of Enki, the God of Wisdom, could
divine all the mysteries of the gods. But first of all by sacrifices
and libations he secured the mediation of his own city-god and goddess,
Ningirsu and Gatumdug; and then, repairing to Nina's temple, he
recounted to her the details of his vision. When the patesi had
finished, the goddess addressed him and said she would explain to him
the meaning of his dream. Here, no doubt, we are to understand that
she spoke through the mouth of her chief priest. And this was the
interpretation of the dream. The man whose stature was so great, and
whose head was that of a god, was the god Ningirsu, and the words which
he uttered were an order to the patesi to rebuild the temple Eninnu. The
Sun which rose from the earth was the god Ningishzida, for like the
Sun he goes forth from the earth. The maiden who held the pure reed and
carried the tablet with the star was the goddess Nisaba; the star was
the pure star of the temple's construction, which she proclaimed. The
second man, who was like a warrior, was the god Nibub; and the plan of
the temple which he drew was the plan of Eninnu; and the ass that lay
upon the ground was the patesi himself.(1)

(1) The symbolism of the ass, as a beast of burden, was
applicable to the patesi in his task of carrying out the
building of the temple.

The essential feature of the vision is that the god himself appeared to
the sleeper and delivered his message in words. That is precisely the
manner in which Kronos warned Xisuthros of the coming Deluge in
the version of Berossus; while in the Gilgamesh Epic the apparent
contradiction between the direct warning and the dream-warning at once
disappears. It is true that Gudea states that he did not understand the
meaning of the god's message, and so required an interpretation; but
he was equally at a loss as to the identity of the god who gave it,
although Ningirsu was his own city-god and was accompanied by his own
familiar city-emblem. We may thus assume that the god's words, as words,
were equally intelligible to Gudea. But as they were uttered in a dream,
it was necessary that the patesi, in view of his country's peril, should
have divine assurance that they implied no other meaning. And in his
case such assurance was the more essential, in view of the symbolism
attaching to the other features of his vision. That this is sound
reasoning is proved by a second vision vouchsafed to Gudea by Ningirsu.
For t