for ever, do we seal a contract to hold for all time? Do brothers divide an inheritance to keep for ever, does the flood-time of rivers endure? It is only the nymph of the dragon-fly who sheds her larva and sees the sun in his glory. From he days of old there is no permanence (4).
We see, then, that the insecurity created among the Mesopotamians, a result of their exposed geographical situation, is reflected in their philosophy, religion and literature. Their social and political strength was a result of their geography and the fact of the fertility of that geography, but the instability of that same geography brought an insecurity and a pessimism which made sociopolitical reality less reliable and the source of le
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