Absalom and Achitophel advice of the double agent Hushai over the good advice of Achitophel. Achitophel, realising that the rebellion is doomed to failure, goes home and hangs himself. Absalom is killed (against David's explicit commands) after getting caught by his hair in the thick branches of a great oak tree: "His head caught fast in the oak, and he was left hanging between heaven and earth, while the mule that was under him went on" (NRSV 2 Sam. 18:9). The death of his son, Absalom, causes David enormous personal grief. A second allegory in the poem, beginning on line 425, is the
Palm Tree King Palm Tree King The Palm Tree King was one of the monsters later known as the "Slain Heroes" in the Sumerian epic, Lugale, which centred on the quest of Ninurta (a.k.a. Lugalbanda) to recover the Tablets of Destiny, which were stolen by the Slain Heroes, from Ninurta's father, Enlil, the angry, jealous God of Air, and early head of the Sumerian pantheon (though replaced as other gods came into favour). The Palm Tree King, in the Lugale epic, was subservient to Imdugud (Assyrian Anzu), who held the Tablets until his defeat in combat with Ninurta. Very little is known about