serpent justifies what he is about to do. In accordance with
the instructions of the sun-god, the eagle is stripped of his wings and
feathers, and left to die a miserable death. In its present form this
tale of the eagle and serpent forms part of the Etana story.[1037]
Jeremias is right in questioning whether it originally had anything to
do with Etana.[1038] Two distinct stories have been combined, much as in
the Gilgamesh epic several tales have been thrown together. The
association of Etana with the eagle suggests the introduction of the
episode of the eagle's discomfiture. If one may judge of the two
episodes related of Etana, he is not a personage regarded with favor by
the compilers. In both episodes we find him in distress. His flight with
the eagle is regarded as a defiance of the gods, though more blame
attaches to the eagle than to him. Shamash can hardly have regarded with
favor the ambition of a human being to mount to the dwelling of the
gods. Gilgamesh makes no such attempt, and Parnapishtim is not carried
on high, but to "the confluence of the streams." Gilgamesh, it will also
be recalled, is unable to pass to the nether world where Eabani is
placed, and in the following chapter we will come across a tale intended
to illustrate the impossibility of any one ever returning from the
hollow under the earth where the dead dwell. The story of Etana appears,
therefore, to emphasize the equal impossibility for any mortal to ascend
to the dwelling of the gods. Etana is deified, but he belongs
permanently to the region where all mortals go after their career on
earth is ended,--the nether world. One gains the impression, therefore,
that Etana is a hero of antiquity who is not approved of by the
Babylonian priests. Similarly, the conflict between the eagle and the
serpent suggests an opposition to the view which makes the eagle the
symbol and messenger of Shamash. The eagle recalls the winged disc, the
symbol of Ashur,[1039] and the eagle occurs also as a standard among the
Hittites,[1040] with whom, as we know, the Babylonians came into
contact. The story of Shamash, himself, laying the trap for the eagle
looks like a myth produced with some specific intent, an illustration of
legitimate sun-worship against rival cults. As a matter of course, in
the case of such a myth, it is difficult to say where its popular
character ends and the speculative or scholastic theory begins. But
whatever may have been the original purp