BABYLON AND PERSIA

258 MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.cause to be brought. There is none. By the hands of the boatmanwhom thou indicatedst, send "\Reversei\ ". . . unto me. Send the gift. Cause it to goforth to thy father.my son's life grantThis day Bel and Nebo for the preservation ofRemat after the peace of Remut her son asks."(=Thy mother asks after thy health.) *26. We have seen above (pp. 251-2) that among afather's first duties to his child was numbered thatof sending him to school " making him learn in¬scriptions." That this was no empty talk is amplyproved by a large class of tablets perhaps the mostamusing of all which have been found to be noth¬ing more nor less than reading-books and children'scopy-books, with school exercises, consisting in shortsentences and lists of signs, written out a great manytimes, for practice, through all the stages of badspelling and worse calligraphy. A great many suchtablets are bilingual, and Professor A. H. Sayce hadthe good fortune of lighting on one sufficientlywell preserved to be intelligible through several con¬secutive lines. It proves to be a simple nurserytale, which he translates, as far as the text goes,under the attractive title, " STORY OF THE FOUND¬LING," as follows :" The child who had neither father nor mother, who knew nothis father or mother, Into the fishpond(?) he came, into the streelhe went ; From the mouth of the dogs one took him, from themouth of the ravens one led him away ; Before the soothsayer onetook him from their mouth. The soles of his feet with the sooth¬sayer's seal underneath him were marked. To tWe nurse he was* The original tablet is in the private collection of the MissesBruce, of New York, together with the manuscript translation byMr. TheOi G. Pinchesboth as yet unpublished.