Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/47

 hasten with all speed to his great ancestor, who had once dwelt in Suripak, but who had attained "the longed-for life in the assembly of the gods." Of him will he seek healing, find out the secret of immortality and also prepare the way for the deliverance of his friend Eabani. For this ancestor, as Gilgamesh tells us later, has the power to interpret life and death. The skin-clad wanderer travels far through awful ravines, and after manifold dangers from which the moon-god protects him, at length he reaches Mount Mashu. The entrance to the mountain is guarded by scorpion men of giant stature, whose wild appearance inspires him with such fear and horror that he loses consciousness. One of the monsters tries to dissuade him from the terrible journey, telling him that he must travel twelve miles through impenetrable darkness. At length, in response to his importunity, he opens the mountain door, and, after four-and-twenty hours of wandering, Gilgamesh stepped out into an enchanted garden, in which especially one divine tree so delighted him that he rushed up to it: "Precious stones it bears as fruit—the branches were hung with them, lapis lazuli it bears, fruits it bears, choice (?) to look upon." A divine mermaid, dwelling in a palace by the shore, put fresh difficulties before him. With threats and entreaties he sought to move her to show him the way to his