arose to attach to ancient tales the current religious teachings. "Why, O Gish, does thou run about? The life that thou seekest, thou wilt not find. When the gods created mankind, Death they imposed on mankind; Life they kept in their power. Thou, O Gish, fill thy belly, Day and night do thou rejoice, Daily make a rejoicing! Day and night a renewal of jollification! Let thy clothes be clean, Wash thy head and pour water over thee! Care for the little one who takes hold of thy hand! Let the wife rejoice in thy bosom!" Such teachings, reminding us of the leading thought in the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes, [10] indicate the _didactic_ character given to ancient tales that were of popular origin, but which were modified and elaborated under the influence of the schools which arose in connection with the Babylonian temples. The story itself belongs, therefore, to a still earlier period than the form it received in this old Babylonian version. The existence of this tendency at so early a date comes to us as a genuine surprise, and justifies the assumption that the attachment of a lesson to the deluge story in the Assyrian version, to wit, the limitation in attainment of immortality to those singled out by the gods as exceptions, dates likewise from the old Babylonian period. The same would apply to the twelfth tablet, which is almost entirely didactic, intended to illustrate the impossibility of learning anything of the fate of those who have passed out of this world. It also emphasizes the necessity of contenting oneself with the comfort that the care of the dead, by providing burial and food and drink offerings for them affords, as the only means of ensuring for them rest and freedom from the pangs of hunger and distress. However, it is of course possible that the twelfth tablet, which impresses one as a supplement to the adventures of Gilgamesh, ending with his return to Uruk (i.e., Erech) at the close of the eleventh tablet, may represent a _later_ elaboration of the tendency to connect religious teachings with the exploits of a favorite hero. II. We now have further evidence both of the extreme antiquity of the literary form of the Gilgamesh Epic and also of the disposition to make the Epic the medium of illustrating aspects of life and the destiny of mankind. The discovery by Dr. Arno Poebel of a Sumerian form of the tale of the descent of Ishtar to the lower world and her release [11]--apparently a nature myth to illustrate the change of season from summer to winter and back again to spring--enables us to pass beyond the Akkadian (or Semitic) form of tales current in the Euphrates Valley to the Sumerian form. Furthermore, we are indebted to Dr. Langdon for the identification of two Sumerian fragments in the Nippur Collection which deal with the adventures of Gilgamesh, one in Constantinople, [12] the other in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. [13] The former, of which only 25 lines are preserved (19 on the obverse and 6 on the reverse), appears to be a description of the weapons of Gilgamesh with which he arms himself for an encounter--presumably the encounter with Humbaba or Huwawa, the ruler of the cedar forest in the mountain. [14] The latter deals with the building operations of Gilgamesh in the city of Erech. A text in Zimmern's _Sumerische Kultlieder aus altbabylonischer Zeit_ (Leipzig, 1913), No. 196, appears likewise to be a fragment of the Sumerian version of the Gilgamesh Epic, bearing on the episode of...