shed it in his right hand, then hung the bow and quiver at
his side. He placed a thunderbolt before him, filled his body with a
devouring flame, then made a net in which to catch the anarchic Tiamat;
he placed the four winds in such a way that she could not escape, south
and north, east and west, and with his own hand he brought them the net,
the gift of his father Anu. "He created the hurricane, the evil wind, the
storm, the tempest, the four winds, the seven winds, the waterspout, the
wind that is second to none; then he let loose the winds he had created,
all seven of them, in order to bewilder the anarchic Tiamat by charging
behind her. And the master of the waterspout raised his mighty weapon,
he mounted his chariot, a work without its equal, formidable; he
installed himself therein, tied the four reins to the side, and darted
forth, pitiless, torrent-like, swift."

* Sayce was the first, I believe, to cite, in connection
with this mysterious order, the passage in which Berossus
tells how the gods created men from a little clay, moistened
with the blood of the god Belos. Here there seems to be a
fear lest the blood of Tiamat, mingling with the mud, should
produce a crop of monsters similar to those which the
goddess had already created; the blood, if carried to the
north, into the domain of the night, would there lose its
creative power, or the monsters who might spring from it
would at any rate remain strangers to the world of gods and
men.

** "Literally, he made his weapon known; "perhaps it would
be better to interpret it, "and he made it known that the
bow would henceforth be his distinctive weapon."

[Illustration: 008.jpg BEL-MERODACH, ARMED WITH THE THUNDERBOLT, DOES
BATTLE WITH THE TUMULTUOUS TIAMAT.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from the bas-relief from Nimrud
preserved in the British Museum.

He passed through the serried ranks of the monsters and penetrated as
far as Tiamat, and provoked her with his cries. "'Thou hast rebelled
against the sovereignty of the gods, thou hast plotted evil against
them, and hast desired that my fathers should taste of thy malevolence;
therefore thy host shall be reduced to slavery, thy weapons shall be
torn from thee. Come, then, thou and I must give battle to one another!'
Tiamat, when she heard him, flew into a fury, she became mad with rage;
then Tiamat howled, she raised herself savagely t