NEWLY-DISCOVERED VERSION OF THE STORY OP THE FLOOD. 143 



as a reward for his faithfulness, was spared, with his family and 

 those who had helped to build the ark — spared to carry on the 

 race, and tell the story of his deliverance. 



After this comes the account of what was done to Gilgames 

 to free him fi'om some malady from which he was suffering. 

 After the mystic ceremonies performed for his benefit, the 

 Babylonian patriarch told him of a wonderful plant which made 

 the old young again, and Gilgames, on his way to his Baby- 

 lonian home in company with Sur-Sanabi, the sailor or pilot, 

 gets possession of one of these desirable things. Stopping at a 

 well, apparently to perform a religious ceremony, a serpent 

 smells the plant, and afterwards a lion comes and takes it away. 

 The hero greatly laments this loss, for he had not benefited by 

 its possession, but the lion of the desert had gained the advan- 

 tage. Whether, in consequence of this, there was any legend in 

 existence of one of these kings of the Plain of Shinar having 

 renewed his youth, and preyed upon the people, is unknown ; 

 but the Babylonian poets are hardly likely to have carried the 

 legend any farther. This section, which forms the eleventh 

 tablet of the legend of Gilgames, ends with a reference to his 

 return to Erech, and the rebuilding of the walls of the city. 



Of the twelfth tablet only a comparatively small portion is 

 preserved, but from it we learn that the hero still lamented his 

 friend Enki-du, whom he had lost so long ago. Being unable to 

 obtain his resurrection, and thus again enjoy his companionship 

 upon earth, he is at last favoured with a sight of his friend's spirit, 

 which arose from the earth like a mist. At the request of 

 Gilgames, Enki-du describes to him the place of the departed 

 spirits, where he now dwelt. It was a place of misery for those 

 who had not found favour with their god, but an abode of 

 happiness for the blessed, and for the warrior who had fallen in 

 battle. It was needful, however, that the body of the dead 

 should have been duly buried, and not lie on the ground without 

 a caretaker. The description of the world to come is dramati- 

 cally and poetically given, and it is with this that the twelve 

 tablets of the Gilgames series come to an end. 



As the story of the flood is related to Gilgames by Ut- 

 napistim, it is told in the first person. The fragment of another 

 legend, afterwards discovered by the late George Smith, was. 

 at first thought to fill in the wanting lines where the entry 

 into the ark, as related by the eleventh tablet of the Gilgames 

 series, is referred to. This, however, is not the case, as we now 

 have the account of that entry told in quite different words, on 

 fragments which Smith himself joined to the main tablet. 



