Myths of Babylonia and Assyria Part 14

Here the text becomes fragmentary. Further on it is gathered from the narrative that Etana is being carried still higher by the Eagle towards the heaven of Ishtar, "Queen of Heaven", the supreme mother G.o.ddess. Three times, at intervals of two hours, the Eagle asks Etana to look downwards towards the shrinking earth. Then some disaster happens, for further onwards the broken tablet narrates that the Eagle is falling. Down and down eagle and man fall together until they strike the earth, and the Eagle's body is shattered.

The Indian Garuda eagle[192] never met with such a fate, but on one occasion Vishnu overpowered it with his right arm, which was heavier than the whole universe, and caused many feathers to fall _off_. In the story of Rama's wanderings, however, as told in the _Ramayana_ and the _Mahabharata_, there are interesting references in this connection to Garuda's two "sons". One was mortally wounded by Ravana, the demon king of Ceylon. The other bird related to Rama, who found it disabled: "Once upon a time we two (brothers), with the desire of outstripping each other, flew towards the sun. My wings were burnt, but those of my brother were not.... I fell down on the top of this great mountain, where I still am."[193]

Another version of the Etana story survives among the Arabian Moslems.

In the "Al Fatihat" chapter of the _Koran_ it is related that a Babylonian king held a dispute with Abraham "concerning his Lord".

Commentators identify the monarch with Nimrod, who afterwards caused the Hebrew patriarch to be cast into a fire from which he had miraculous deliverance. Nimrod then built a tower so as to ascend to heaven "to see Abraham's G.o.d", and make war against Him, but the tower was overthrown. He, however, persisted in his design. The narrative states that he was "carried to heaven in a chest borne by four monstrous birds; but after wandering for some time through the air, he fell down on a mountain with such a force that he made it shake". A reference in the _Koran_ to "contrivances ... which make mountains tremble" is believed to allude to Nimrod's vain attempt.[194]

Alexander the Great was also reputed to have ascended on the back of an eagle. Among the myths attached to his memory in the Ethiopic "history" is one which explains how "he knew and comprehended the length and breadth of the earth", and how he obtained knowledge regarding the seas and mountains he would have to cross. "He made himself small and flew through the air on an eagle, and he arrived in the heights of the heavens and he explored them." Another Alexandrian version of the Etana myth resembles the Arabic legend of Nimrod. "In the Country of Darkness" Alexander fed and tamed great birds which were larger than eagles. Then he ordered four of his soldiers to mount them. The men were carried to the "Country of the Living", and when they returned they told Alexander "all that had happened and all that they had seen".[195]

In a Gaelic story a hero is carried off by a Cromhineach, "a vast bird like an eagle". He tells that it "sprang to the clouds with me, and I was a while that I did not know which was heaven or earth for me". The hero died, but, curiously enough, remained conscious of what was happening. Apparently exhausted, the eagle flew to an island in the midst of the ocean. It laid the hero on the sunny side. The hero proceeds: "Sleep came upon herself (the eagle) and she slept. The sun was enlivening me pretty well though I was dead." Afterwards the eagle bathed in a healing well, and as it splashed in the water, drops fell on the hero and he came to life. "I grew stronger and more active", he adds, "than I had ever been before."[196]

The eagle figures in various mythologies, and appears to have been at one time wors.h.i.+pped as the G.o.d or G.o.ddess of fertility, and storm and lightning, as the bringer of children, and the deity who carried souls to Hades. It was also the symbol of royalty, because the earthly ruler represented the controlling deity. Nin-Girsu, the G.o.d of Lagash, who was identified with Tammuz, was depicted as a lion-headed eagle. Zeus, the Greek sky and air G.o.d, was attended by an eagle, and may, at one time, have been simply an eagle. In Egypt the place of the eagle is taken by Nekhebit, the vulture G.o.ddess whom the Greeks identified with "Eileithyia, the G.o.ddess of birth; she was usually represented as a vulture hovering over the king".[197]

The double-headed eagle of the Hitt.i.tes, which figures in the royal arms of Germany and Russia, appears to have symbolized the deity of whom the king was an incarnation or son. In Indian mythology Garuda, the eagle giant, which destroyed serpents like the Babylonian Etana eagle, issued from its egg like a flame of fire; its eyes flashed the lightning and its voice was the thunder. This bird is identified in a hymn with Agni, G.o.d of fire, who has the attributes of Tammuz and Mithra, with Brahma, the creator, with Indra, G.o.d of thunder and fertility, and with Yama, G.o.d of the dead, who carries off souls to Hades. It is also called "the steed-necked incarnation of Vishnu", the "Preserver" of the Hindu trinity who rode on its back. The hymn referred to lauds Garuda as "the bird of life, the presiding spirit of the animate and inanimate universe ... destroyer of all, creator of all". It burns all "as the sun in his anger burneth all creatures".[198]

Birds were not only fates, from whose movements in flight omens were drawn, but also spirits of fertility. When the childless Indian sage Mandapala of the _Mahabharata_ was refused admittance to heaven until a son was born to him, he "pondered deeply" and "came to know that of all creatures birds alone were blest with fecundity"; so he became a bird.

It is of interest, therefore, to find the Etana eagle figuring as a symbol of royalty at Rome. The deified Roman Emperor's waxen image was burned on a pyre after his death, and an eagle was let loose from the great pile to carry his soul to heaven.[199] This custom was probably a relic of seasonal fire wors.h.i.+p, which may have been introduced into Northern and Western Syria and Asia Minor by the mysterious Mitanni rulers, if it was not an archaic Babylonian custom[200] a.s.sociated with fire-and-water magical ceremonies, represented in the British Isles by May-Day and Midsummer fire-and-water festivals. Sandan, the mythical founder of Tarsus, was honoured each year at that city by burning a great bonfire, and he was identified with Hercules. Probably he was a form of Moloch and Melkarth.[201] Doves were burned to Adonis. The burning of straw figures, representing G.o.ds of fertility, on May-Day bonfires may have been a fertility rite, and perhaps explains the use of straw birth-girdles.

According to the commentators of the _Koran_, Nimrod, the Babylonian king, who cast victims in his annual bonfires at Cuthah, died on the eighth day of the Tammuz month, which, according to the Syrian calendar, fell on 13th July.[202] It is related that gnats entered Nimrod's brain, causing the membrane to grow larger. He suffered great pain, and to relieve it had his head beaten with a mallet. Although he lived for several hundred years, like other agricultural patriarchs, including the Tammuz of Berosus, it is possible that he was ultimately sacrificed and burned. The beating of Nimrod recalls the beating of the corn spirit of the agricultural legend utilized by Burns in his ballad of "John Barleycorn", which gives a jocular account of widespread ancient customs that are not yet quite extinct even in Scotland:[203]

They laid him down upon his back And cudgelled him full sore; They hung him up before a storm And turned him o'er and o'er.

They filled up a darksome pit With water to the brim, They heaved in John Barleycorn-- There let him sink or swim.

They wasted o'er a scorching flame The marrow of his bones, But the miller used him worst of all, For he crushed him between two stones.

Hercules, after performing many mythical exploits, had himself burned alive on the pyre which he built upon Mount Oeta, and was borne to Olympus amidst peals of thunder.

Gilgamesh, the Babylonian Hercules, who links with Etana, Nimrod, and Sandan, is a.s.sociated with the eagle, which in India, as has been shown, was identified with the G.o.ds of fertility, fire, and death.

According to a legend related by Aelian,[204] "the guards of the citadel of Babylon threw down to the ground a child who had been conceived and brought forth in secret, and who afterwards became known as Gilgamos". This appears to be another version of the Sargon-Tammuz myth, and may also refer to the sacrifice of children to Melkarth and Moloch, who were burned or slain "in the valleys under the clefts of the rocks"[205] to ensure fertility and feed the corn G.o.d. Gilgamesh, however, did not perish. "A keen-eyed eagle saw the child falling, and before it touched the ground the bird flew under it and received it on its back, and carried it away to a garden and laid it down gently."

Here we have, it would appear, Tammuz among the flowers, and Sargon, the gardener, in the "Garden of Adonis". Mimic Adonis gardens were cultivated by women. Corn, &c., was forced in pots and baskets, and thrown, with an image of the G.o.d, into streams. "Ignorant people", writes Professor Frazer, "suppose that by mimicking the effect which they desire to produce they actually help to produce it: thus by sprinkling water they make rain, by lighting a fire they make suns.h.i.+ne, and so on."[206] Evidently Gilgamesh was a heroic form of the G.o.d Tammuz, the slayer of the demons of winter and storm, who pa.s.sed one part of the year in the world and another in Hades (Chapter VI).

Like Hercules, Gilgamesh figured chiefly in legendary narrative as a mighty hero. He was apparently of great antiquity, so that it is impossible to identify him with any forerunner of Sargon of Akkad, or Alexander the Great. His exploits were depicted on cylinder seals of the Sumerian period, and he is shown wrestling with a lion as Hercules wrestled with the monstrous lion in the valley of Nemea. The story of his adventures was narrated on twelve clay tablets, which were preserved in the library of Ashur-banipal, the a.s.syrian emperor. In the first tablet, which is badly mutilated, Gilgamesh is referred to as the man who beheld the world, and had great wisdom because he peered into the mysteries. He travelled to distant places, and was informed regarding the flood and the primitive race which the G.o.ds destroyed; he also obtained the plant of life, which his enemy, the earth-lion, in the form of a serpent or well demon, afterwards carried away.

Gilgamesh was a.s.sociated with Erech, where he reigned as "the lord".

There Ishtar had a great temple, but her worldly wealth had decreased.

The fortifications of the city were crumbling, and for three years the Elamites besieged it. The G.o.ds had turned to flies and the winged bulls had become like mice. Men wailed like wild beasts and maidens moaned like doves. Ultimately the people prayed to the G.o.ddess Aruru to create a liberator. Bel, Shamash, and Ishtar also came to their aid.

Aruru heard the cries of her wors.h.i.+ppers. She dipped her hands in water and then formed a warrior with clay. He was named Ea-bani, which signifies "Ea is my creator". It is possible, therefore, that an ancient myth of Eridu forms the basis of the narrative.

Ea-bani is depicted on the cylinder seals as a hairy man-monster resembling the G.o.d Pan. He ate gra.s.s with the gazelles and drank water with wild beasts, and he is compared to the corn G.o.d, which suggests that he was an early form of Tammuz, and of character somewhat resembling the Egyptian Bast, the half-b.e.s.t.i.a.l G.o.d of fertility. A hunter was sent out from Erech to search for the man-monster, and found him beside a stream in a savage place drinking with his a.s.sociates, the wild animals. The description of Ea-bani recalls that of Nebuchadnezzar when he was stricken with madness. "He was driven from men, and did eat gra.s.s as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws."[207]

The hunter had no desire to combat with Ea-bani, so he had him lured from the wilds by a beautiful woman. Love broke the spell which kept Ea-bani in his savage state, and the wild beasts fled from him. Then the temptress pleaded with him to go with her to Erech, where Anu and Ishtar had their temples, and the mighty Gilgamesh lived in his palace. Ea-bani, deserted by his b.e.s.t.i.a.l companions, felt lonely and desired human friends.h.i.+p. So he consented to accompany his bride.

Having heard of Gilgamesh from the hunter, he proposed to test his strength in single combat, but Shamash, G.o.d of the sun, warned Ea-bani that he was the protector of Gilgamesh, who had been endowed with great knowledge by Bel and Anu and Ea. Gilgamesh was also counselled in a vision of night to receive Ea-bani as an ally.

Ea-bani was not attracted by city life and desired to return to the wilds, but Shamash prevailed upon him to remain as the friend of Gilgamesh, promising that he would be greatly honoured and exalted to high rank.

The two heroes became close friends, and when the narrative becomes clear again, they are found to be setting forth to wage war against Chumbaba,[208] the King of Elam. Their journey was long and perilous.

In time they entered a thick forest, and wondered greatly at the numerous and lofty cedars. They saw the great road which the king had caused to be made, the high mountain, and the temple of the G.o.d.

Beautiful were the trees about the mountain, and there were many shady retreats that were fragrant and alluring.

At this point the narrative breaks off, for the tablet is mutilated.

When it is resumed a reference is made to "the head of Chumbaba", who has apparently been slain by the heroes. Erech was thus freed from the oppression of its fierce enemy.

Gilgamesh and Ea-bani appear to have become prosperous and happy. But in the hour of triumph a shadow falls. Gilgamesh is robed in royal splendour and wears his dazzling crown. He is admired by all men, but suddenly it becomes known that the G.o.ddess Ishtar has been stricken with love for him. She "loved him with that love which was his doom".

Those who are loved by celestials or demons become, in folk tales, melancholy wanderers and "night wailers". The "wretched wight" in Keats' "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is a typical example.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge is withered from the lake And no birds sing.

I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful--a faery's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild and manna dew; And sure in language strange she said, "I love thee true".

Having kissed her lover to sleep, the fairy woman vanished. The "knight" then saw in a dream the ghosts of knights and warriors, her previous victims, who warned him of his fate.

I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide; And I awoke and found me here On the cold hill's side.

The G.o.ddess Ishtar appeared as "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" before Gilgamesh and addressed him tenderly, saying: "Come, O Gilgamesh, and be my consort. Gift thy strength unto me. Be thou my husband and I will be thy bride. Thou shalt have a chariot of gold and lapis lazuli with golden wheels and gem-adorned. Thy steeds shall be fair and white and powerful. Into my dwelling thou shalt come amidst the fragrant cedars. Every king and every prince will bow down before thee, O Gilgamesh, to kiss thy feet, and all people will become subject unto thee."

Gilgamesh feared the fate which would attend him as the lover of Ishtar, and made answer saying: "To what husband hast thou ever remained faithful? Each year Tammuz, the lover of thy youth, is caused by thee to weep. Thou didst love the Allala bird and then broke his wings, and he moans in the woods crying, 'O my wings!' Thou didst love the lion and then snared him. Thou didst love the horse, and then laid harness on him and made him gallop half a hundred miles so that he suffered great distress, and thou didst oppress his mother Silili.

Thou didst love a shepherd who sacrificed kids unto thee, and then thou didst smite him so that he became a jackal (or leopard); his own herd boy drove him away and his dogs rent him in pieces. Thou didst love Ishullanu, the gardener of Anu, who made offerings unto thee, and then smote him so that he was unable to move. Alas! if thou wouldst love me, my fate would be like unto the fates of those on whom thou hast laid affliction."

Ishtar's heart was filled with wrath when she heard the words which Gilgamesh had spoken, and she prevailed upon her father Anu to create a fierce bull which she sent against the lord of Erech.

This monster, however, was slain by Gilgamesh[209] and Ea-bani, but their triumph was shortlived. Ishtar cursed Gilgamesh. Ea-bani then defied her and threatened to deal with her as he had dealt with the bull, with the result that he was cursed by the G.o.ddess also.

Gilgamesh dedicated the horns of the bull to Shamash and returned with his friend to Erech, where they were received with great rejoicings. A festival was held, and afterwards the heroes lay down to sleep. Then Ea-bani dreamt a dream of ill omen. He met his death soon afterwards, apparently in a battle, and Gilgamesh lamented over him. From the surviving fragments of the narrative it would appear that Gilgamesh resolved to undertake a journey, for he had been stricken by disease.

He wept and cried out, "Oh! let me not die like Ea-bani, for death is fearful. I will seek the aid of mine ancestor, Pir-napishtim"--the Babylonian Noah, who was believed to be dwelling on an island which corresponds to the Greek "Island of the Blessed". The Babylonian island lay in the ocean of the Nether World.

It seems that Gilgamesh not only hoped to obtain the Water of Life and the Plant of Life to cure his own disease, but also to restore to life his dead friend, Ea-bani, whom he loved.

Gilgamesh set out on his journey and in time reached a mountain chasm.

Gazing on the rugged heights, he beheld fierce lions and his heart trembled. Then he cried upon the moon G.o.d, who took pity upon him, and under divine protection the hero pressed onward. He crossed the rocky range and then found himself confronted by the tremendous mountain of Mas.h.i.+--"Sunset hill", which divided the land of the living from the western land of the dead. The mountain peak rose to heaven, and its foundations were in Aralu, the Underworld.[210] A dark tunnel pierced it and could be entered through a door, but the door was shut and on either side were two monsters of horrible aspect--the gigantic "scorpion man" and his wife, whose heads reached to the clouds. When Gilgamesh beheld them he swooned with terror. But they did him no harm, perceiving that he was a son of a G.o.d and had a body like a G.o.d.

When Gilgamesh revived, he realized that the monsters regarded him with eyes of sympathy. Addressing the scorpion giant, he told that he desired to visit his ancestor, Pir-napishtim, who sat in the council of the G.o.ds and had divine attributes. The giant warned him of the dangers which he would encounter, saying that the mountain pa.s.sage was twelve miles long and beamless and black. Gilgamesh, however, resolved to encounter any peril, for he was no longer afraid, and he was allowed to go forward. So he entered through the monster-guarded mountain door and plunged into thick unbroken darkness. For twice twelve hours he groped blindly onward, until he saw a ray of light.

Quickening his steps, he then escaped from the dreadful tunnel and once more rejoiced in the rays of the sun. He found himself in an enchanted garden, and in the midst of it he saw a divine and beautiful tree towards which he hastened. On its gleaming branches hung cl.u.s.ters of precious stones and its leaves were of lapis lazuli. His eyes were dazzled, but he did not linger there. Pa.s.sing many other wonderful trees, he came to a sh.o.r.eland, and he knew that he was drawing nigh to the Sea of Death. The country which he entered was ruled over by the sea lady whose name was Sabitu. When she saw the pilgrim drawing nigh, she entered her palace and shut the door.

Gilgamesh called out requesting that he should be allowed to enter, and mingled his entreaties with threats to break open the door. In the end Sabitu appeared and spoke, saying:

Gilgamesh, whither hurriest thou?

The life that thou seekest thou wilt not find.

When the G.o.ds created man They fixed death for mankind.