e Sun ...
Before thee the great gods lie prostrate;
The fate of the world rests with thee.

An eclipse has taken place, portending evil to the country, and
libations have been poured out on days carefully selected as favorable
ones. The king continues:

I have poured out to thee, with wailing,[378] a libation at night;
I have offered thee a drink-offering with shouts;
Prostrate and standing erect[379] I implore thee.

With the prayer to Sin, appeals to other gods and also goddesses are
frequently combined,--to Marduk, Ishtar, Tashmitum, Nabu, Ramman, and
the like. The incantations themselves, consisting of fervent appeals to
remove the evil, actual or portending, are preceded by certain
ceremonies,--the burning of incense, the pouring out of some drink, or
by symbolical acts, as the binding of cords; and the god is appealed to
once more to answer the prayer.

Again, just as Gibil-Nusku entails the invocation of a large variety of
solar deities, so Ea, as the water-god, leads to the introduction of
various water-gods and spirits. Perhaps the most prominent of these is
the god Naru, whose name, signifying 'river,'[380] is clearly the
personification of the watery element, though of the minor bodies of
water. Next in order comes the goddess Nin-akha-kuddu.[381] She is
invoked as 'goddess of purification.' From her association in several
passages with the great deep, and with the city of Eridu--metaphorically
used for the great deep--one may be permitted to conclude that she, too,
was conceived of as a water-god or a water-spirit. She is 'the lady of
spells,' who is asked to take possession of the body of the sufferer,
and thus free him from the control of demons or witches. By the side of
this goddess, Gula, 'the great physician,' is often appealed to. Again,
the demons being in some cases the ghosts of the departed, or such as
hover around graves, Nin-kigal, or Allatu, the mistress of the lower
world, is an important ally, whose aid is desired in the struggle
against the evil spirits. Lastly, it is interesting to note that
Izdubar, or Gilgamesh, the famous hero of the great Babylonian epic,
occurs also in incantations[382]--a welcome indication of the antiquity
of the myth, and the proof, at the same time, that the epic is built on
a foundation of myth. From the mythological side, Gilgamesh appears to
be a solar deity. The connection of a solar god with fire would account
for his appearance in the magical t