Page:Laws of Hammurabi, King of Babylonia.djvu/32

tion to my wishes at the place of the court and decision, shall make his matter bad before Bêl, the destruction of his country, the destruction of his subjects, the outpour of his life like water into the mouth of Bêl the king shall lay. Ea, the great princess, whose conclusions of fortune go ahead, the thinker of good, who knows everything, who makes long the days of my life, shall deprive of wisdom and understanding, shall lead him into oblivion, his rivers pen up in their springs, and not let grow in his country the grain, the life sustenance of the people. Shamash, the great judge of heaven and earth, who keeps aloft all ways of life, the master of the courage of life, shall break up his kingdom, shall not carry out his right, shall stop his road, shall destroy the courage of his troops, in his dreams face bad prophecies with the extermination of the foundations of his throne and prophesy the downfall of his country. Judgment of Shamash shall overtake him at once, up among the living, cast down his spirit to the earth. He shall let him do without water among the living, without his spirit under the earth. Sin, the lord of the lord of the heaven, the god-father, whose sickle flares up among the gods, shall deprive him of crown and royal throne; the heavy guilt, the great offence, he will not soften; but he cast upon him days, months and years of his rule shall he spend in sobs and tears, he will increase the burden of his sovereignty for him, he shall give him as his fortune a life that shall be like death. Adad, the master of fertility, the prince of heaven and earth, my helper, shall deprive him of the rain in the heavens, the water supply in the springs and shall destroy his land by famine and poverty, and shall rage powerfully over his city and shall reduce his country to flood islands [ruined hills]. Zamama, the great warrior, the first son of E-kur, who goes at my right, shall break his weapon upon his election town, shall turn day into night for him, shall let his enemy triumph over him. Istar, the goddess of battle and slaughter, who frees my weapons, my generous protecting deity, who loves my kingdom, in her angry heart, in her great grimness, shall she curse his kingdom, shall turn his benevolence into misfortune and break his weapon at the place of slaughter and battle. She will bring him disorder and rebellion, shall knock down his warriors, the earth shall drink their blood, heaps of corpses of his troops she shall throw down in the field, a life of mercy not spare him, shall surrender him into the hand of his enemies, shall take him a captive into the country of his enemies. Nergal, the mighty among the gods, whose conflict is irresistible, who lends me victory in his great violence, who shall consume his subjects like a weak reed, with his mighty weapon he will cut off his limbs, he shall break as an earthen image. Nin-tu, the exalted mistress of the countries, the prolific mother, shall deny him a son, shall grant him no name, among human beings she shall give him no descendants. Nin-karak, the daughter of Anu, who bestows mercy, in E-kur she shall inflict on him severe sickness, bad fever, bad wounds, which will not be healed, whose character the physician does not understand, which he does not know how to treat with a bandage, which like the bite of death cannot be averted, she shall let it come over his limbs till it destroys his life. He shall lament his vitality, the great gods of heaven and earth, the Anunaki, as a whole, shall cast curses and evil upon the surroundings of the temple, the walls of this E-barra, his government, his country, his warriors, his subjects and his troops. Bêl shall strike him immediately with a powerful curse out of his mouth, which cannot be changed.