The doctrine of the necessity for ministering to the dead is here enunciated in no uncertain fashion. Unless their bodies are decently buried and offerings of food and drink made at their graves, their lives in the otherworld must be abjectly miserable. The manner in which they meet their end is likewise taken into account, and warriors who have fallen on the field of battle are pre-eminently fortunate. Eabani is evidently one of the 'happy' spirits; his ghost is designated _utukku_, a name applied not only to the fortunate dead, but likewise to a class of beneficent supernatural beings. The term _edimmu_, on the other hand, designates a species of malevolent being as well as the errant and even vampirish spirits of the unhappy dead. The due observance of funeral and commemorative rites is thus a matter which touches the interests not only of the deceased but also of his relatives and friends. We have seen from the foregoing that the epic of Gilgamesh is partly historical, partly mythological. Around the figure of a great national hero myths have grown and twined with the passing of the generations, and these have in time become woven into a connected narrative, setting forth a myth which corresponds to the daily or annual course of the sun. Within this may be discerned other myths and fragments of myths--solar, seasonal, and diluvian. But there is in the epic another important element which has already been referred to--the astro-theological. The zodiacal significance of the division of the epic into twelve tablets may be set aside, since, as has been indicated, the significance is in all probability a superficial one merely, added to the poem by the scribes of Assur-bani-pal, and not forming an integral part of it. At the same time it is not hard to divide the epic naturally into twelve episodes, thus: (1) Gilgamesh's oppression of Erech; (2) the seduction of Eabani; (3) the slaying of the monster Khumbaba; (4) the wooing of Ishtar; (5) the fight with the sacred bull; (6) Eabani's death; (7) Gilgamesh's journey to the Mountain of the Sunset; (8) his wanderings in the region of thick darkness; (9) the crossing of the waters of death; (10) the deluge-story; (11) the plant of life; (12) the return of Eabani's spirit. Throughout the epic there are indications of a correspondence between the exploits of the hero and the movements of heavenly bodies. It is possible, for instance, that Gilgamesh and his friend Eabani had some relation to the sign Gemini, also associated in ancient Chaldean mythology with two forms of the solar deity, even as were the hero and his friend. The sign Leo recalls the slaying of Khumbaba, the allegorical victory of light over darkness, represented on monuments by the figure of a lion (symbol of fire) fighting with a bull. Following the sign of Leo, the wooing of the hero by the goddess Ishtar falls naturally into the sign of Virgo, the virgin. The sign of