(17) How alike are the sleeping(!) and the dead. The image of Death cannot be depicted. (Yes, you are a) human being, a man (?)! After Enlil had pronounced the blessing,'" the Anunnaki, the Great Gods, assembled. Mammetum, she who forms destiny, determined destiny with them. They established Death and Life, but they did not make known 'the days of death'".

(2) The effect of death on the composite nature of man is as follows: Man has two souls, an animal soul and a spiritual soul, which latter is of angelic nature. The seat of the animal soul is the heart, from which this soul issues like a subtle vapour and pervades all the members of the body, giving the power of sight to the eye, the power of hearing to the ear, and to every member the faculty of performing its own appropriate functions. It may be compared to a lamp carried about within a cottage, the light of which falls upon the walls wherever it goes. The heart is the wick of this lamp, and when the supply of oil is cut off for any reason, the lamp dies. Such is the death of the animal soul. With the spiritual, or human soul, the case is different. It is indivisible, and by it man knows God. It is, so to speak, the rider of the animal soul, and when that perishes it still remains, but is like a horseman who has been dismounted, or like a hunter who has lost his weapons. That steed and those weapons were granted the human soul that by means of them it might pursue and capture the Phoenix of the love and knowledge of God. If it has effected that capture, it is not a grief but rather a relief to be able to lay those weapons aside, and to dismount from that weary steed. Therefore the Prophet said, "Death is a welcome gift of God to the believer." But alas for that soul which loses its steed and hunting weapons before it has captured the prize! Its misery and regret will be indescribable.

(3) When Tai lay dying someone asked him: 'O Tai, you have seen the essence of things, how is it with you now?' He said: ' I can say nothing about my state. I have measured the wind all the days of my life, and now the end is come I shall be buried, and so, good night.'

There is no other remedy for death than to look death constantly in the face. We all are born to die; life will not stay with us; we must submit. Even he who held the world under the seal of his ring is now only a mineral in the earth.

The FUMIGATION from MANNA. HEAR me, O Death, whose empire unconfin'd, Extends to mortal tribes of ev'ry kind. On thee, the portion of our time depends, Whose absence lengthens life, whose presence ends. Thy sleep perpetual bursts the vivid folds, By which the soul, attracting body holds: 6 Common to all of ev'ry sex and age, For nought escapes thy all-destructive rage; Not youth itself thy clemency can gain, Vig'rous and strong, by thee untimely slain. In thee, the end of nature's works is known, In thee, all judgment is absolv'd alone: No suppliant arts thy dreadful rage controul, No vows revoke the purpose of thy soul; O blessed pow'r regard my ardent pray'r, And human life to age abundant spare.

(1) This bird said to the Hoopoe: I am afraid of death. Now this valley is wide, and I have nothing at all for the journey.

I am so filled with the fear of death that my life will leave me at the first stopping place. Even were I a powerful emir, in the hour of death I should fear no less. He who with a sword would iry to ward off death, shall have it broken like a Kalam; for alas, faith in the strength of the hand and of the sword brings only disappointment and sorrow.'

The Hoopoe replied; 'O you who are fickle and weakwilled, do you wish to remain a mere frame of bone and marrow? Don't you know that life, be it long or short, is composed of a few breaths? Don't you understand that whoever is born must also die? That he goes into the earth and that the wind disperses the elements of which his body was made?

' You were nourished for death; and you were brought into the world in order to be taken away from it! The sky is like a dish upside down, which every' evening is immersed in the blood of sunset. One could say that the sun, armed with a scimitar, is cutting off heads on this dish. Whether you be good or bad you are only a drop of water kneaded with earth. Though all your life you may have been in a position of authority, you will, in the end, give up the ghost in affliction.'