[886] We can still distinguish (Haupt, 12, 47) 'I will fetch him.' Jeremias' rendering, "I will fight with him," is erroneous.
[887] Haupt, 13, 7-8.
[888] Cf. Gen. iii. 5 and 21.
[889] The text of the following lines restored by combining Haupt, p. 13, with a supplementary fragment published by Jeremias' Izdubar-Nimrod, pl. 3.
[890] I.e., he will be told about thy dream through the wisdom given to him.
[891] See, e.g., Jeremias' Izdubar-Nimrod, p. 21.
[892] So, e.g., Hommel (Altisraelitische Ueberlieferung, p. 35). He is certainly not a native of Babylonia.
[893] Gilgamesh.
[894] Haupt, p. 26.
[895] A city Ganganna is mentioned in the first tablet (Haupt, pp. 51, 6).
[896] So Haupt, Beiträge zur Assyriologie, i. 112.
[897] I.e., again and again.
[898] This is the general sense of the three terms used.
[900] The same word appears in incantation texts as a term for a class of demons.
[901] See, e.g., Jeremias' Izdubar-Nimrod, p. 26.
[902] I.e., to the bull.
[904] Ez. viii. 14.
[908] Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant, chapter vii.
[910] Or as a third dream. It will be recalled that in a previous portion of the epic (p. 481), Gilgamesh has three dreams in succession.
[911] Haupt, pp. 45, 53.
[912] Attitude of despair.
[913] I.e., 'offspring of life.' I adopt Delitzsch's reading of the name. Zimmern and Jensen prefer Sitnapishtim, but see Haupt's remarks on the objections to this reading in Schrader, Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (3d edition) a. l. At the recent Eleventh International Congress of Orientalists, Scheil presented a tablet dealing with the deluge narrative. If his reading is correct, the evidence would be final for the form Pirnapishtim, formerly proposed by Zimmern (Babylonische Busspsalmen, p. 26). See p. 507, note 1.
[914] "Client of Marduk." The name Marduk appears here under the ideographic designation Tutu. The identification with Marduk may be due to later traditions.
[915] Jeremias' suggestion (Indubar-Nimrod, p. 18) that the fight with the lion belongs to the first tablet, where mention is made of a wild animal of some kind, is not acceptable.
[916] I.e., inner side.
[917] The name of the cave underneath the earth where the dead dwell.
[919] See, e.g., Jeremias' Izdubar-Nimrod, p. 28.
[920] See the passages in Delitzsch, Wo Lag das Paradies, pp. 242, 243.
[922] Hommel (Altisraelitische Ueberlieferung, pp. 35, 37) suggests a migration of Cassites from Elam to Eastern Africa.
[923] Haupt, pp. 12, 67.
[924] Attitude of despair.
[925] I.e. 'servant of Ea.' The reading Ardi-Ea is preferable to Arad-Ea.
[926] Lit., 'sailor.'
[928] Haupt, pp. 64, 36; 65, 1.
[929] Altisraelitische Ueberlieferung, p. 35.
[930] Tum is the feminine ending.
[931] A large measure.
[932] Of the week? Hommel and others interpret that Gilgamesh accomplishes the 'forty-five days' journey' in three days.
[933] This I take to be the meaning of the numbers introduced at this point.
[934] The text is badly mutilated.
[935] There is no limit to the rule of death. Death alone is 'immortal.'
[936] As Haupt correctly interprets.
[937] This appears to be the sense of this rather obscure line.
[938] Read [sir-la]-am?
[940] The restored text in Haupt's edition of the Nimrodepos, pp. 134-149.
[941] Zimmern ingeniously suggests la bir, "not pure," instead of the rendering 'old.'
[942] Isaiah i. 1.
[943] See Jensen's remarks, Kosmologie, p. 387. There is no reference to Shurippak in IIR. 46, 1, as Haupt has shown (see his note in the 3rd edition of Schrader's Keilinscriften und das Alte Testament).
[944] Gen. xix.
[945] Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, sub "Ad" and "Salih".
[947] Lit., 'construct a house'; house is used for any kind of structure in general.
[948] I.e., let your property go and save your family.
[950] L. 45.
[951] Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 368; Jeremias, Izdubar-Nimrod, p. 37.
[953] Or decks (so Haupt).
[954] Of each story or deck.
[955] Poles are used to this day to propel the crafts on the Euphrates.
[956] The largest measure.
[957] The same word (kupru) is used as in Gen. vi. 14.
[958] Some part of the outside of the structure is designated.
[959] Haupt translates "Sesammeth."
[960] "Puzur" signifies 'hidden,' 'protected.' "Shadu rabu," i.e., 'great mountain,' is a title of Bel and of other gods (see above, pp. 56 and 278). Here, probably, Shamash is meant.
[961] Lit. 'great house' or 'palace.'
[962] I.e., 'king,' frequently found as a title of Marduk in astronomical texts (Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 145).
[963] The god of war and pestilence.
[964] "Tar-gul-le," some mischievous forces.
[965] The highest part of heaven.
[966] I.e., has been destroyed.
[967] Lit., 'spoken' or 'ordered.'
[968] Lit., 'my mankind.'
[969] I.e., Mankind.
[972] Haupt and Delitzsch render ikkal, 'ate,' as though from akâlu, but this is hardly in place. I take the stem of the word to be nakâlu.
[973] To have a share in it.
[974] Jensen and Haupt translate "inconsiderately," but this rendering misses the point.
[975] Lit., 'my humanity.'
[976] Not destroy it altogether.
[977] Lit. 'the god Dibbarra.'
[978] I.e., the 'very clever' or 'very pious,' an epithet given to Parnapishtim. The inverted form, Khasis-adra, was distorted into Xisusthros, which appears in the writers dependent upon Berosus as the name of the hero of the Babylonian deluge. See, e.g., Cory's Ancient Fragments, pp. 52, 54, 60, etc. The epithet appears also in the Legend of Etana (pp. 523, 524), where it is applied to a 'wise' young eagle.
[979] I.e., mortal.
[980] I.e., immortal. Cf. Gen. iii. 22.
[981] Wo Lag das Paradies (Ueber Land und Meer, 1894-95, no. 15).
[982] The Hebrew account, it must be remembered, consists of two narratives dovetailed into one another. According to the one version—the Yahwistic—the rainstorm continued for forty days and forty nights; according to the other—the priestly narrative—one hundred and fifty days pass before the waters began to diminish and a year elapses before Noah leaves the ark. The Yahwistic narrative lays stress upon the ritualistic distinction of clean and unclean animals, but on the whole, the Yahwistic version approaches closer to the Babylonian tale. Evidence has now been furnished that among the Babylonians, too, more than one version of the tradition existed. At the Eleventh International Congress of Orientalists (September, 1897), Scheil presented a tablet, dating from the days of Hammurabi, in which the story of a deluge is narrated in a manner quite different from the Gilgamesh epic. The tablet also furnishes the phonetic reading pï-ïr, and Scheil is of the opinion that these two syllables form the first element in the name of the hero. Unfortunately, the tablet is badly mutilated at this point, so that the question of the reading is not absolutely certain. See p. 488, note 2. [The reading Ut-napishtim is now generally adopted.]
[983] Gen. xix.
[984] Note the phrase in Gen. xix. 31, "there is no one on earth," and see Pietschman, Geschichte der Phonizier, p. 115.
[985] That the story was current as early as Hammurabi is now established by Scheil's fragment (see note 2 on preceding page).
[986] The word used is tû which means a charm or incantation in general.
[987] Made of the charm root.
[988] Gilgamesh.
[989] I.e., 'old age,' the name given to some plant of magic power.
[990] Tû.
[991] Lit., 'good.'
[994] Haupt, Beiträge zur Assyriologie, i. 318, 319, has made it plausible that pp. 16-19 of his edition belong to the twelfth tablet of the epic, though perhaps to a different edition of the epic, as Jeremias suggests (Izdubar-Nimrod, p. 43).
[996] Haupt's edition, pp. 67, 12.
[997] Lit., 'thou hast seen it, I have seen it.'
[998] Text defective. Jeremias conjectures "kneeling."
[1000] The correct translation of these lines we owe to Haupt (Beiträge zur Assyriologie, i. 69, 70).
[1001] The reference to the killing of a panther in the tenth tablet (Haupt, p. 71, 6) is too obscure to be taken into consideration. Gilgamesh's fight with a 'buffalo' (so Ward, "Babylonian Gods in Babylonian Art," Proc. Amer. Or. Soc., May, 1890, p. xv) is pictured on seal cylinders. No doubt, various deeds of Gilgamesh were recounted in the missing portions of the epic, and it is also quite likely that besides the stories in the epic, others were current of Gilgamesh to which a literary form was never given.
[1002] The Parnapishtim episode passed on to the Arabs, where the hero of the deluge appears under the name of Khadir—a corruption of Adra-Khasis. See Lidzbarski, "Wer ist Chadir?" Zeits. f. Assyr. vii. 109-112, who also suggests that Ahasverus, 'the Wandering Jew,' is a corruption of Adrakhasis.
[1003] It will be recalled that Nimrod is termed a 'mighty hunter' (säid). This suggests a comparison with Sadu, 'the hunter,' in the Gilgamesh epic. See above, p. 475.
[1004] Originally suggested by H. C. Rawlinson.
[1005] The ending ôn is an emphatic affix—frequent in proper names.
[1006] Euripides' Herakles, Einleitung.
[1007] On this subject see the Introduction to Berard's De l'origine des cultes Arcadiens, and for a further discussion of the relationships between Izdubar and Hercules, see Jeremias' Izdubar-Nimrod, pp. 70-73, or his article in Roscher's Ausführliches Lexicon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, ii. 821-823.
[1008] Meissner, Alexander und Gilgamos (Leipzig, 1894), pp. 13-17.
[1009] In the Greek and other versions, the mountain Musas or Masis is mentioned,—that is, Mashu, as in the Gilgamesh epic. See p. 488.
[1010] See especially Budge, The Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great (London, Introduction, 1896); Nöldeke, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alexander-Romans (Vienna, 1890) and Gaster, An Old Hebrew Romance of Alexander (Journal Royal Asiat. Soc., 1897, pp. 485-498).
Not many years ago the impression appeared to be well founded that the Semites were poor in the production of myths and legends as compared, for example, to the Hindus or Greeks. The religious literature of the Babylonians, originating undoubtedly with the Semitic inhabitants of the Euphrates Valley, reverses the impression. The 'creation' and 'Gilgamesh' epics suffice, not merely for what they contain, but for what they imply, to accord to Babylonian mythology a high rank; but in addition to these epics we have a large number of tales of gods, demigods, demons, and spirits that illustrate the capacity of the Babylonians for the production of myths. Indeed, there is no longer any reason for doubting that the Babylonian mythology exercised considerable influence upon that of the Greeks. Further discoveries and researches may show that distant India also felt at an early period the intellectual stimulus emanating from the Euphrates Valley. At all events, many of the features found in Babylonian myths and legends bear so striking a resemblance to those occurring in lands lying to the east and west of Babylonia, that a study of Aryan mythology is sadly deficient which does not take into account the material furnished by cuneiform literature. How extensive the Babylonian mythology was must remain for the present a matter of conjecture, but it is easier to err on the side of underestimation than on the side of exaggeration. If it be remembered that by far the smaller portion only of Ashurbanabal's library has been recovered, and that of the various literary collections that were gathered in the religious centers of the south, scarcely anything has as yet been found, it is certainly remarkable that we should be in possession of an elaborate tale of a demi-god, Etana, of an extensive legend recounting the deeds of the war and plague-god Dibbarra, and of two genuine storm myths, while the indications in Dr. Bezold's catalogue of the Kouyunjik collection justify us in adding to the list several other myths and legends, among the still unpublished tablets of the British Museum.[1011] These myths and legends have a twofold value for us, a direct value because of the popular religious ideas contained in them, and an indirect value by virtue of the interpretation given to these ideas by the compilers. In the literary form that the popular productions received, the influence of those who guided the religious thought into its proper channels is to be clearly seen.
It will be recalled that we came across a hero Etana in the Gilgamesh epic.[1012] The name of the hero is Semitic, and signifies 'strong.'[1013] An identical name appears in the Old Testament,[1014] and it is possible that the Babylonian Etana represents, like Gilgamesh, some ancient historical person of whom a dim tradition has survived among other nations besides the Babylonians. The deeds recounted of him, however, place the hero entirely in the domain of myth. His patron is Shamash, the sun-god, and in popular tradition he becomes a member of the pantheon of the nether world.
In the portions of the Etana legend preserved,[1015] two episodes are detailed in the hero's career, one regarding the birth of a son, the other a miraculous journey. The former episode justifies the assumption of a historical starting-point for the legend of Etana.[1016] Among many nations the birth of a hero or of a hero's son is pictured as taking place under great difficulties. Etana's wife is in distress because she is unable to bring to the world a child which she has conceived. Etana appeals to Shamash. Through the mediation of the priests he has offered sacrifices, and he now prays to Shamash to show him the "plant of birth."
The oracles[1017] have completed my sacrifices,
They have completed my free-will offerings to the gods.
O Lord, let thy mouth command,
And give me the plant of birth,
Reveal to me the plant of birth,
Bring forth the fruit, grant me an offspring.
Of Shamash's reply only one line is preserved intact, in which he tells Etana: