Couches of ivory, thrones of ivory, And his daughters, his women of the palace, The young men and the young women, to Nineveh, the city of my lordship, I caused to be brought after me, and he sent his ambassadors To give tribute and to pay homage. XI. INVOCATION TO THE GODDESS BELTIS BELTIS, the great Lady, chief of heaven and earth, Honored is her festival among the Ishtars. She surpasses her offspring in power. She, the shining one, like her brother, the sun, Mistress of the spirits of the underworld, Ruler over her enemies, The seas she stirs up, The wooded mountains tramples under foot. Mistress of the spirits of upper air, Goddess of battle and fight, Without whom the heavenly temple None would render obedience, She, the bestower of strength, grants the desire of the faithful, Prayers she hears, supplication receives, entreaty accepts. Ishtar, the perfect light, all-powerful, Who enlightens Heaven and earth, Her name is proclaimed throughout all the lands, To her it is good to pray. XII. ORACLES OF ISHTAR OF ARBELA E (B. C. 680-668) SARHADDON, king of lands, fear not. The lord, the spirit who speaks to thee I speak to him, I have not kept it back. Thine enemies, like the floods of Sivan I the great goddess, Ishtar of Arbela Have put thine enemies to flight. In the van and by thy side I go, fear not In the midst of thy princes thou art. In the midst of my host I advance and rest. O Esarhaddon, fear not. Sixty great gods are with me to guard thee, The Moon-god on thy right, the Sun-god on thy left, And make the centre firm. Trust not to man, look thou to me Honor me and fear not. To Esarhaddon, my king, Long days and length of years I give. Thy throne beneath the heavens I have established; Guard like the diadem of my head. The former word which I spake thou didst not trust, In thy palace thou shalt be pure. Thy son, thy son's son the kingdom By the blessing of Nergal shall rule. XIII. AN ERECHITE'S LAMENT, ow long, O my Lady, shall the strong enemy hold thy sanctuary? How There is want in Erech, thy principal city: Blood is flowing like water in Eulbar, the house of thy oracle; He has kindled and poured out fire like hailstones on all thy lands. My Lady, sorely am I fettered by misfortune; My Lady, thou hast surrounded me, and brought me to grief. The mighty enemy has smitten me down like a single reed. Not wise myself, I cannot take counsel; I mourn day and night like the fields. I, thy servant, pray to thee. Let thy heart take rest, let thy disposition be softened. ABIGAIL ADAMS (1744-1818) BY LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE HE Constitution of the State of Massachusetts, adopted in the year 1780, contains an article for the Encouragement of Literature, which, it declares, should be fostered because its influence is "to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in dealings, sincerity and good humor, and all social affections and generous sentiments among the people." In these words, as in a mirror, is reflected the Massachusetts of the eighteenth century, where households like the Adamses', the Warrens', the Otises', made the standard of citizenship. Six years before this remarkable document was framed, Abigail Adams had written to her husband, then engaged in nationmaking in Philadelphia:-"I most sincerely I wish that some more liberal plan might be laid and executed for the benefit of the rising generation, and that our new Constitution may be distinguished for encouraging learning and virtue." And he, spending his days and nights for his country, sacrificing his profession, giving up the hope of wealth, writes her:-"I believe my children will think that I might as well have labored a little, night and day, for their benefit. But I will tell them that I studied and labored to procure a free constitution of government for them to solace themselves under; and if they do not prefer this to ample fortune, to ease and elegance, they are not my children. They shall live upon thin diet, wear mean clothes, and work hard with cheerful hearts and free spirits, or they may be the children of the earth, or of no one, for me." ABIGAIL ADAMS In old Weymouth, one of those quiet Massachusetts towns, halfhidden among the umbrageous hills, where the meeting-house and the school-house rose before the settlers' cabins were built, where the one elm-shaded main street stretches its breadth between two lines of self-respecting, isolated frame houses, each with its grassy dooryard, its lilac bushes, its fresh-painted offices, its decorous wood-pile laid with architectural balance and symmetry, - there, in the dignified parsonage, on the 11th of November, 1744, was born to Parson William Smith and Elizabeth his wife, Abigail, the second of three beautiful daughters. Her mother was a Quincy, of a distinguished line, and her mother was a Norton, of a strain not less honorable. Nor were the Smiths unimportant. In that day girls had little instruction. Abigail says of herself, in one of her letters:-"I never was sent to any school. Female education, in the best families, went no further than writing and arithmetic; in some few and rare instances, music and dancing. It was fashionable to ridicule female learning." But the household was bookish. Her mother knew the "British Poets" and all the literature of Queen Anne's Augustan age. Her beloved grandmother Quincy, at Mount Wollaston, seems to have had both learning and wisdom, and to her father she owed the sense of fun, the shrewdness, the clever way of putting things which make her letters so delightful. The good parson was skillful in adapting Scripture to special exigencies, and throughout the Revolution he astonished his hearers by the peculiar fitness of his texts to political uses. It is related of him that when his eldest daughter married Richard Cranch, he preached to his people from Luke, tenth chapter, forty-second verse: "And Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her." When, a year later, young John Adams came courting the brilliant Abigail, the parish, which assumed a right to be heard on the question of the destiny of the minister's daughter, grimly objected. He was upright, singularly abstemious, studious; but he was poor, he was the son of a small farmer, and she was of the gentry. He was hot-headed and somewhat tactless, and offended his critics. Worst of all, he was a lawyer, and the prejudice of colonial society reckoned a lawyer hardly honest. He won this most important of his cases, however, and Parson Smith's marriage sermon for the bride of nineteen was preached from the text, "For John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say, He hath a devil." For ten years Mrs. Adams seems to have lived a most happy life, either in Boston or Braintree, her greatest grief being the frequent absences of her husband on circuit. His letters to her are many and delightful, expressing again and again, in the somewhat formal phrases of the period, his affection and admiration. She wrote seldom, her household duties and the care of the children, of whom there were four in ten years, occupying her busy hands. Meanwhile, the clouds were growing black in the political sky. Mr. Adams wrote arguments and appeals in the news journals over Latin signatures, papers of instructions to Representatives to the General Court, and legal portions of the controversy between the delegates and Governor Hutchinson. In all this work Mrs. Adams constantly sympathized and advised. In August, 1774, he went to Philadelphia as a delegate to a general council of the colonies called to concert measures for united action. And now begins the famous correspondence, which goes on for a period of nine years, which was intended to be seen only by the eyes of her husband, which she begs him, again and again, to destroy as not worth the keeping, yet which has given her a name and place among the world's most charming letter-writers. Her courage, her cheerfulness, her patriotism, her patience never fail her. Braintree, where, with her little brood, she is to stay, is close to the British lines. Raids and foraging expeditions are imminent. Hopes of a peaceful settlement grow dim. "What course you can or will take," she writes her husband, "is all wrapped in the bosom of futurity. Uncertainty and expectation leave the mind great scope. Did ever any kingdom or State regain its liberty, when once it was invaded, without bloodshed? I cannot think of it without horror. Yet we are told that all the misfortunes of Sparta were occasioned by their too great solicitude for present tranquillity, and, from an excessive love of peace, they neglected the means of making it sure and lasting. They ought to have reflected, says Polybius, that, 'as there is nothing more desirable or advantageous than peace, when founded in justice and honor, so there is nothing more shameful, and at the same time more pernicious, when attained by bad measures, and purchased at the price of liberty.>> Thus in the high Roman fashion she faces danger; yet her sense of fun never deserts her, and in the very next letter she writes, parodying her husband's documents: -"The drouth has been very severe. My poor cows will certainly prefer a petition to you, setting forth their grievances, and informing you that they have been deprived of their ancient privileges, whereby they are become great sufferers, and desiring that these may be restored to them. More especially as their living, by reason of the drouth, is all taken from them, and their property which they hold elsewhere is decaying, they humbly pray that you would consider them, lest hunger should break through stone walls." By midsummer the small hardships entailed by the British occupation of Boston were most vexatious. "We shall very soon have no coffee, nor sugar, nor pepper, but whortleberries and milk we are not obliged to commerce for," she writes, and in letter after letter she begs for pins. Needles are desperately needed, but without pins how can domestic life go on, and not a pin in the province ! On the 14th of September she describes the excitement in Boston, the Governor mounting cannon on Beacon Hill, digging intrenchments |