CHAPTER XXXIV 



THE LEGENDS OF ADAPA, AND OF THE FLOOD 



Ea (originally the primal deity of the Sumerian city of Eridu 

 and eventually the god of the waters on and beneath the Earth) 

 formed with Anu, the god of Heaven, and Enhl, the god of 

 the Earth, from the earliest period the great triad at the head of 

 the Babylonian pantheon. The representation of Ea took the 

 form of a sea-monster with a body of a big fish, full of stars, 

 and claws for the base of his feet. ^ 



Ea is ordinarily known from the pretty legend woven 

 round his mortal son Adapa, and the command in obedience 

 to which Adapa firmly but unconsciously made refusal of the 

 gift of immortality. 



The latter, to supply his father's household, went a-fishing 

 in the sea one day — fish food was evidently not the " abomina- 

 tion " to the Sumerian that it was to the Egyptian gods — but 

 suddenly Shiitu the South Wind came on to blow, upset his 

 sailing boat, and ducked him under the water, or, as Adapa 

 puts it, " made me descend to the house of my lord," i.e. 

 Ea, god of the Sea.^ In anger Adapa caught the South Wind 

 and broke her wings. ^ But for this assault he was haled to 



1 Cf. Langdon, op. cif., 72. Ea or " Enki est generalement represente sous 

 la forme d'un animal ayant la t§te, le cou, et les epaules d'un belier, et qui 

 rampe sur les pattes de devant : le reste du corps est celui d'un poisson." 



» See the Nippur Poem, op. cit., p. 84, note 3. 



' From Karl Frank, Babylonische Beschwdrtitnge Reliefs, p. 80. The South 

 Wind was specially dreaded, because it caused destructive floods in the low- 

 lying regions of the Euphrates valley. In Langdon's Sumerian Epic of Paradise 

 {op. cit., 1915), p. 41, we find that" Adapa sailed to catch fish, the trade of Eridu," 

 a pretty and simple touch identifying the god with his worshippers, and his 

 pursuit with their trade ; and one which supports the theory that to the 

 Babylonian his god, in early times, was a being very similar to lumself, if more 

 powerful. 



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