ee lines to drive the animal towards the heroes. The beast with
head lowered charged them; but Eabani seized it with one hand by the
right horn, and with the other by the tail, and forced it to rear.
Gilgames at the same instant, seizing it by the leg, plunged his dagger
into its heart. The beast being despatched, they celebrated their
victory by a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and poured out a libation to
Sharnash, whose protection had not failed them in this last danger.
Ishtar, her projects of vengeance having been defeated, "ascended the
ramparts of Uruk the well-protected. She sent forth a loud cry, she
hurled forth a malediction: 'Cursed be Gilgames, who has insulted me,
and who has killed the celestial urus.' Eabani heard these words of
Ishtar, he tore a limb from the celestial urus and threw it in the face
of the goddess: 'Thou also I will conquer, and I will treat thee like
him: I will fasten the curse upon thy sides.' Ishtar assembled her
priestesses, her female votaries, her frenzied women, and together they
intoned a dirge over the limb of the celestial urus. Gilgames assembled
all the turners in ivory, and the workmen were astonished at the
enormous size of the horns; they were worth thirty _mimae_ of lapis,
their diameter was a half-cubit, and both of them could contain six
measures of oil." He dedicated them to Shamash, and suspended them on
the corners of the altar; then he washed his hands in the Euphrates,
re-entered Uruk, and passed through the streets in triumph. A riotous
banquet ended the day, but on that very night Eabani felt himself
haunted by an inexplicable and baleful dream, and fortune abandoned the
two heroes. Gilgames had cried in the intoxication of success to the
women of Uruk: "Who shines forth among the valiant? Who is glorious
above all men? Gilgames shines forth among the valiant, Gilgames is
glorious above all men." Ishtar made him feel her vengeance in the
destruction of that beauty of which he was so proud; she covered him
with leprosy from head to foot, and made him an object of horror to his
friends of the previous day. A life of pain and a frightful death--he
alone could escape them who dared to go to the confines of the world in
quest of the Fountain of Youth and the Tree of Life which were said to
be there hidden; but the road was rough, unknown, beset by dangers, and
no one of those who had ventured upon it had ever returned. Gilgames
resolved to brave every peril rather than sub