rmidable than even the
lion or the wild bull. There were half-human scorpions, bulls with the
head of man, fierce satyrs and winged griffins. Deadly war did Izdubar
wage with them, till as his period of exile drew near to a close he said
to his mother, "I have dreamed a dream; the stars rained from heaven upon
me; then a creature, fierce-faced and taloned like a lion, rose up against
me, and I smote and slew him."

The dream was long in being fulfilled, but at last Izdubar was told of a
monstrous jinn, whose name was Heabani; his head was human but horned; and
he had the legs and tail of a bull, yet was he wisest of all upon earth.
Enticing him from his cave by sending two fair women to the entrance,
Izdubar took him captive and led him to Ourouk, where the jinn married one
of the women whose charms had allured him, and became henceforth the
well-loved servant of Izdubar. Then Izdubar slew the Elamite who had
dethroned his father, and put the royal diadem on his own head. And behold
the goddess Ishtar (Ashtaroth) cast her eyes upon the hero and wished to
be his wife, but he rejected her with scorn, reminding her of the fate of
Tammuz, and of Alala the Eagle, and of the shepherd Taboulon--all her
husbands, and all dead before their time. Thus, as the wrath of Juno
pursued Paris, so the hatred of this slighted goddess attends Izdubar
through many adventures. The last plague that torments him is leprosy, of
which he is to be cured by Khasisadra, son of Oubaratonton, last of the
ten primeval kings of Chaldea. Khasisadra, while still living, had been
transported to Paradise, where he yet abides. Here he is found by Izdubar,
who listens to his account of the Deluge, and learns from him the remedy
for his disease. The afflicted hero is destined, after being cured, to
pass, without death, into the company of the gods, and there to enjoy
immortality. With this promise the work concludes.

The great poem of Izdubar has but recently been known to European
scholars, having been discovered in 1871 by the eminent Assyriologist, Mr.
George Smith. It was probably written about 2000 B.C., though the extant
edition, which came from the library of King Assurbanipal in the palace at
Dur-Sargina, must bear the date of 600 B.C. The hero is supposed to be a
solar personification, and the epic is interesting to modern writers not
only on account of its description of the Deluge, but also for the pomp
and dignity of its style, and for its noble