verse, into two equally accented parts. And the half-lines can be further resolved into two halves, each containing a single accented word or phrase. This is proved by tablet Spartali ii, 265A, where the scribe writes his lines and spaces the words in such a way as to show the subdivision of the lines. Thus we have:--
enuma
| elish
|| lâ nabû
| shamamu
shaplish
| ammatum
|| shuma
| lâ zakrat
Here there is clearly a rhythm which resembles that found in the poems of the Syrians and Arabs, but there are many instances of its inconsistent use in several parts of the text. Both rhyme and alliteration appear to be used occasionally.