gives Izdubar instructions how to regain his health, but tells
him, somewhat a propos des bottes (after the manner of
venerable personages), the long story of his perilous adventure;
and how it befell that he, his wife, and his steersman came to
dwell among the blessed gods, without passing through the
portals of death like ordinary mortals.

According to the full story, the sins of mankind had become
grievous; and, at a council of the gods, it was resolved to
extirpate the whole race by a great flood. And, once more, let
us note the uniformity of human experience. It would appear
that, four thousand years ago, the obligations of confidential
intercourse about matters of state were sometimes violated--
of course from the best of motives. Ea, one of the three chiefs
of the Chaldaean Pantheon, the god of justice and of practical
wisdom, was also the god of the sea; and, yielding to the
temptation to do a friend a good turn, irresistible to kindly
seafaring folks of all ranks, he warned Hasisadra of what was
coming. When Bel subsequently reproached him for this breach of
confidence, Ea defended himself by declaring that he did not
tell Hasisadra anything; he only sent him a dream. This was
undoubtedly sailing very near the wind; but the attribution of a
little benevolent obliquity of conduct to one of the highest of
the gods is a trifle compared with the truly Homeric
anthropomorphism which characterises other parts of the epos.

The Chaldæan deities are, in truth, extremely human; and,
occasionally, the narrator does not scruple to represent them in
a manner which is not only inconsistent with our idea of
reverence, but is sometimes distinctly humorous.<7> When the