(6) So eager did I render my companions, With this brief exhortation, for the voyage, That then I hardly could have held them back. And having turned our stern unto the morning, We of the oars made wings for our mad flight, Evermore gaining on the larboard side. Already all the stars of the other pole The night beheld, and ours so very low It did not rise above the ocean floor. Five times rekindled and as many quenched Had been the splendour underneath the moon, Since we had entered into the deep pass, When there appeared to us a mountain, dim From distance, and it seemed to me so high As I had never any one beheld. Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping; For out of the new land a whirlwind rose, And smote upon the fore part of the ship. Three times it made her whirl with all the waters, At the fourth time it made the stern uplift, And the prow downward go, as pleased Another, Until the sea above us closed again."

(11) At that time there was a movement in the sea

(3) These, then, are the names of those who went there to the other side of the sea; the three went then, and were endowed with intelligence and experience, but they were not common men. They took leave of all their brothers and relatives and left joyfully. "We shall not die; we shall return," said the three when they left.

(6) I watched the appearance of the weather-- the weather was frightful to behold! I went into the boat and sealed the entry. For the caulking of the boat, to Puzuramurri, the boatman, I gave the palace together with its contents. Just as dawn began to glow there arose from the horizon a black cloud. Adad rumbled inside of it, before him went Shullat and Hanish, heralds going over mountain and land. Erragal pulled out the mooring poles, forth went Ninurta and made the dikes overflow. The Anunnaki lifted up the torches, setting the land ablaze with their flare. Stunned shock over Adad's deeds overtook the heavens, and turned to blackness all that had been light. The... land shattered like a... pot. All day long the South Wind blew..., blowing fast, submerging the mountain in water, overwhelming the people like an attack.

(2) And the waters did so as He commanded them, and they retired from qff the face of the earth into one place outside of this firmament, and the dry land appeared.

(1) O Ye, who in some pretty little boat, Eager to listen, have been following Behind my ship, that singing sails along, Turn back to look again upon your shores; Do not put out to sea, lest peradventure, In losing me, you might yourselves be lost. The sea I sail has never yet been passed; Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo, And Muses nine point out to me the Bears. Ye other few who have the neck uplifted Betimes to th' bread of Angels upon which One liveth here and grows not sated by it, Well may you launch upon the deep salt-sea Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you Upon the water that grows smooth again. Those glorious ones who unto Colchos passed Were not so wonder-struck as you shall be, When Jason they beheld a ploughman made! The con-created and perpetual thirst For the realm deiform did bear us on, As swift almost as ye the heavens behold. Upward gazed Beatrice, and I at her; And in such space perchance as strikes a bolt And flies, and from the notch unlocks itself,

(3) It is not quite clear, however, how they crossed the sea; they crossed to this side, as if there were no sea; they crossed on stones, placed in a row over the sand. For this reason they were called Stones in a Row, Sand Under the Sea, names given to them when they [the tribes] crossed the sea, the waters having parted when they passed. And their hearts were troubled when they talked together, because they had nothing to eat, only a drink of water and a handful of corn they had.

(2) Back, thou whom Osiris execrateth, from the Neshemet galley, which saileth towards the south with favourable breeze

(5) The boat was finished by sunset. The launching was very difficult. They had to keep carrying a runway of poles front to back, until two-thirds of it had gone into the water(?). Whatever I had I loaded on it: whatever silver I had I loaded on it, whatever gold I had I loaded on it. All the living beings that I had I loaded on it, I had all my kith and kin go up into the boat, all the beasts and animals of the field and the craftsmen I had go up. Shamash had set a stated time: 'In the morning I will let loaves of bread shower down, and in the evening a rain of wheat! Go inside the boat, seal the entry! That stated time had arrived. In the morning he let loaves of bread shower down, and in the evening a rain of wheat.

(5) For 'twere not fitting that the eye o'ercast By any mist should go before the first Angel, who is of those of Paradise. This little island round about its base Below there, yonder, where the billow beats it, Doth rushes bear upon its washy ooze; No other plant that putteth forth the leaf, Or that doth indurate, can there have life, Because it yieldeth not unto the shocks. Thereafter be not this way your return; The sun, which now is rising, will direct you To take the mount by easier ascent." With this he vanished; and I raised me up Without a word, and wholly drew myself Unto my Guide, and turned mine eyes to him. And he began: "Son, follow thou my steps; Let us turn back, for on this side declines The plain unto its lower boundaries." The dawn was vanquishing the matin hour Which fled before it, so that from afar I recognised the trembling of the sea. Along the solitary plain we went As one who unto the lost road returns, And till he finds it seems to go in vain.

(3) "Pity us! We shall not see the dawn here, when the sun rises and lights the face of the earth," they said at leaving. But they left some people on the road which they followed so that they would keep watch. Each of the tribes kept getting up to see the star which was the herald of the sun. This sign of the dawn they carried in their hearts when they came from the East, and with the same hope they left there, from that great distance, according to what their songs now say.

(1) O thou who art devoid of moisture in coming forth from the stream; and who restest upon the deck of thy Bark: as thou proceedest in the direction of Yesterday, and restest upon the deck of thy Bark, let me join thy boatmen

(89) Then the water began to run down into these, till the earth became visible; but that vessel settled on the earth, and the darkness retired and light appeared.

(2) Already, many were the men who had been carried off, but the tribes did not notice it until later. "Could it be Tohil. and Avilix who have been here among us? It must be they who are nourished by the priests and the sacrificers. Where are their homes? Let us follow their footprints!" said all the people. Then they held a council among themselves. Then they began to follow the footprints of the priests and the sacrificers, but they were not clear. There were only tracks of wild animals, tracks of jaguars that they saw, but the tracks were not distinct. The first ones were not clear because they were reversed, as though made so that the people went astray, and their way was not clear. A mist formed, a black rain fell and made much mud; and it began to drizzle. This was what the people saw before them. And their hearts became weary of searching and following them on the roads, because the beings of Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz were so great that the latter withdrew to the summit of the mountains, in the vicinity of the people, whom they killed.

(6) And, afterwards, the wind spirit, so that it may not be contaminated (gûmîkht), stirs up the wind and atmosphere as the life stirs in the body; and the water was all swept away by it, and was brought out to the borders of the earth, and the wide-formed ocean arose therefrom.

(5) The wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth its nourse.

(2) My Master yet had uttered not a word While the first whiteness into wings unfolded; But when he clearly recognised the pilot, He cried: "Make haste, make haste to bow the knee! Behold the Angel of God! fold thou thy hands! Henceforward shalt thou see such officers! See how he scorneth human arguments, So that nor oar he wants, nor other sail Than his own wings, between so distant shores. See how he holds them pointed up to heaven, Fanning the air with the eternal pinions, That do not moult themselves like mortal hair!" Then as still nearer and more near us came The Bird Divine, more radiant he appeared, So that near by the eye could not endure him, But down I cast it; and he came to shore With a small vessel, very swift and light, So that the water swallowed naught thereof. Upon the stern stood the Celestial Pilot; Beatitude seemed written in his face, And more than a hundred spirits sat within. "In exitu Israel de Aegypto!" They chanted all together in one voice, With whatso in that psalm is after written.

(7) They talked, but they could not calm their hearts which were anxious for the coming of the dawn. "The gods are seated in the ravines, in the forests, they are among the air-plants, among the mosses, not even a seat of boards were they given," they said.

(61) And I saw in those days how long cords were given to those angels, and they took to themselves wings and flew, and they went towards the north.

(4) "God seeth all things, and in Him, blest spirit, Thy sight is," said I, "so that never will Of his can possibly from thee be hidden; Thy voice, then, that for ever makes the heavens Glad, with the singing of those holy fires Which of their six wings make themselves a cowl, Wherefore does it not satisfy my longings? Indeed, I would not wait thy questioning If I in thee were as thou art in me." "The greatest of the valleys where the water Expands itself," forthwith its words began, "That sea excepted which the earth engarlands, Between discordant shores against the sun Extends so far, that it meridian makes Where it was wont before to make the horizon. I was a dweller on that valley's shore 'Twixt Ebro and Magra that with journey short Doth from the Tuscan part the Genoese. With the same sunset and same sunrise nearly Sit Buggia and the city whence I was, That with its blood once made the harbour hot. Folco that people called me unto whom My name was known; and now with me this heaven Imprints itself, as I did once with it;