Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/48

 progenitor and to give him a boat in which to cross the water. The mermaid warned him that never had ferry been there and that the Sun god only could cross the sea, for the waters of death are as a bolt shot to, barring all entrance to the Island of the Blessed. At length she betrayed to him where he might find the man who had ferried his ancestor across. Him Gilgamesh succeeded in persuading to his will, and after a terrible journey, minutely prepared for in advance, they reached the Waters of Death, having covered a distance of forty-five days' travel in three days. After exhausting work at the oars had brought them across these waters also, they approached the shores of the Fields of the Blessed. From the boat Gilgamesh complained to his ancestor of his woe, related his heroic adventures, bewailed the death of his friend and told how he had toiled over lands and mountains and had traversed all the seas without being able to cheer his countenance by any happy sight. After a long conversation discussing the inevitable and invincible mortal fate of man, Gilgamesh comes to his point and asks his ancestor how he had attained to his own happy lot. Then this favourite of the gods—no other than the Babylonian Noah—tells Gilgamesh, as he listens from his boat, the story of the Flood, which, as is well known, coincides in parts almost verbally with the biblical narrative