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Do spirits of written characters — such things — actually exist, or not?

The Assyrians know of countless spirits.

Lil, who prowls the darkness of night; Lilitu, his female counterpart; Namtar, who scatters pestilence; Etimu, the spirit of the dead; Labasu, the abductor — an innumerable host of evil spirits fills the skies of Assyria.

Yet of the spirit of written characters, no one has ever heard.

Around that time — by which I mean the twentieth year of the reign of His Majesty Ashurbanipal — a strange rumor circulated through the court at Nineveh.

Every night, from the darkness inside the library, there came the sound of eerie whispering.

Since the rebellion of the royal brother Shamash-shum-ukin had only just been suppressed with the fall of Babylon, inquiries were made as to whether this might be some new conspiracy of malcontents, but no such evidence was found.

It had to be the voices of some manner of spirits.

Some said it must be the voices of the ghosts of the Babylonian captives recently executed before the king, but everyone knew that could not be true.

It is a fact known to all that the more than a thousand Babylonian captives had every one of their tongues torn out before they were killed, and the tongues collected formed a small mound.

Ghosts without tongues cannot speak.

After fruitless inquiry through astrology and hepatoscopy, the only conclusion left was that these must be the voices of books, or of written characters themselves.

However, what nature a spirit of written characters — assuming such a thing exists — might possess was utterly unknown.

His Majesty Ashurbanipal summoned the aged scholar Nabu-ahhe-eriba — with his great eyes and curly hair — and commanded him to research these unknown spirits.

From that day onward, Dr. Nabu-ahhe-eriba went daily to the library in question — that library which was destined to be buried underground two hundred years hence and excavated by chance two thousand three hundred years after that — and pored over tens of thousands of books, immersed in his studies.

In Mesopotamia, unlike in Egypt, papyrus does not grow.

People carved complex cuneiform symbols onto clay tablets with a stylus.

Books were tiles, and the library resembled a pottery warehouse.

Each day, heaping piles of tiles were stacked high on the old scholar's table — whose legs were fashioned from real lion's feet, claws and all.

From within that weighty ancient knowledge, he sought to find some account of the spirit of written characters, but in vain.

Concerning written characters, nothing was recorded beyond the fact that they are governed by the god Nabu of Borsippa.

Whether written characters possessed spirits or not, he would have to resolve by his own efforts.

The scholar set aside his books and spent entire days staring down a single character, locked in a mutual gaze with it.

A diviner intuits all things by gazing fixedly upon a sheep's liver.

Following that example, he sought to discover truth through concentrated observation and contemplation.

Before long, something strange occurred.

As he stared at a single character for a long while, at some point the character would dissolve before him, appearing as nothing more than a meaningless tangle of individual lines.

He could no longer understand how a mere collection of lines could possibly carry a particular sound and a particular meaning.

The aged scholar Nabu-ahhe-eriba, discovering this mysterious fact for the first time in his life, was astonished.

What he had taken for granted and overlooked for the past seventy years was neither natural nor inevitable.

He felt as though scales had fallen from his eyes.

What is it that grants a fixed sound and a fixed meaning to what are merely scattered lines?

The moment his thinking reached this point, the old scholar acknowledged without hesitation the existence of a spirit of written characters.

Just as hands, legs, a head, claws, and a belly ungoverned by a soul do not constitute a human being, how could a mere collection of lines possess sound and meaning unless some spirit held it together?

Beginning with this discovery, the nature of the spirit of written characters — hitherto unknown — gradually became clearer, little by little.

The number of spirits of written characters is as great as the number of things in the world; spirits of written characters breed and multiply like field mice.

Nabu-ahhe-eriba walked through the streets of Nineveh, tracking down people who had recently learned to read and write, and patiently questioned each one.

Had anything changed about them since before they knew written characters?

By this means he sought to make clear the effect that spirits of written characters have upon human beings.

In this way, a curious set of statistics took shape.

According to these findings, the overwhelming majority reported that since learning to read and write, they had suddenly grown worse at catching lice, that more dust got into their eyes, that eagles they had once seen clearly in the sky they could no longer make out, or that the sky seemed less blue than before.

"The spirit of written characters gnaws away at the human eye, much as a maggot bores through the hard shell of a walnut and cleverly devours the meat within."

So Nabu-ahhe-eriba recorded in a fresh clay memorandum.

A considerable number also reported that since learning to read and write they had begun to cough, that they suffered from inconvenient sneezing fits, that hiccups had become frequent, or that they had developed loose bowels.

"The spirit of written characters appears to afflict the human nose, throat, belly, and the like as well."

So the old scholar recorded again.

There were also those whose hair had suddenly grown thin after learning to read and write.

Some found their legs had weakened; others had begun to tremble in their hands and feet; others found their jaws would slip out of joint more easily.

But in the end, Nabu-ahhe-eriba was obliged to write this:

"The harm wrought by written characters reaches its utmost when it penetrates the human brain and paralyzes the mind."

Compared to before they had learned to read and write, craftsmen had grown clumsy, warriors had grown timid, and hunters missed their lions more often.

This is what the statistics clearly showed.

There was also the complaint from one who said that since becoming familiar with written characters, he found no pleasure at all in lying with a woman.

To be sure, since the one who said this was an old man past seventy, it may not have been the fault of the written characters.

Nabu-ahhe-eriba reflected as follows.

The Egyptians seem to regard a thing's shadow as part of that thing's soul — might written characters not be something like that shadow?

Might not the character for "lion" be the shadow of a real lion?

And so might not the hunter who has learned the character for "lion" come to aim at the shadow of a lion instead of the real lion, and the man who has learned the character for "woman" come to embrace the shadow of a woman instead of a real woman?

In the old days before written characters, before the flood of Pir-Napishtim, joy and wisdom entered directly into human beings.

Now we know only the shadow of joy and the shadow of wisdom, veiled behind a veil of written characters.

Of late, people's memories had grown poor.

This too was the mischief of the spirits of written characters.

People can no longer remember anything at all unless they write it down.

Since the invention of clothing, human skin has grown weaker and uglier.

Since the invention of conveyances, human legs have grown weaker and uglier.

Since the spread of written characters, people's minds simply ceased to function.

Nabu-ahhe-eriba knew of an old man who was possessed by books.

That old man was even more learned than the learned Nabu-ahhe-eriba himself.

He could read not only Sumerian and Aramaic, but even Egyptian script written on papyrus and parchment, with fluency.

There was nothing from antiquity that had been committed to writing which he did not know.

He knew even the weather on a specific day of a specific month of a specific year of the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I.

Yet he took no notice of whether today's weather was clear or cloudy.

He could recite from memory the words with which the maiden Sabitu comforted Gilgamesh.

Yet he did not know what to say to comfort a neighbor who had lost a son.

He knew what manner of garments were favored by Sammuramat, consort of King Adad-nirari.

Yet he had absolutely no awareness of what garments he himself was wearing at that very moment.

How deeply he loved written characters and books!

Not content with reading, reciting, and caressing them, in an excess of that love he had once crumbled the oldest clay tablet version of the Gilgamesh legend, dissolved it in water, and drunk it down.

The spirit of written characters had mercilessly gnawed away at his eyes, and he was dreadfully nearsighted.

Because he always pressed his face so close while reading, the tip of his aquiline nose had rubbed against clay tablets until a hard callus had formed there.

The spirit of written characters had also eroded his spine, and he was so hunchbacked that his chin nearly touched his navel.

Yet he probably did not know that he was a hunchback.

The word for hunchback, now — that he could write in five different scripts.

Dr. Nabu-ahhe-eriba counted this man as the foremost victim of the spirit of written characters.

And yet, despite this wretched outward appearance, this old man invariably looked — truly, enviably so — perfectly happy.

This was strange, if anything was strange; but Nabu-ahhe-eriba attributed it too to the cunning, aphrodisiac-like magical power of the spirit of written characters.

It happened that His Majesty Ashurbanipal fell ill.

His physician Arad-Nana, judging the illness to be serious, borrowed the king's robes, dressed himself in them, and assumed the guise of the Assyrian king.

By this means, he intended to deceive the eyes of the death goddess Ereshkigal and transfer the illness from the king to his own body.

Against this ancient, customary remedy of physicians, some among the younger generation cast skeptical eyes.

This is plainly absurd, they said — how could the goddess Ereshkigal herself be taken in by such a childish trick?

The eminent scholar Nabu-ahhe-eriba, upon hearing this, made a sour face.

In the young men's desire to make everything logically consistent, there was something peculiar.

Like a man covered all over in grime who has adorned one spot alone — the tips of his toes, say — with absurd fastidiousness: there was that kind of peculiarity in it.

They do not understand the place of human beings amid the cloud of mystery.

The old scholar regarded this shallow rationalism as a kind of disease.

And what had spread that disease was, without doubt, the spirit of written characters.

One day, a young historian — or perhaps court chronicler — named Ishdi-Nabu came to call on the old scholar and said to him:

What is history?

So he asked.

Seeing the look of astonishment on the old scholar's face, the young historian offered an explanation.

There are various accounts concerning the end of Shamash-shum-ukin, the late king of Babylon.

It is certain only that he threw himself into fire; but some say that in the last month or so, in utter despair, he led a life of debauchery beyond description, while others say he fasted devoutly every day and continued to pray to the god Shamash.

Some accounts say he entered the fire together with his first queen alone, while others say he threw hundreds of slave women into a bonfire before entering the flames himself.

Since he went up, quite literally, in smoke, there is no way at all to determine which account is correct.

Before long, His Majesty will choose one of those accounts and command me to record it.

This is only one example, but is this what history ought to be?

Seeing that the wise old scholar maintained a wise silence, the young historian rephrased his question:

Is history what actually happened in the past?

Or is it the written characters on a clay tablet?

There was something in the question that confused a lion hunt with the bas-relief of a lion hunt.

The scholar sensed this, but since he could not quite put it into words, he answered as follows:

History is what once occurred in the past, and moreover what has been recorded on clay tablets.

Are these two not the same thing?

What about omissions?

Asked the historian.

Omissions?

Don't be ridiculous — what was never written down never happened.

A seed that never sprouts, in the end, was never there to begin with.

History, you see, is this clay tablet right here.

The young historian looked with a forlorn expression at the tile that was pointed out to him.

It was a single tablet, inscribed by Nabu-shalim-shunu, this land's greatest historian, recording King Sargon's campaign against Haldia.

Pomegranate seeds that the scholar had spit out while talking were stuck unpleasantly to its surface.

You appear not yet to know, Ishdi-Nabu, the fearsome power of the spirits of written characters who serve the god Nabu of Borsippa, lord of wisdom.

Once the spirits of written characters seize upon some matter and give it form in their own image, that matter acquires immortal life.

Conversely, whatever has not been touched by the powerful hands of the spirits of written characters must lose its very existence.

Why do stars not listed in the ancient text of Anu-Enlil not exist?

Because they were never entered into the text of Anu-Enlil as written characters.

That the wrath of the gods descends when the great star Marduk — Jupiter — crosses into the realm of the Shepherd of Heaven — Orion — and that the Humuri people are visited with calamity when an eclipse appears on the upper limb of the moon: all this is so only because it was recorded in the ancient texts as written characters.

That the ancient Sumerians did not know the beast called the horse is because among them there existed no written character for horse.

There is nothing so fearsome as the power of these spirits of written characters.

If you think that you and I use written characters to write things down, you are greatly mistaken.

It is we who are the servants, worked to the bone by those spirits of written characters.

And yet the harm these spirits bring is considerable.

I am researching that very matter at present; but the fact that you have now come to doubt the characters in which history is written — this too is because you have grown too familiar with written characters and been poisoned by their spirit.

The young historian went away with a puzzled expression.

For a while longer the old scholar grieved that the venom of the spirit of written characters was threatening to harm that promising young man as well.

That one who has grown too familiar with written characters should come in turn to doubt them is in no way a contradiction.

The other day, giving free rein to his naturally hearty appetite, the scholar had devoured nearly an entire roasted lamb — and afterward spent some time unable to bear the sight of a living sheep.

Some while after the young historian had left, Nabu-ahhe-eriba suddenly pressed his hands to his thinning, curly-haired head and fell into deep thought.

Did I not, just today, speak to that young man in praise of the power of the spirit of written characters?

How vexing, he clicked his tongue.

Even I have been beguiled by the spirit of written characters.

Indeed, for quite some time already the spirit of written characters had been visiting upon the old scholar a terrible affliction.

It had begun from the time he had stared fixedly at a single character for days on end in order to verify the existence of the spirit of written characters.

At that time, as I mentioned earlier, a character that had hitherto seemed to possess a fixed meaning and sound had abruptly dissolved and become merely a cluster of straight lines; and from that point on, the same kind of phenomenon began to occur with everything else, beyond written characters alone.

As he stared fixedly at a house, it would transform before his eyes and in his mind into a meaningless aggregation of timber and stone and brick and plaster.

Why it should have to be a place for human beings to dwell, he could no longer understand.

The same was true when he looked at the human body.

Everything dissolved into parts with bizarre and meaningless shapes.

He could no longer comprehend at all how something with this sort of form passed as a human being.

It was not only things visible to the eye.

All the daily activities of human beings, every custom, had entirely lost its former meaning to the same peculiar analytic disease.

Every foundation of human life now appeared doubtful.

Dr. Nabu-ahhe-eriba felt he was going mad.

He thought: if I continue this research into the spirit of written characters any further, in the end the spirit will take my life.

Growing frightened, he hurriedly compiled his research report and presented it to His Majesty Ashurbanipal.

Needless to say, he included within it a certain amount of political opinion.

Assyria, a martial nation, has by now been utterly eaten away by the invisible spirits of written characters.

And yet there are almost none who have noticed this.

If the blind worship of written characters is not reformed from this very moment forward, it will be too late for regret, and so forth.

The spirits of written characters would never leave this slanderer unpunished.

Nabu-ahhe-eriba's report greatly displeased His Majesty.

For the king — a fervent devotee of the god Nabu and the foremost man of culture of the age — this was only natural.

The old scholar was ordered into house arrest that very day.

Had it not been for the fact that Nabu-ahhe-eriba had been the king's tutor since childhood, he would most likely have been sentenced to be flayed alive.

Stunned by this unexpected royal displeasure, the scholar immediately understood that this was the revenge of the crafty spirit of written characters.

But this was not yet the end of it.

Several days later, when a great earthquake struck the region of Nineveh and Arbela, the scholar happened to be inside his own library.

His house was old, and the walls crumbled and the bookshelves toppled.

An enormous quantity of books — hundreds of heavy clay tablets — fell upon this slanderer amid the terrible, cursing cries of the written characters, and he was crushed to death without mercy.

(February, Showa 17)