vii HASISADBA'S ADVENTURE 253 



less satisfactory details, it is needful to remark 

 that Hasisadra's adventure is a mere episode in a 

 cycle of stories of which a personage, whose name 

 is provisionally read " Izdubar," is the centre. 

 The nature of Izdubar hovers vaguely between 

 the heroic and the divine ; sometimes he seems a 

 mere man, sometimes approaches so closely to the 

 divinities of fire and of the sun as to be hardly 

 distinguishable from them. As I have already 

 mentioned, the tablet which sets forth Hasisadra's 

 perils is one of twelve ; and, since each of these 

 represents a month and bears a story appropriate 

 to the corresponding sign of the Zodiac, great 

 weight must be attached to Sir Henry Eawlin- 

 son's suggestion that the epos of Izdubar is a 

 poetical embodiment of solar mythology. 



In the earlier books of the epos, the hero, not 

 content with rejecting the proffered love of the 

 Chaldsean Aphrodite, Istar, freely expresses his 

 very low estimate of her character ; and it is 

 interesting to observe that, even in this early 

 stage of human experience, men had reached a 

 conception of that law of nature which expresses 

 the inevitable consequences of an imperfect appre- 

 ciation of feminine charms. The injured goddess 

 makes Izdubar's life a burden to him, until at 

 last sick in body and sorry in mind, he is driven 

 to seek aid and comfort from his forbears in the 

 world of spirits. So this antitype of Odysseus 

 journeys to the shore of the waters of death, and 



