27. He trampled on them and their weapons he broke. 28. Like a scimitar are they laid, and as in darkness they sat. 29. (They seek) their quarters, they are full of grief; 30. what was left they take away, they pull back like a rope, [Illustration: MERODACH, OR BEL, ARMED FOR THE CONFLICT WITH THE DRAGON; FROM ASSYRIAN CYLINDER.] 31. and elevenfold offspring from fear they produce 32. (Through) the flood the demons go (all of them?). 33. He laid the hostility, his hand .... 34. part of their opposition under him .... 35. and the god Kingu again .... Again the main difficulty arises from the fragmentary state of the documents, it being impossible even to decide the order of the fragments. It appears, however, that the gods have fashioned for them a scimitar and a bow to fight the dragon Tiamtu, and Anu proclaims great honour (fourth fragment, lines 7 to 11) to any of the gods who will engage in battle with her. Bel or Merodach volunteers, and goes forth armed with these weapons to fight the dragon. Tiamtu is encouraged by one of the gods who has become her husband, and meets Merodach in battle. The description of the fight and the subsequent triumph of the god are very fine, and remarkably curious in their details, but the connection between the fragments is so uncertain at present that it is better to reserve comment upon them until the text is more complete. The scimitar with which Merodach is armed is shown by the cylinders and bas-reliefs to have been of the shape of a sickle, and is therefore the same as the _harpê_ or _khereb_ with which the Greek hero Perseus was armed when he went forth to fight against the dragon of the sea at Joppa. The dragon itself, according to the representations of the monuments, was a composite monster, with the tail, horns, claws, and wings of the mediæval devil. The whole war between the powers of good and evil, chaos and order, finds its parallel in the war between Michael and the dragon in Revelation xii. 7 to 9, where the dragon is called “the great dragon, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.” This description is strikingly like the impression gathered from the fragments of the cuneiform story; the dragon Tiamtu who fought against the gods, and whose fate it was to be conquered in a celestial war, closely corresponds in all essential points with the dragon conquered by Michael. That the dragon originally symbolized the sea is one proof out of many that the Accadians were a seafaring people, well acquainted with the terrors of the deep, when the waves conspire with the storm-clouds, those seven evil spirits, to throw all nature once more into its primeval anarchy. [Illustration: FIGHT BETWEEN BEL AND THE DRAGON, FROM BABYLONIAN CYLINDER.] FOOTNOTES: [12] The seven _mustakridhât_ of Syria, the seven days between February the 25th and March 3rd, when evil spirits are supposed to have special power.