The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Of Ymir’s flesh the earth was fashioned,

And of his sweat the sea;

Crags of his bones, trees of his hair,

And of his skull the sky.

Then of his bones the blithe gods made

Midgard for sons of men;

And of his brain the bitter-mooded

Clouds were all created.^[41]

In the Babylonian version the hero is Marduk, the sun-god; the victim is Tiamat — terrifying, dragon-like, attended by swarms of demons — a female personification of the original abyss itself: chaos as the mother of the gods, but now the menace of the world. With bow and trident, club and net, and a convoy of battle-winds, the god mounted his chariot. The four horses, trained to trample underfoot, were flecked with foam.

...But Tiamat turned not her neck,

With lips that failed not she uttered rebellious words....

Then the lord raised the thunderbolt, his mighty weapon,

And against Tiamat, who was raging, thus he sent the word:

“Thou art become great, thou hast exalted thyself on high,

And thy heart hath prompted thee to call to battle....

And against the gods my fathers thou hast contrived thy wicked plan.

Let then thy host be equipped, let thy weapons be girded on!

Stand! I and thou, let us join battle!”

When Tiamat heard these words,

She was like one possessed, she lost her reason.

Tiamat uttered wild, piercing cries,

She trembled and shook to her very foundations.

She recited an incantation, she pronounced her spell.

And the gods of the battle cried out for their weapons.

Then advanced Tiamat and Marduk, the counselor of the gods;

To the fight they came on, to the battle they drew nigh.

The lord spread out his net and caught her.

And the evil wind that was behind him he let loose in her face.

The terrible winds filled her belly,

And her courage was taken from her, and her mouth she opened wide.

He seized the trident and burst her belly,

He severed her inward parts, he pierced her heart.

He overcame her and cut off her life;

He cast down her body and stood upon it.

Having then subdued the remainder of her swarming host, the god of Babylon returned to the mother of the world:

And the lord stood upon Tiamat’s hinder parts,

And with his merciless club he smashed her skull.

He cut through the channels of her blood,

And he made the north wind bear it away into secret places....

Then the lord rested, gazing upon her dead body,... and devised a cunning plan,

He split her up like a flat fish into two halves;

One half of her he established as a covering for heaven.

He fixed a bolt, he stationed a watchman,

And bade them not to let her waters come forth.

He passed through the heavens, he surveyed the regions thereof,

And over against the Deep he set the dwelling of Nudimmud.

And the Lord measured the structure of the Deep....^[42]

Marduk in this heroic manner pushed back with a ceiling the waters above, and with a floor the waters beneath. Then in the world between he created man.