We are now ready to follow Nahum’s two great poems delivered on the eve of the Fall of Niniveh. Probably, as we have said, the first of them has lost its original opening. It wants some notice at the outset of the object to which it is addressed: this is indicated only by the second personal pronoun. Other needful comments will be given in footnotes.
1.
_The Hammer[275] is come up to thy face! Hold the rampart![276]Keep watch on the way! Brace the loins![277] Pull thyself firmly together![278] The shields[279] of his heroes are red, The warriors are in scarlet;[280] Like[281] fire are the ...[282]of the chariots in the day of his muster, And the horsemen[283] are prancing. Through the markets rage chariots, They tear across the squares;[284] The look of them is like torches, Like lightnings they dart to and fro.[285] He musters his nobles....[286] They rush to the wall and the mantlet[287] is fixed! The river-gates[288] burst open, the palace dissolves.[289] And Huṣṣab[290] is stripped, is brought forth, With her maids sobbing like doves, Beating their breasts. And Niniveh! she was like a reservoir of waters, Her waters ...[291] And now they flee. “Stand, stand!” but there is none to rally. Plunder silver, plunder gold! Infinite treasures, mass of all precious things! Void and devoid and desolate[292] is she. Melting hearts and shaking knees, And anguish in all loins, And nothing but faces full of black fear._[293]
_Where is the Lion’s den, And the young lions’ feeding ground[294]? Whither the Lion retreated,[295] The whelps of the Lion, with none to affray: The Lion, who tore enough for his whelps, And strangled for his lionesses. And he filled his pits with prey, And his dens with rapine._
_Lo, I am at thee (oracle of Jehovah of Hosts): I will put up thy ...[296] in flames, The sword shall devour thy young lions; I will cut off from the earth thy rapine, And the noise of thine envoys shall no more be heard._
2.
_Woe to the City of Blood, All of her guile, robbery-full, ceaseless rapine!_
_Hark the whip, And the rumbling of the wheel, And horses galloping, And the rattling dance of the chariot![297] Cavalry at the charge,[298] and flash of sabres, And lightning of lances, Mass of slain and weight of corpses, Endless dead bodies— They stumble on their dead! —For the manifold harlotries of the Harlot, The well-favoured, mistress of charms, She who sold nations with her harlotries And races by her witchcrafts!_
_Lo, I am at thee (oracle of Jehovah of Hosts): I will uncover thy skirts to thy face;[299] Give nations to look on thy nakedness, And kingdoms upon thy shame; Will have thee pelted with filth, and disgrace thee, And set thee for a gazingstock; So that every one seeing thee shall shrink from thee and say, “Shattered is Niniveh—who will pity her? Whence shall I seek for comforters to thee?”_
_Shalt thou be better than No-Amon,[300] Which sat upon the Nile streams[301]—waters were round her— Whose rampart was the sea,[302] and waters her wall?[303] Kush was her strength and Miṣraim without end; Phut and the Lybians were there to assist her.[304] Even she was for exile, she went to captivity: Even her children were dashed on every street corner; For her nobles they cast lots, And all her great men were fastened with fetters._
_Thou too shalt stagger,[305] shalt grow faint; Thou too shalt seek help from[306] the foe! All thy fortresses are fig-trees with figs early-ripe: Be they shaken they fall on the mouth of the eater. Lo, thy folk are but women in thy midst:[307] To thy foes the gates of thy land fly open; Fire has devoured thy bars._