terpretation of the whole of the Fourth
Column, where the point will be further discussed. Meanwhile it may be
noted that the conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and Earth", which we may
assume is ascribed to Ziusudu, gains in significance if we may regard
the setting of the myth as a magical incantation, an inference in
support of which we shall note further evidence. For we are furnished
at once with the grounds for its magical employment. If Ziusudu, through
conjuring by the Name of Heaven and earth, could profit by the warning
sent him and so escape the impending fate of mankind, the application of
such a myth to the special needs of a Sumerian in peril or distress will
be obvious. For should he, too, conjure by the Name of Heaven and Earth,
he might look for a similar deliverance; and his recital of the myth
itself would tend to clinch the magical effect of his own incantation.

The description of Ziusudu has also great interest in furnishing us with
a close parallel to the piety of Noah in the Hebrew Versions. For in the
Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus this feature of the story is completely
absent. We are there given no reason why Ut-napishtim was selected by
Ea, nor Xisuthros by Kronos. For all that those versions tell us, the
favour of each deity might have been conferred arbitrarily, and not in
recognition of, or in response to, any particular quality or action
on the part of its recipient. The Sumerian Version now restores the
original setting of the story and incidentally proves that, in this
particular, the Hebrew Versions have not embroidered a simpler narrative
for the purpose of edification, but have faithfully reproduced an
original strand of the tradition.

IV. THE DREAM-WARNING

The top of the Fourth Column of the text follows immediately on the
close of the Third Column, so that at this one point we have no great
gap between the columns. But unfortunately the ends of all the lines
in both columns are wanting, and the exact content of some phrases
preserved and their relation to each other are consequently doubtful.
This materially affects the interpretation of the passage as a whole,
but the main thread of the narrative may be readily followed. Ziusudu is
here warned that a flood is to be sent "to destroy the seed of mankind";
the doubt that exists concerns the manner in which the warning is
conveyed. In the first line of the column, after a reference to "the
gods", a building seems to be mention