Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldæan intaglio in the
Museum at the Hague. The original measures about 1 7/10 inch
in height.
“I was afraid,” said he, in finishing his narrative,* “and I did not approach him. He had filled up the pit which I had dug to trap him, he broke the nets which I had spread, he delivered from my hands the cattle and the beasts of the field, he did not allow me to search the country through.” Shamash thought that where the strongest man might fail by the employment of force, a woman might possibly succeed by the attractions of pleasure; he commanded Saîdu to go quickly to Uruk and there to choose from among the priestesses of Ishtar one of the most beautiful.** The hunter presented himself before Grilgames, recounted to him his adventures, and sought his permission to take away with him one of the sacred courtesans. “‘Go, my hunter, take the priestess; when the beasts come to the watering-place, let her display her beauty; he will see her, he will approach her, and his beasts that troop around him will be scattered.’”*** The hunter went, he took with him the priestess, he took the straight road; the third day they arrived at the fatal plain. The hunter and the priestess sat down to rest; one day, two days, they sat at the entrance of the watering-place from whose waters Eabani drank along with the animals, where he sported with the beasts of the water.
* Haupt, Das Babylonische Nimrodepos, p. 9, 11. 42-50. The
beginning of each line is destroyed, and the translation of
the whole is only approximate.
** The priestesses of Ishtar were young and beautiful women,
devoted to the service of the goddess and her worshippers.
Besides the title qadishtu, priestess, they bore various
names, kizireti, ukhati, kharimâti; the priestess who
accompanied Saîdu was an ukhat.
*** As far as can be guessed from the narrative, interrupted
as it is by so many lacunæ, the power of Eabani over the
beasts of the field seems to have depended on his
continence. From the moment in which he yields to his
passions the beasts fly from him as they would do from an
ordinary mortal; there is then no other resource for him but
to leave the solitudes to live among men in towns. This
explains the means devised by Shamash against him: cf. in
the Arabian Nights the story of Shehabeddin.
“When Eabani arrived, he who dwells in the mountains, and who browses upon the grass like the gazelles, who drinks with the animals, who sports with the beasts of the water, the priestess saw the satyr.” She was afraid and blushed, but the hunter recalled her to her duty. “It is he, priestess. Undo thy garment, show him thy form, that he may be taken with thy beauty; be not ashamed, but deprive him of his soul. He perceives thee, he is rushing towards thee, arrange thy garment; he is coming upon thee, receive him with every art of woman; his beasts which troop around him will be scattered, and he will press thee to his breast.” The priestess did as she was commanded; she received him with every art of woman, and he pressed her to his breast. Six days and seven nights, Eabani remained near the priestess, his well-beloved. When he got tired of pleasure he turned his face towards his cattle, and he saw that the gazelles had turned aside and that the beasts of the field had fled far from him. Eabani was alarmed, he fell into a swoon, his knees became stiff because his cattle had fled from him. While he lay as if dead, he heard the voice of the priestess: he recovered his senses, he came to himself full of love; he seated himself at the feet of the priestess, he looked into her face, and while the priestess spoke his ears listened. For it was to him the priestess spoke—to him, Eabani. “Thou who art superb, Eabani, as a god, why dost thou live among the beasts of the field? Come, I will conduct thee to Uruk the well-protected, to the glorious house, the dwelling of Anu and Ishtar—to the place where is Gilgames, whose strength is supreme, and who, like a Urus, excels the heroes in strength.” While she thus spoke to him, he hung upon her words, he the wise of heart, he realized by anticipation a friend. Eabani said to the priestess: “Let us go, priestess; lead me to the glorious and holy abode of Anu and Ishtar—to the place where is Gilgames, whose strength is supreme, and who, like a Urus, prevails over the heroes by his strength. I will fight with him and manifest to him my power; I will send forth a panther against Uruk, and he must struggle with it.” * The priestess conducted her prisoner to Uruk, but the city at that moment was celebrating the festival of Tammuz, and Gilgames did not care to interrupt the solemnities in order to face the tasks to which Eabani had invited him: what was the use of such trials since the gods themselves had deigned to point out to him in a dream the line of conduct he was to pursue, and had taken up the cause of their children. Shamash, in fact, began the instruction of the monster, and sketched an alluring picture of the life which awaited him if he would agree not to return to his mountain home. Not only would the priestess belong to him for ever, having none other than him for husband, but Gilgames would shower upon him riches and honours. “He will give thee wherein to sleep a great bed cunningly wrought; he will seat thee on his divan, he will give thee a place on his left hand, and the princes of the earth shall kiss thy feet, the people of Uruk shall grovel on the ground before thee.” It was by such flatteries and promises for the future that Gilgames gained the affection of his servant Eabani, whom he loved for ever.
* I have softened down a good deal the account of the
seduction, which is described with a sincerity and precision
truly primitive.
Shamash had reasons for being urgent. Khumbaba, King of Elam, had invaded the country of the Euphrates, destroyed the temples, and substituted for the national worship the cult of foreign deities;* the two heroes in concert could alone check his advance, and kill him. They collected their troops, set out on the march, having learned from a female magician that the enemy had concealed himself in a sacred grove. They entered it in disguise, “and stopped in rapture for a moment before the cedar trees; they contemplated the height of them, they contemplated the thickness of them; the place where Khumbaba was accustomed to walk up and down with rapid strides, alleys were made in it, paths kept up with great care. They saw at length the hill of cedars, the abode of the gods, the sanctuary of Irnini, and before the hill, a magnificent cedar, and pleasant grateful shade.” They surprised Khumbaba at the moment when he was about to take his outdoor exercise, cut off his head, and came back in triumph to Uruk.** “Gilgames brightened his weapons, he polished his weapons. He put aside his war-harness, he put on his white garments, he adorned himself with the royal insignia, and bound on the diadem: Gilgames put his tiara on his head, and bound on his diadem.”
* Khumbaba contains the name of the Elamite god, Khumba,
whichenters into the composition of names of towns, like Ti-
Khumbi; or into those of princes, as Khumbanigash,
Khumbasundasa, Khumbasidh. The comparison between Khumbaba
and Combabos, the hero of a singular legend, current in the
second century of our era, does not seem to be admissible,
at least for the present. The names agree well in sound,
but, as Oppert has rightly said, no event in the history of
Combabos finds a counterpart in anything we know of that of
Khumbaba up to the present.
** G. Smith places at this juncture Gilgames’s accession to
the throne; this is not confirmed by the fragments of the
text known up to the present, and it is not even certain
that the poem relates anywhere the exaltation and coronation
of the hero. It would appear even that Gilgames is
recognized from the beginning as King of Uruk, the well-
protected.
Ishtar saw him thus adorned, and the same passion consumed her which inflames mortals.* “To the love of Gilgames she raised her eyes, the mighty Ishtar, and she said, ‘Come, Gilgames, be my husband, thou! Thy love, give it to me, as a gift to me, and thou shalt be my spouse, and I shall be thy wife. I will place thee in a chariot of lapis and gold, with golden wheels and mountings of onyx: thou shalt be drawn in it by great lions, and thou shalt enter our house with the odorous incense of cedar-wood. When thou shalt have entered our house, all the country by the sea shall embrace thy feet, kings shall bow down before thee, the nobles and the great ones, the gifts of the mountains and of the plain they will bring to thee as tribute. Thy oxen shall prosper, thy sheep shall be doubly fruitful, thy mules shall spontaneously come under the yoke, thy chariot-horse shall be strong and shall galop, thy bull under the yoke shall have no rival.’” Gilgames repels this unexpected declaration with a mixed feeling of contempt and apprehension: he abuses the goddess, and insolently questions her as to what has become of her mortal husbands during her long divine life. “Tammuz, the spouse of thy youth, thou hast condemned him to weep from year to year.** Nilala, the spotted sparrow-hawk, thou lovedst him, afterward thou didst strike him and break his wing: he continues in the wood and cries: ‘O, my wings!’ *** Thou didst afterwards love a lion of mature strength, and then didst cause him to be rent by blows, seven at a time.**** Thou lovedst also a stallion magnificent in the battle; thou didst devote him to death by the goad and whip: thou didst compel him to galop for ten leagues, thou didst devote him to exhaustion and thirst, thou didst devote to tears his mother Silili.