"O Gilgamesh! there has never been a ferry,
And no one has ever crossed the ocean.
Shamash, the hero, has crossed it, but except Shamash, who can cross it?
Difficult is the passage, very difficult the path.
Impassible (?) the waters of death that are guarded by a bolt.
How canst thou, O Gilgamesh, traverse the ocean?
And after thou hast crossed the waters of death, what wilt thou do?"
Sabitum then tells Gilgamesh that there is one possibility of his accomplishing his task. If Ardi-Ea,[925] the ferryman[926] of Parnapishtim, will take Gilgamesh across, well and good; if not, he must abandon all hope.
The ocean, though not expressly called Apsu, is evidently identical with the great body of waters supposed to both surround the earth and to flow beneath it.[927] The reference to 'the waters of death' thus becomes clear. The gathering-place of the dead being under the earth, near to the Apsu, the great 'Okeanos' forms a means of approach to the nether world. It is into this ocean, forming part of the Apsu, that the sun dips at evening and through which it passes during the night. The scene between Gilgamesh and Sabitum accordingly is suggested, in part, by the same cosmological conceptions that condition the description of the mountain Mashu.
Sabitum herself is a figure that still awaits satisfactory explanation. She is called the goddess Siduri.[928] The name of this goddess is found as an element in proper names, but of her traits we know nothing. Sabitum appears originally to have been a term descriptive of her, and Hommel[929] may be right in explaining the name as 'the one from Sabu,'[930] and in taking the latter as the name of a district in Arabia. It is tempting to think of the famous Saba in Southern Arabia. Obedient to the advice of Sabitum, Gilgamesh tells Ardi-Ea his story and also his desire.