Liber Iovis - Chapter 15

Verses

In the year when the rivers forgot their banks, the king summoned the Scribe of the Upper Wind.

The scribe climbed the tower and found no omen except a bright wanderer standing where the old tablets said Marduk would stand.

He said, The heavens do not command us. They display the habit of command, and men imitate whatever shines long enough.

That night the sea rose in the form of a woman made of mouths, and every mouth spoke a different law.

The king ordered soldiers forward. The scribe ordered them back. A sword can divide flesh, he said, but chaos is already division.

So they named the streets before building them, and named the gates before raising them, and named the laws before anyone obeyed.

For nine nights the city existed only in speech.

On the tenth, masons laid stone where the names had made room.

The sea-woman laughed: You have not defeated me. The scribe answered, No. We have given you office hours.

Thus chaos became a canal, rage became a furnace, hunger became a market, and fear was appointed captain of the night watch.

Marduk's star burned above them, immense and yellow-white, while clerks invented civilization one tablet at a time.

The king demanded a throne in the center. The scribe placed the granary there instead.

Why? asked the king. Because a city without grain dies faster than a king without admiration.

When the walls were finished, the people praised the king. The king praised Marduk. Marduk, being a planet for the evening, offered no correction.

The scribe wrote: Order is not the death of chaos. It is chaos persuaded to keep appointments.

And beneath it he added in smaller signs: Every appointment may someday be broken.