Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldaean intaglio in the
British Museum. The original measures a little over an inch.

Arad-Ea and the hero took ship: forty days' tempestuous cruising brought
them to the Waters of Death, which with a supreme effort they passed.
Beyond these they rested on their oars and loosed their girdles: the
happy island rose up before them, and Shamashnapishtim stood upon the
shore, ready to answer the questions of his grandson.

None but a god dare enter his mysterious paradise: the bark bearing
an ordinary mortal must stop at some distance from the shore, and the
conversation is carried on from on board. Gilgames narrated once
more the story of his life, and makes known the object of his visit;
Shamashnapishtim answers him stoically that death follows from an
inexorable law, to which it is better to submit with a good grace.
"However long the time we shall build houses, however long the time we
shall put our seal to contracts, however long the time brothers shall
quarrel with each other, however long the time there shall be hostility
between kings, however long the time rivers shall overflow their banks,
we shall not be able to portray any image of death. When the spirits
salute a man at his birth, then the genii of the earth, the great gods,
Mamitu the moulder of destinies, all of them together assign a fate to
him, they determine for him his life and death; but the day of his death
remains unknown to him." Gilgames thinks, doubtless, that his forefather
is amusing himself at his expense in preaching resignation, seeing that
he himself had been able to escape this destiny. "I look upon thee,
Shamashnapishtim, and thy appearance has not changed: thou art like me
and not different, thou art like me and I am like thee. Thou wouldest
be strong enough of heart to enter upon a combat, to judge by thy
appearance; tell me, then, how thou hast obtained this existence among
the gods to which thou hast aspired?" Shamashnapishtim yields to his
wish, if only to show him how abnormal his own case was, and indicate
the merits which had marked him out for a destiny superior to that of
the common herd of humanity. He describes the deluge to him, and relates
how he was able to escape from it by the favour of Ea, and how by that
of Bel he was made while living a member of the army of the gods. "'And
now,' he adds, 'as far as thou art concerned, which one of the Gods will
bestow upon thee the strength to ob