AUTHOR'S NOTE by mike

Author:mike [mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-12-10T22:09:33+00:00

They disturbed Tiamat as they surged back and forth.

They were troubling the "belly" of Tiamat

By their antics in the dwellings of heaven.

Apsu could not lessen their clamor;

Tiamat was speechless at their ways.

Their doings were loathsome. ...

Troublesome were their ways.

We have here obvious references to erratic orbits. The new planets "surged back and forth"; they got too close to each other ("banded together"); they interfered with Tiamat's orbit; they got too close to her "belly"; their "ways" were troublesome. Though it was Tiamat that was principally endangered, Apsu, too, found the planets' ways "loathsome." He announced his intention to

"destroy, wreck their ways." He huddled with Mummu, conferred with him in secret. But "whatever they had plotted between them" was overheard by the gods, and the plot to destroy them left them speechless. The only one who did not lose his wits was Ea. He devised a ploy to "pour sleep upon Apsu." When the other celestial gods liked the plan, Ka "drew a faithful map of the universe" and cast a divine spell upon the primeval waters of the solar system.

What was this "spell" or force exerted by "Ea" (the planet Neptune) - then the outermost planet - as it orbited the Sun and circled all the other planets? Did its own orbit around the Sun affect the Sun's magnetism and thus its radioactive outpourings? Or did Neptune itself emit, upon its creation, some vast radiations of energy? Whatever the effects were, the epic likened them to a

"pouring of sleep" - a calming effect - upon Apsu (the Sun). Even "Mummu, the Counsellor, was powerless to stir."

As in the biblical tale of Samson and Delilah, the hero - overcome by sleep - could easily be robbed of his powers. Ea moved quickly to rob Apsu of his creative role. Quenching, it seems, the immense outpourings of primeval matter from the Sun, Ea/Neptune "pulled off Apsu's tiara, removed his cloak of aura." Apsu was "vanquished." Mummu could no longer roam about.

He was "bound and left behind," a lifeless planet by his master's side.

By depriving the Sun of its creativity - stopping the process of emitting more energy and matter to form additional planets - the gods brought temporary peace to the solar system. The victory was further signified by changing the meaning and location of the Apsu. This epithet was henceforth to be applied to the "Abode of Ea." Any additional planets could henceforth come only from the new Apsu - from "the Deep" - the far reaches of space that the outermost planet faced.

How long was it before the celestial peace was broken once more? The epic does not say. But it does continue, with little pause, and raises the curtain on Act III:

In the Chamber of Fates, the place of Destinies,

A god was engendered, most able and wisest of gods;

In the heart of the Deep was MARDUK created.

A new celestial "god" - a new planet - now joins the cast. He was formed in the Deep, far out in space, in a zone where orbital motion - a planet's "destiny" - had been imparted to him.

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