Semitic magic : its origins and development

84
NAMTARU.
that the Plague-god may be induced to leave the man he
is tormenting and enter his image, he is thus described :
" Inccantation :
—
Plague-god that devoureth the land like fire,
Plague-god that attacketh the man like a fever,
Plague-god that roameth like the wind over the desert,
Plague-god that seizeth on the man like an evil thing,
Plague-god that tormenteth the man like a pestilence.
Plague-god that hath no hands or feet, that wandereth by night,
Plague-god that teareth the sick man in shreds like a leek.
That hath bound his members,
That hath brought low his full strength [like a plant (?)]
[At night] on his bed he cannot sleep.
It hath subjected . . .
It hath seized on his loins ;
His god is far distant from him.
His goddess from his body is afar.
Marduk hath seen him (etc.).
'What I' (etc.).
' Go, my son (Marduk),
Pull off a piece of clay from the deep,
Fashion a figure of his bodily form (therefrom) and
Place it on the loins of the sick man by night,
At dawn make the atonement for his body,
Perform the Incantation of Eridu,
Turn his face to the west,
That the evil Plague-demon which hath seized upon him
May vanish away from him.' " ^
Among the Assyrians the custom existed of hanging
up amulets of inscribed clay to guard the house from
evil, just as is done to this day by many nations. In
the British Museum are two tablets ^ inscribed with the
legend of Ura, another spirit of pestilence. These have
» Devils, ii, 99 ; cf. W.A.L, iv, 27, 4, 54. Namtant rabU sa rambbatu
ramd, " great Namtaru, girt with dread."
2
L. W. King, Zeits.fur Assyr., xi, 50.
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