in twain, her work destroyed,
All her words scattered across the plains
By the order that the gods have given.

The section closes with the ordinary request of the exorciser to the
victim: "Recite this incantation." It will be seen how closely the
principle of sympathetic magic is followed. The individual having been
bewitched by means of certain herbs concocted probably into potions,
other herbs are prepared by the exorciser as an antidote. The emphasis
laid upon purification, too, is noteworthy. There are numerous synonyms
employed for which it is difficult to find the adequate equivalent in
English. The terms reach out beyond the literal to the symbolical
purification. The victim wishes to become pure, cleansed of all
impurities, so that he may be resplendent as the gods are pure,
brilliant, and glorious, pure as the water, brilliant and glorious as
the fire.

The length of the formulas varies. Often they consist only of a few
lines. So the one immediately following appeals to Gilgamesh in these
words:

Earth, Earth, Earth,
Gilgamesh is the master of your witchcraft.
What you have done, I know;
What I do, you know not.
All the mischief wrought by my sorceresses is destroyed, dissolved--
is gone.

At times the conditions under which the witches are pictured as acting
are very elaborate. They are represented as dwelling in places with
which mythological conceptions are connected; they are ferried across
the river separating their city from human habitations; they are
protected against attacks by the walls which surround their habitations.
To effect a release, the exorcisers, it would appear, made
representations by means of drawings on clay of these habitations of the
witches. They thereupon symbolically cut off the approaches and laid
siege to the towns. This, at least, appears to be the meaning of an
incantation beginning:

My city is Sappan,[391] my city is Sappan;
The gates of my city Sappan are two,
One towards sunrise, the other towards sunset.[392]
I carry a box, a pot with _mashtakal_ herbs;
To the gods of heaven I offer water;
As I for you secure your purification,
So do you purify me!

The victim imitates the conduct of the witch, goes about as she does,
with a pot in which the potions are made, performs the symbolical act
which should purify him of the evil that is in him, and hopes, in this
way, to obtain his own release. The description continues:

I have k