ictions.

[Illustration: 060.jpg GILGAMES FIGHTS, ON THE LEFT WITH A BULL, ON THE
RIGHT WITH EABANI.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldaean intaglio in the
Museum at the Hague. The original measures about 1 7/10 inch
in height.

"I was afraid," said he, in finishing his narrative,* "and I did not
approach him. He had filled up the pit which I had dug to trap him, he
broke the nets which I had spread, he delivered from my hands the cattle
and the beasts of the field, he did not allow me to search the country
through." Shamash thought that where the strongest man might fail by the
employment of force, a woman might possibly succeed by the attractions
of pleasure; he commanded Saidu to go quickly to Uruk and there to
choose from among the priestesses of Ishtar one of the most beautiful.**
The hunter presented himself before Grilgames, recounted to him his
adventures, and sought his permission to take away with him one of the
sacred courtesans. "'Go, my hunter, take the priestess; when the beasts
come to the watering-place, let her display her beauty; he will see
her, he will approach her, and his beasts that troop around him will be
scattered.'"*** The hunter went, he took with him the priestess, he took
the straight road; the third day they arrived at the fatal plain. The
hunter and the priestess sat down to rest; one day, two days, they sat
at the entrance of the watering-place from whose waters Eabani drank
along with the animals, where he sported with the beasts of the water.

* Haupt, Das Babylonische Nimrodepos, p. 9, 11. 42-50. The
beginning of each line is destroyed, and the translation of
the whole is only approximate.

** The priestesses of Ishtar were young and beautiful women,
devoted to the service of the goddess and her worshippers.
Besides the title _qadishtu,_ priestess, they bore various
names, _kizireti, ukhati, kharimati_; the priestess who
accompanied Saidu was an _ukhat_.

*** As far as can be guessed from the narrative, interrupted
as it is by so many lacunae, the power of Eabani over the
beasts of the field seems to have depended on his
continence. From the moment in which he yields to his
passions the beasts fly from him as they would do from an
ordinary mortal; there is then no other resource for him but
to leave the solitudes to live among men in towns. This
explains the means devised by Sham