Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/21

 "Wherefore, O! warder, takest thou from my wrists and ankles the bangles?"

"Enter, lady, for such is the decree of the death goddess."

The seventh gate he let her pass; he divested her, taking from her body the garment.

"Wherefore, O! warder, takest thou from my body the garment?"

"Enter, lady, for such is the decree of the death goddess."

When it is told further how she was smitten with sickness in the eyes, sickness in the loins, sickness in the feet, sickness in the heart, sickness in the head, this is doubtless meant to indicate that death is the destruction of all the senses, and that all that is of the body must fall to corruption.

A passage in the Gilgamesh epic, extremely interesting for the history of civilisation and usually interpreted as a lament by Gilgamesh over his friend Eabani, runs: "To a temple [no more thou goest] in white garments [no more thou clothest thyself] with perfumed fat of bulls no more thou anointest thyself, so that men crowd round thee for the fragrance; the bow thou no longer settest on the ground (to draw it),