The Tablet of Destinies

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A Note About the Author and Translator

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I

This storm was like no other he had known. Shipwrecks he was used to. They marked time, served as reminders. A certain event had happened before the third shipwreck, another after the fifth. Far from dismayed, what he felt was a strange, drunken recklessness, relief almost. Not only had he lost his course, the compass points themselves had disappeared. That was his last exact observation. He knew nothing of what happened next, until the moment when he opened his eyes in a tent. A light breeze stirred the fabric. He had slept, but for how long? Days? Years? In the darkness he recognized a shape. Stretched out, motionless. Another sleeper. For a while Sindbad said nothing. Then the other woke, looked at him, and said:

“This is the home of Utnapishtim, in Dilmun.”

Utnapishtim got up and parted the flaps of the tent. In came a blade of light that lay beside Sindbad. Utnapishtim sat on a stool beside him and said:

“I know who you are. There’s no need to say anything. If you want to listen to me, I’ll be here.”

Then everything grew muddled for Sindbad. When he woke again he had an impression of great clarity. Utnapishtim was still sitting on the stool. He said:

“I’ve been silent so long I don’t know where to start. Anywhere would do. But ancient custom has it that everything begins with the gods.”

There was a brief silence. Then the voice resumed:

“In the beginning the gods walked the earth. They kept themselves busy. They dug ditches, raised up walls. Most of all, they searched for water. It was hard going. They felt oppressed by a heavy yoke. Not all the gods were equal. There were higher gods and lower gods. The Anunnaki had withdrawn to the heavens. They had left the Igigi to struggle on earth. One day they were bound to rebel. Men would learn from them. The Igigi dug out the bed of the Tigris. They grumbled among the heaps of earth they had turned up. Ever more exasperated. What could they do but take arms, attack the sky? Enlil the warrior, the counselor, was roused from his bed. They barred all the doors. They begged help of Anu, who had power over the heavens, and from Ea, deep in the fresh subterranean waters. Enlil wept. He didn’t know what to do. Anu said the Igigi were right. Their lives were too hard, their outcry could be heard in the highest heaven.

“Then the gods realized they must create substitutes for themselves: men. But how? For them to be truly alive, a god must die. Mami, the midwife, could mix some clay with the blood of the god called Geshtue. The other gods would purify themselves, three times in a month, immersed in water. A spirit penetrated the clay with Geshtue’s blood. And the clay began to throb. From then on, the spirit remembered the god he had belonged to.

“Mami went into the chamber of destiny, together with Ea. She began to knead the clay, streaked with blood. And whispered one of her spells, for she had once been a sorceress. Seven lumps of clay to the right, seven to the left. They became men and women. Now she placed a mud brick in the middle. Where we come from everything begins with mud bricks. She cut it in half with a piece of bamboo and, one by one, placed the lumps of clay beside each other. Nothing else was required. Soon afterward, those shapeless pieces of clay began to mate. Ishtar watched and was pleased.

“It was Ea, my protector, who explained to the Anunnaki what they must do. Ea had always been the most farsighted. Left to their own devices, the Anunnaki would have become mired in endless conflicts. But Ea spoke the crucial words: ‘Let men carry the gods’ burden!’ Simple words that we still live by. That you, Sindbad, live by. They spell out the basics: the burden, the gods. All else is superfluous.

“Of Geshtue, I shall say very little. His name means ‘ear,’ no memorable deeds are attributed to him. But I do know he was thought intelligent. Perhaps that was why he was chosen. They killed him, all acting together, during the Anunnaki council. They shed blood together and together they purified themselves in water. The water of Ea.

“I have never understood why a god had to be killed in order for men to exist. In any event, it wasn’t Ea who suggested it. All he said was that some creature had to be found who could take the place of the gods. But the Anunnaki were all in favor of the killing. And the deed had to be done in a particular place: along the Durmahu, the bond, the rope, the axis that ties the heavens to the earth. I heard this from the seven Apkallu, the Holy Carp, the Seven Sages of Ea, who were close relatives of mine.

“I have told you these stories of the gods and the burdens because, when you lived in Baghdad, before you met Sindbad the Sailor, they called you Sindbad the Porter. You went around all day with heavy burdens on your head. Moving merchandise from one place to another. It was your whole life.”

II

Sindbad was befuddled again. He heard strange names, foreign sounds. And someone was speaking as though he knew every detail of his life. He couldn’t see why these stories were so urgent. He would have preferred to be told where he was. He looked around and thought:

“All the ports I’ve seen, the dives, the taverns, markets and brothels and palaces … yet never anything like this Dilmun, a name I never came across on any nautical chart. Everything here could easily be found elsewhere, were it not for the brightness of the light. And the feeling that it might all melt away from one moment to the next.”

Utnapishtim resumed his tale:

“The Flood didn’t come suddenly as a big surprise. It came at the end of a long, tormented story. Men just went on multiplying and the noise they made was ever more irksome. The Anunnaki summoned Namtar, who governs the things of death. ‘Quieten down that noise,’ they told him. And they asked him to send a plague upon the earth. It was then that Ea told me something I didn’t believe at first. At the four corners of the earth, the heralds were to whip men up, to have them make even more noise, stop showing the gods any reverence at all. Ea was the only god capable of speaking against the gods. But the Anunnaki were incensed. If the plague wasn’t enough, they would send a famine. The rain ceased to fall. Everything dried up. The land seemed like it was covered in salt. People started to look daggers at one another. Spied on one another. Some mothers ate their daughters. And there were daughters who ate their mothers. I remember days of desperation. I spoke for hours, down by the bamboo, to Ea. And got no answer. So I took my bed to the riverbank. I waited for that time of night when everything would fall silent and the only sound was the water. Ea’s voice would come from there.

“You’re wondering: how did I talk to Ea? They said I had an ear for him, as if others found this path blocked. I heard his words as distinctly as I hear yours, and recognized at once that it was him. His voice was like no other. What about when it was my turn to speak? I remember a time when I lived in a big hut with bamboo walls. Close-woven, thick. I would sit facing one of these walls and talk in a low voice, like an idiot. Often there was no response. But sometimes Ea would answer, I heard him right there in front of me. It’s the same now when we talk together. Ea never used my name. He spoke to the wall. He said: ‘Bamboo! Bamboo! Listen up!’ I was on the other side, in the dark, and I listened.

“Where I’m from, to say watch out we would say listen. We had the habit of listening more than seeing. I don’t know if that’s still the case. Our heads were empty thrones where voices, shapes, and vibrations thronged together. Only when Ea brought me here, to Dilmun, did I discover the marvel of something that lets itself be seen, but makes no sound. There was nothing else to keep me company.

“The ravages of famine weren’t enough for the Anunnaki. They were forever in council. They kept swearing they would act in unison, as though they themselves were the first to doubt it. But there was one exception. Sitting in his corner, like a guest who has just arrived, one day Ea burst out laughing.

“Enlil was ever more enraged and announced the Flood. What could the others do but agree? Then Ea recomposed himself and said something frightening: ‘Can I raise my hand against those I have created?’ It was a way of reminding the Anunnaki that only he and Mami had been present in the chamber of destiny. And that the underground waters depended on him.

“So the Flood was decided on and brought about without Ea’s support. A punishment that would level everything in a vast expanse of mud. But Ea warned me in time for me to build the ship that was our salvation. This is common knowledge. What many don’t know is that before building the ship, Ea sent me on a secret mission to my hometown: Shuruppak. Only Ea could calculate how far the waters would reach. And in a ditch in Shuruppak I hid the scriptures, those clay tablets that would bear witness to what happened before the Flood. Few know this part of the story. Those whose task it is to pass on the scriptures. Of whom you, Sindbad, are only the most recent.

“Nobody now remembers the exact details of the Flood. And details are useful. First the Anunnaki went all over the place carrying torches and setting fire to everything they could find. But then, when huge volumes of water began to fall from the sky, one after another, and the earth was reduced to silence, the Anunnaki were so terrified they ended up huddling away in the heavens like so many dogs. They hadn’t fully realized what was about to happen. The first to complain was Mami, who had fashioned the first men. She yelled something that the other Anunnaki had thought but hadn’t dared to say: how could they have agreed to swear that the earth must be devastated by the Flood?

“If there had been no Flood, I could have gone on being one smart man among many. And Ea’s favorite. I had no ambitions beyond that. But the Flood did come, on a rash whim of Enlil’s. The Anunnaki soon regretted it. So Ea ordered me to build a strange square-shaped ship, sealed like a strongbox and packed full of animals. I didn’t know where to begin, but Ea drew plans on the sand to teach me the shipbuilder’s craft. So, when it was over, men and women found the land again. Not me, though; I vanished to a place that I alone inhabit: Dilmun. A magnificent place, but far removed from all other life. That’s why they called me Utnapishtim the Remote. I have no one to talk to. You are the first visitor I’ve been able to speak to about all this since Gilgamesh.

“When Enlil saw the ship aground on the back of Mount Nimush he was seized by another fit of rage. Had it all been for nothing, then? Wasn’t even the Flood enough? And who could have conspired against him? There was only one suspect: Ea, he who knows. As they said.

“In a flash Enlil changed. It’s a privilege the gods enjoy. With solemn step, he climbed aboard the ship, took my hand, had me kneel together with my wife, touched us on the forehead, in blessing, and said: ‘Utnapishtim, until today you have been a man, from now on you and your wife will be like gods. And you will dwell at the confluence of the rivers.’ From that moment on, I knew that life for me would never end. But I still wonder what it means to be like gods. How much like them? On the other hand, I know all too well what keeps me far from men. And I still yearn for what I have lost. Which is why I can’t stop speaking to you, Sindbad.”

“How did the Anunnaki behave after the Flood? Did they accept the existence of men? They chose not to say. They had killed men like flies and like flies they buzzed around the first sacrifice I celebrated as soon as I was off the ship. And Anu gave Nintu—another name for Mami—a necklace of lapis lazuli stones shaped like flies. She said she would never take it off, in memory of those calamitous days.”

Darkness had fallen. Sindbad’s mind wandered. Then once again, from the shadows, he heard Utnapishtim’s voice: “I would have liked to be someone who dwells in the midst of everything and sees afar. Instead, my fate has been to see afar, but from a place no one else can reach. Or only you, Sindbad, and you weren’t even looking for it.”

III

“In the sky Ishtar is Venus, the brightest star at dawn and dusk, but among the fixed stars she is the goddess with the bow, in the constellation of the Great Dog, close to her lover Dumuzi, the true shepherd of the heavens, in Orion, and to Ninurta, the great hero, where the hurricane brews, who is Sirius, the arrow. Ishtar was other things as well. Where you see two parallel stands of bamboo, bending at the tips, or rosettes, or eight-pointed stars, you are seeing Ishtar. Sometimes her frilly skirts fall to her ankles. Sometimes she’s quite naked, with wings, pushing up prosperous breasts, her feet on a lion, a two-horned crown on her head. It’s still Ishtar. Taking the god’s place, the king coupled with Ishtar in a room with a golden table and a bed with linen sheets. The king had been specially chosen to give the goddess sensual pleasure. Head high, he drew near to Ishtar’s legs. She stretched her pure legs on the bed and on that bed the king pleasured her flesh. He was the beloved groom.