The Complaints of the Lower Gods

[1] When the gods were man they did forced labor, they bore drudgery.

Great was the drudgery of the gods, the forced labor was heavy, the misery too much:

[5] The 7 great Anunna-gods were burdening the Igigi-gods with forced labor.

[Lacuna]

[21] The Igigi-gods were digging watercourses, opening canals, the life of the land.

[25] The Igigi-gods dug the Tigris river and the Euphrates thereafter.

Springs they opened from the depths, wells … they established. …

They heaped up all the mountains.

[Several lines missing]

[34] … years of drudgery.

[35] … the vast marsh.

They counted years of drudgery, … and forty years, too much! … forced labor they bore night and day.

They were complaining, denouncing,

[40] muttering down in the ditch:

“Let us face up to our foreman the prefect, he must take off our heavy burden!

[45] Enlil, counsellor of the gods, the warrior, come, let us remove him from his dwelling!”

[Several lines missing]

[61] “Now them, call for battle, battle let us join, warfare!”

The gods heard his words: they set fire to their tools,

[65] they put fire to their spaces, and flame to their workbaskets.

Off they went, one and all, to the gate of the warrior Enlil’s abode. …

Insurrection of the Lower Gods

[70] It was night, half-way through the watch, the house was surrounded, but the god did not know.

It was night, half-way through the watch, Ekur was surrounded, but Enlil did not know!

[Several lines missing; the great gods send a messenger]

[132] Nusku opened his gate, took his weapons and went … Enlil.

In the assembly of all the gods,

[135] he knelt, stood up, expounded the command,

“Anu, your father, your counsellor, the warrior Enlil, your prefect, Ninurta, and your bailiff Ennugi have sent me to say:

[140] ‘Who is the instigator of this battle? Who is the instigator of these hostilities? Who declared war, that battle has run up to the gate of Enlil? In …

[145] he transgressed the command of Enlil.’”

Reply by the Lower Gods

“Everyone of us gods has declared war; …

We have set … un the excvation, excessive drudgery has killed us,

[150] our forced labor was heavy, the misery too much! Now, everyone of us gods has resolved on a reckoning with Enlil.”

[The great gods decide to create man, to relieve the lower gods from their misery.]