his strength is exhausted, and bird and man fall to
the earth.

Another cycle of stories deals with the winds. The god Zu longs to have
absolute power over the world. To that end he lurks about the door of
the sun-god, the possessor of the tablets of fate whereby he controls
all things. Each morning before beginning his journey, the sun-god steps
out to send light showers over the world. Watching his opportunity, Zu
glides in, seizes the tablets of fate, and flies away and hides himself
in the mountains. So great horror comes over the world: it is likely to
be scorched by the sun-god's burning beams. Anu calls on the storm-god
Ramman to conquer Zu, but he is frightened and declines the task, as do
other gods. Here, unfortunately, the tablet is broken, so that we do not
know by whom the normal order was finally restored.

In the collection of cuneiform tablets disinterred at Amarna in 1887
was found the curious story of Adapa. The demigod Adapa, the son of Ea,
fishing in the sea for the family of his lord, is overwhelmed by the
stormy south wind and cast under the waves. In anger he breaks the wings
of the wind, that it may no longer rage in the storm. Anu, informed that
the south wind no longer blows, summons Adapa to his presence. Ea
instructs his son to put on apparel of mourning, present himself at
Anu's gate, and there make friends with the porters, Tammuz and Iszida,
so that they may speak a word for him to Anu; going into the presence of
the royal deity, he will be offered food and drink which he must reject,
and raiment and oil which he must accept. Adapa carries out the
instructions of his father to the letter. Anu is appeased, but laments
that Adapa, by rejecting heavenly food and drink, has lost the
opportunity to become immortal. This story, the record of which is
earlier than the sixteenth century B.C., appears to contain two
conceptions: it is a mythical description of the history of the south
wind, but its conclusion presents a certain parallelism with the end of
the story of Eden in Genesis; as there Adam, so here Adapa, fails of
immortality because he infringes the divine command concerning the
divine food. We have here a suggestion that the story in Genesis is one
of the cycle which dealt with the common earthly fact of man's
mortality.

The legend of Dibbarra seems to have a historical basis. The god
Dibbarra has devastated the cities of Babylonia with bloody wars.
Against Babylon he has brought a