R (Small
Washington Tablet)
4. There is much to consider and; by the way, the 1000 + 1 nights upheld by Scheherazade should induce us to look for glyph number 1001 on the A tablet. And with 1333 at Aa8-84 this place ought to be 332 nights (glyphs) earlier:
We can first update the glyph number summary for the A tablet:
From which it will be easy to find glyph number 1001 to be at Aa5-4:
We have been here before:
... However, the table does not include Aa5-7:
Then we should also perceive the plate up in front:
They serve as visual representations, I suggest, for the open plane(tary) field of the ecliptic:
... The earth rises up from the sea again, and is green and beautiful and things grow without sowing. Vidar and Vali are alive, for neither the sea nor the flames of Surt have hurt them and they dwell on the Eddyfield, where once stood Asgard. There come also the sons of Thor, Modi and Magni, and bring along his hammer. There come also Balder and Hoder from the other world. All sit down and converse together. They rehearse their runes and talk of events of old days. Then they find in the grass the golden tablets that the Aesir once played with. Two children of men will also be found safe from the great flames of Surt. Their names, Lif and Lifthrasir, and they feed on the morning dew and from this human pair will come a great population which will fill the earth. And strange to say, the sun, before being devoured by Fenrir, will have borne a daughter, no less beautiful and going the same ways as her mother.' Then, all at once, concludes Snorri's tale wryly, a thunderous cracking was heard from all sides, and when the King looked again, he found himself on the open plain and the great hall had vanished ... Evidently it was Mars (→ March) who raised up (→ Rumia) the ecliptic plate:
... Long ago in the very beginning of time there dwelt within a shell an infant god whose name was Ta'aroa. He was Ta'aroa the unique one, the ancestor of all gods, the creator of the universe whose natures were myriad, whose backbone was the ridgepole of the world, whose ribs were its supporters. The shell was called Rumia, Upset. Becoming aware at last of his own existence and oppressed by a yearning loneliness Ta'aroa broke open his shell and, looking out, beheld the black limitless expanse of empty space. Hopefully, he shouted, but no voice answered him. He was alone in the vast cosmos. Within the broken Rumia he grew a new shell to shut out the primeval void ...
It evidently was depicted by the Milky Way,
beginning at the Breast of Cassiopeia (*8). ... In the morning of the world, there was nothing but water. The Loon was calling, and the old man who at that time bore the Raven's name, Nangkilstlas, asked her why. 'The gods are homeless', the Loon replied. 'I'll see to it', said the old man, without moving from the fire in his house on the floor of the sea. Then as the old man continued to lie by his fire, the Raven flew over the sea. The clouds broke. He flew upward, drove his beak into the sky and scrambled over the rim to the upper world. There he discovered a town, and in one of the houses a woman had just given birth. The Raven stole the skin and form of the newborn child. Then he began to cry for solid food, but he was offered only mother's milk ... Or as suggested by Lewis Carroll: it was at the Tea-pot asterism:
... 'I wan't a clean cup', interrupted the Hatter: 'let's all move one place on.' He moved as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare moved into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change; and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upsed the milk-jug into his plate ...
|