, saying: "Why has my health been restored to me?
Why should I rejoice because that I live? The benefit which I should
have derived for myself has now fallen to the Earth Lion."

The two travellers then resumed their journey, performing religious
acts from time to time; chanting dirges and holding feasts for the
dead, and at length Gilgamesh returned to Erech. He found that the
city walls were crumbling, and he spake regarding the ceremonies which
had been performed while yet he was in a far-distant country.

During the days which followed Gilgamesh sorrowed for his lost friend
Ea-bani, whose spirit was in the Underworld, the captive of the
spirits of death. "Thou canst not draw thy bow now," he cried, "nor
raise the battle shout. Thou canst not kiss the woman thou hast loved;
thou canst not kiss the child thou hast loved, nor canst thou smite
those whom thou hast hated."

In vain Gilgamesh appealed to his mother goddess to restore Ea-bani to
him. Then he turned to the gods, and Ea heard him. Thereafter Nergal,
god of death, caused the grave to yawn, and the spirit of Ea-bani
arose like a wind gust.

Gilgamesh, still dreading death, spoke to the ghost of his friend,
saying: "Tell me, my friend, O tell me regarding the land in which
thou dost dwell."

Ea-bani made answer sorrowfully: "Alas! I cannot tell thee, my friend.
If I were to tell thee all, thou wouldst sit down and weep."

Said Gilgamesh: "Let me sit down and weep, but tell me regarding the
land of spirits."

The text is mutilated here, but it can be gathered that Ea-bani
described the land where ill-doers were punished, where the young were
like the old, where the worm devoured, and dust covered all. But the
state of the warrior who had been given burial was better than that of
the man who had not been buried, and had no one to lament or care for
him. "He who hath been slain in battle," the ghost said, "reposeth on
a couch drinking pure water--one slain in battle as thou hast seen and
I have seen. His head is supported by his parents: beside him sits his
wife. His spirit doth not haunt the earth. But the spirit of that man
whose corpse has been left unburied and uncared for, rests not, but
prowls through the streets eating scraps of food, the leavings of the
feast, and drinking the dregs of vessels."

So ends the story of Gilgamesh in the form which survives to us.

The journey of Gilgamesh to the Island of the Blessed recalls the
journeys made by Od