The description of the region of Hades is most graphic, and vividly portrays the sufferings of the prisoners there. Atsu-sunamir, created by Hea to deliver Istar, is described as a composite animal, half bitch and half man, with more than one head, and corresponds with the two dogs of the Hindu Rig-Veda, which have four eyes and broad snouts, and guard the road to the abode of Yama the king of the departed. They are also said to move among men, feasting on their lives, as the messengers of Yama; and as the offspring of Saramâ, the dawn, they are called Sârameyas, which Prof. Max Müller compares with the Greek Hermês. At any rate, the same conception of a dog of the dawn which guards the approach to the realm of Hades is found in the Greek Kerberos with his fifty heads (or three heads, according to later writers), as well as in the dog of Geryon named Orthros or “the dawn,” who seems to be identical with the Vedic Vritra the demon of night. It would appear, therefore, that in the primitive mythology both of the Hindus and of the Accadians the “fleet” dawn was likened to a dog, sometimes regarded as carrying men away to the dark under-world, sometimes as bringing light to the under-world itself.
The latter part of the tablet is somewhat obscure, but refers to the custom of lamenting for Dumuzi or Tammuz.
Chapter XV.
ILLNESS AND WANDERINGS OF IZDUBAR.
Hea-bani and the trees.—Illness of Izdubar.—Death of Hea-bani.—Journey of Izdubar.—His dream.—Scorpion men.—The Desert of Mas.—Siduri and Sabitu.—Nes-Hea the pilot.—Water of death.—Mua.—The conversation.—Xisuthrus.
Of the three tablets in this section, the first one is very uncertain, and is put together from two separate sources: the other two are more complete and satisfactory.
Tablet VIII.
It is again uncertain if any of this tablet has been discovered; provisionally some fragments of the first, second, third, and sixth columns of a tablet which may belong to it are placed here, but the only fragment worth translating at present is one given in Mr. Smith’s “Assyrian Discoveries,” p. 176. In some portions of these fragments there are references to the story of Khumbaba, but as the fragment appears to refer to the illness of Izdubar it probably belongs here.