took not counsel but sent the deluge and
surrendered my people to destruction."

The lament of the goddess is followed by a brief account of the action
taken by the other chief figures in the drama. Enki holds counsel with
his own heart, evidently devising the project, which he afterwards
carried into effect, of preserving the seed of mankind from destruction.
Since the verb in the following line is wanting, we do not know what
action is there recorded of the four creating deities; but the fact that
the gods of heaven and earth invoked the name of Anu and Enlil suggests
that it was their will which had been forced upon the other gods. We
shall see that throughout the text Anu and Enlil are the ultimate rulers
of both gods and men.

The narrative then introduces the human hero of the Deluge story:

At that time Ziusudu, the king, . . . priest of the god (. . .),

Made a very great . . ., (. . .).

In humility he prostrates himself, in reverence (. . .),

Daily he stands in attendance (. . .).

A dream,(1) such as had not been before, comes forth(2) . . .
(. . .),

By the Name of Heaven and Earth he conjures (. . .).

(1) The word may also be rendered "dreams".

(2) For this rendering of the verb _e-de_, for which Dr.
Poebel does not hazard a translation, see Rawlinson,
_W.A.I._, IV, pl. 26, l. 24 f.(a), _nu-e-de_ = Sem. _la us-
su-u_ (Pres.); and cf. Bruennow, _Classified List_, p. 327.
An alternative rendering "is created" is also possible, and
would give equally good sense; cf. _nu-e-de_ = Sem. _la su-
pu-u_, _W.A.I._, IV, pl. 2, l. 5 (a), and Bruennow, op. cit.,
p. 328.

The name of the hero, Ziusudu, is the fuller Sumerian equivalent of
Ut-napishtim (or Uta-napishtim), the abbreviated Semitic form which we
find in the Gilgamesh Epic. For not only are the first two elements of
the Sumerian name identical with those of the Semitic Ut-napishtim,
but the names themselves are equated in a later Babylonian syllabary or
explanatory list of words.(1) We there find "Ut-napishte" given as the
equivalent of the Sumerian "Zisuda", evidently an abbreviated form of
the name Ziusudu;(2) and it is significant that the names occur in
the syllabary between those of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, evidently in
consequence of the association of the Deluge story by the Babylonians
with their national epic of Gilgamesh. The name Ziusudu may be re