Orpheus - Myths of the World

by Padraic Colum

Illustrations by Boris Artzybasheff

The Macmillan Company, New York

[1930]

Scanned at sacred-texts.com, August 2004. John Bruno Hare, redactor. This text is in the public domain because it was not renewed at the US Copyright Office in a timely manner as required by law. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose provided this notice of attribution is left intact.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MYTHOLOGY

Not until late centuries did reflective minds see in mythology any of the significance that we have come to see in it. The Italian philosopher of the seventeenth century, Vico, knew that the heroes of myth--Hercules, whose arms could rend the mountains, Lycurgus and Romulus, law-givers, who in a man's lifetime accomplished the long work of centuries--were creations of the collective mind. When man craved for men-like gods he had his way, Vico showed us, by combining in an individual, by incarnating in a single hero, the ideas of a whole cycle of centuries.¹ Then came Goethe who maintained that "the earlier centuries had their ideas in intuitions of the fancy, but ours bring them into notions. Then the great views of life were brought into shapes, into gods; to-day they are brought into notions."² In our day, one who loved and studied the mythologies of diverse peoples, wrote:

There are two nouns in the Greek language which have a long and interesting history behind them; these are mythos and logos. Originally they had the same power in ordinary speech; for in Homer's time they were used indifferently, sometimes one being taken, and sometimes the other, with the same meaning that Word has in our language. . . . Logos grew to mean the inward constitution as well as the outward form of thought, and consequently became the expression of exact thought--which is exact because it corresponds to universal and unchanging principles---and reached its highest exaltation in becoming not only the reason in man, but the reason in the universe--the Divine Logos, the Son of God, God Himself. . . . Mythos meant, in the widest sense, anything uttered by the mouth of man--a word, an account of something, a story understood by the narrator. . . . In Attic Greek, Mythos signified a prehistoric story of the Greeks. The application of the word Myth among scholars is plain enough up to a certain point; for from being a myth of Greece only, it is now used to mean a myth of any tribe of people on earth. . . . The reason is of ancient date why myths have come, in vulgar estimation, to be synonymous with lies; though true myths--and there are many such--are the most comprehensive and splendid statements of truth known to man. A myth, even when it contains a universal principle, expresses it in special form, using with its peculiar personages the language and accessories of a particular people, time, and place; persons to whom this particular people, with the connected accidents of time and place, are familiar and dear, receive the highest enjoyment from the myth, and the truth goes with it as the soul with the body/.³

From these sayings of Vico's, of Goethe's, of Jeremiah Curtin's, we learn something of the inner significance of mythology. Then we may turn to a specialist who can show us how to distinguish myths from fables and from incidents in romance and epic narrative. "I maintain," writes Bronislaw Malinowski, "that there exists:

"A special class of stories, regarded as sacred, embodied in rituals, morals, and social organization, and which form an integral and active part of primitive culture. These stories live not by idle interest, not as fictitious or even as true narrative, but are to the natives a statement of a primeval, greater, and more relevant reality, by which the present life, fates, and activities of mankind are determined, the knowledge of which supplies man with the motive for ritual and moral actions, as well as indications of how to perform them."⁴

This statement gives us a definition: mythology is made up of stories regarded as sacred that form an integral and active part of a culture. The stories in this collection will be such, or they will have the marks of having been at one time such. . . . However, the sacred stories of only a few of the tribes of mankind can be of interest to us who read books. An Australian, African, or South American group may have a sacred story about the world being made by a beetle, and it may form an integral and active part of their culture. But we should not know how to tell such a story. "The primitive forms of civilization, so gross and so barbaric, lay forgotten, or but little regarded, or misunderstood, until that new phase of the European spirit, which was known as romanticism or restoration, 'sympathized' with them--that is to say, recognized them as its own proper present interest."⁵

So Benedetto Croce writes, and I use his sentence to indicate the limits of our reach with regard to stories from the mythologies of the world; they shall be stories in which there is matter that can be "sympathized" with--recognized as being of proper present interest--by readers of to-day.

¹ Michelet's Introduction to La Scienza Nuova. ² Letter to Reimer

³ Jeremiah Curtin: Myths and Folklore of Ireland. Boston, Little, Brown & Co. ⁴ Ibid. ⁵ On History.

EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

It is natural to begin with things Egyptian. But the stories that we have from the mythology of that great civilization are all fragmentary; for the most famous of them we have to go to a Greek work--to Plutarch's treatise on Isis and Osiris. In the story as given here the outline is Plutarch's. But included in it is the story of the Creation which is from Egyptian sources; the names of the deities are not as in Plutarch, but are given in forms sanctioned by Egyptian scholars. The second story is mythological in all that deals with the course of the Sun. The greater part of Egyptian mythology dealt with the appearance, disappearance, and reappearance of the Sun, and with descriptions of the World of the Dead. But no piece of mythology extant gives us in narrative form the Egyptian ideas on these subjects. To provide an outline in which this mythology could be given in story form, the tale about the brothers and their dying father has been invented. The hymn given in this story is from Adolf Leman's "La religion Egyptienne."

How greatly the story of Osiris and Isis influenced the ancient world outside of Egypt can be understood from the speculation which Plutarch commits himself to:

This thing that our priests to-day, with prayer for mercy and in dim revelation, most reverently do hint, even that Osiris is King and Lord among the dead, bewilders the minds of most men who know not how the truth of this thing is.

For they fancy that Osiris, in whom most surely is all holiness of God and nature, is thus said to be in the earth and beneath the earth, where are hidden the bodies of those who seem to have had their end. But Osiris's self is far indeed from the earth, untouched, undefiled, immaculate of all substance that admits of corruption and death. And souls of men, here in the embrace of bodies and of passions, have no communion with the God save as in a dream, a dim touch of knowledge through philosophy.

But when they are set free, and shift their homes into that Formless and Invisible and Pure, then in truth is God their leader and their king, even this God, so that fastened unto him, and insatiably contemplating and desiring that Beauty ineffable and indescribable of man--whereof the old legend would have it that Isis was in love, and did ever pursue and with it consort-all beings there are fulfilled of all the good and fair things that have share in creation.

Plutarch's interpretation of the Osiris-Isis story is not necessarily an Egyptian one. Nor can we be sure that the prayer that Apuleius's hero, Lucius, makes to Isis is one that an Egyptian at any period might make:

O thou most holy and eternal saviour of the human race, and ever most munificent in thy tender care of mankind, unto the hazard of our sorrow thou givest the sweet affection of a mother. Nor doth any day or any night's repose, nay, not a tiny moment, vanish past empty of benefits, but ever on earth and sea thou art protecting men, driving aside life's tempests, stretching forth thy right hand of salvation. The threads of our life, by us inextricably entangled, thou dost untwine; thou stillest storms of fate, thou holdest the evil goings of the stars. Thee Heaven doth worship; the shades are thy servants; 'tis thou dost spin the world, and lightest up the sun, and governest the universe, and tramplest upon hell. To thee the stars make answer, for thee the seasons return, heaven's powers exult, the elements obey. At thy nod blow the breezes, clouds give fertility; thine is the germing of the seed and the growth of the germ. Before thy majesty the birds do tremble whose goings are in the air, and the beasts that haunt the hills, and the serpents lurking in the dust, and the monsters that swim in the ocean. But I, scant of soul for the offering of thy praise, poor of patrimony for the celebrating thy sacrifices, feeble of voice for the telling out my heart's knowledge of thy Majesty-nay, nor would one thousand mouths, one thousand tongues suffice, nor the long utterance of an eternal lauds,--I, what (in my poverty) my worship, at least, can do, that will I care to effect. Thy divine countenance and most holy godhead, stored within my heart of hearts, will I forever keep, and there will watch and picture it.

BABYLONIAN

The Babylonian religion was on a higher level than the Egyptian, which, according to Maspero, one of the greatest of Egyptologists, was close to the animism and fetichism of the African tribes. Yet the Sumerians and Babylonians, compared with the Egyptians, had a very faint conception of a life beyond the grave. "They imagined the lower world to be a place of darkness, where the departed, retaining their consciousness, were condemned to lie motionless for ages, under the stem rule of a goddess who reigned in that world." Then Professor Rostovtzeff goes on to say:

The hymns and prayers addressed to the gods of Babylon and Assyria are full of religious inspiration and unfeigned religious feeling. The Babylonians in their epic poetry sought to explain the mighty secrets of nature, connected with the life of gods and men.⁶

Their stories of the struggles of the gods against Chaos and the monsters produced by Chaos, of Gilgamish's adventures, of Ishtar's descent into the World of the Dead, are comparable to nothing else but their sculptures--those carvings in which kings and soldiers, horses and lions, chariots and spears, are rendered with such power as seems to us terrifying.

Marvels that showed a mighty will,
Huge power and hundred-handed skill,
That seek prostration and not praise
Too faint such lofty ears to fill!⁷

We owe the preservation of the Babylonian and Sumerian stories, in a large measure, to an Assyrian king of the neo-Babylonian epoch, to Ashur-bani-pal, who reigned in Nineveh B.C. 668. Says a pamphlet published by the British Museum:

Having determined to form a Library in his palace he set to work in a systematic manner to collect literary works. He sent scribes to ancient seats of learning, e.g., Ashur, Babylon, Cutah, Nippur, Akkad, Erech, to make copies of the ancient works that were preserved there, and when the copies came to Nineveh he either made transcripts of them himself, or caused his scribes to do so for the Palace Library. In any case he collated the texts himself and revised them before placing them in his Library. The appearance of the tablets from his Library suggests that he established a factory in which the clay was cleaned and kneaded and made into homogeneous, well-shaped tablets, and a kiln in which they were baked, after they had been inscribed. The uniformity of the script upon. them is very remarkable, and texts with mistakes in them are rarely found. . . . Ashur-bani-pal was greatly interested in the literature of the Sumerians, i.e., the non-Semitic people who occupied Lower Babylonia about B.C. 3500 and later. He and his scribes made bilingual lists of signs and words and objects of all classes and kinds, all of which are of priceless value to the modern student of the Sumerian and Assyrian languages./{fr. 8}

The Greeks borrowed one myth from the Babylonians--the myth of Adonis who is Tammuz. "Every year," says Frazer in "The Golden

Bough," "Tammuz was believed to die, passing away from the cheerful earth to the gloomy subterranean world, and every year his divine mistress journeyed in quest of him." Tammuz's death was mourned by men and women at midsummer. The story of Ishtar's descent into the World of the Dead was probably made up from the hymns chanted during the mourning ceremonies. Like Osiris, Tammuz personified the vegetable life that dies and rises up again.

⁶ "A History of the Ancient World, Vol. I.

⁷ George Darley, Nepenthe.

⁸ The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic Gilgamish: 1920.

PERSIAN

At the time when the Assyrian kings of the neo-Babylonian epoch were publishing the Babylonian mythological cycles, and when Egyptian and Greek mythologies were flourishing, the original Persian or Iranian mythology was being stopped in its growth; afterwards nearly all records of it were destroyed. This happened in the reign of Darius (sixth century B.C.), through the rise of the Mazdean or Zoroastrian dualism which, accepted by the king and the governing classes, had the effect of depriving the old mythology of all value and significance.

The Zoroastrian dualism represented a religion that was on a higher level than the religions of Egypt and Babylon. Says Professor Rostovtzeff :

Like the Hebrew prophets, Zoroaster reached the conception of a single spiritual god, Ormuzd or Ahura Mazda, in whom the principle of good is personified, while the evil principle is embodied in Ariman or Angra Mainyu. The two principles strive eternally in life and nature, and in the struggle men take part. Man is responsible for his actions, good and bad; he is the master of his fate; his will determines his line of conduct. If he struggles against evil, confesses God, and cares for the purity of his body and soul, then, after four periods, of three thousand years each, in the world's history, when the time shall arrive for final victory of good over evil and of Ormuzd over Ariman--the general resurrection of the dead and the last judgment will assure him his place among the saved and the righteous.⁹

The Persian religion had strong influence upon both Judaism and early Christianity: a king who was the champion of early Zoroastrianism ended the Babylonian captivity and enabled the Jews to reconstitute themselves as a religious body; the star of the Nativity was hailed by the Magi who were Persians and Zoroastrians. This religion in the form of the worship of one of the angelic powers of Zoroastrian theology, Mithra, spread through the West during the late Roman Empire, and made itself a powerful rival of young Christianity. Mithra, who was identified with the Sun, had a cult that was fostered by the Roman military guild; it is known that as far west as Britain there was a temple built to him. Present-day Christianity, on the side of ceremony and ritual, has elements that have come into it from its one-time closeness to Mithraism. If we read Francis Thompson's "Orient Ode" we shall know something of the fervours of Mithraism; it is significant that the metaphors in the opening verse are from the sacred ritual of the Mass:

Lo, in the sanctuaried East,
Day, a dedicated priest
In all his robes pontifical exprest,
Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly,
From out its Orient tabernacle drawn,
Yon orbéd sacrament confest
Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn.

Mithraic feeling is stronger in another verse:

Thou art the incarnated Light
Whose Sire is aboriginal, and beyond
Death and resurgence of our day and night;
From his is thy vicegerent wand
With double potence of the black and white.
Giver of Love, and Beauty, and Desire,
The terror, and the loveliness, and purging,
The deathfulness and lifefulness of fire!

⁹ A History of the Ancient World, Vol. I.

The original mythology of Iran or Persia is supposed to have been of the type that existed in Aryan India around 1000 B.C.--the mythology of the Vedic Hymns. Many names out of the oldest strata of Iranian tradition can be equated with names in the Vedic Hymns. One of these names is Yima which in later Persian becomes Jamshi_d. Yima is the same as the Vedic god Yama: Yama, in India, was the god of the dead. "The evidence concerning Yama-Yima," writes Albert J. Carnoy, "is, on the whole, that he is the setting sun. He follows the path of the sun to go to a remote recess, whither he leads all men with him. . . . In Iran the solar nature of Yima is rather more accentuated than in India, and the old epithets of Yima are striking in this respect. He is commonly called Khshae_ta ('brilliant'), an adjective which is at the same time a regular epithet of the sun."¹⁰ The story of Jamshi_d is the most explicit piece of mythology that has come down to us from ancient Iran--it is preserved in a very late work--in the Sha_hna_mah, written by the poet Firdausi, who died about 1025 A. D. Firdausi used old traditions which were mythology that had been turned into pseudo-historical legends. It is of interest to note that not long after the time when Firdausi_ treated the fragments of an Aryan mythology as historical traditions and romantic tales, a like work was accomplished at the other side of the Aryan world--in Wales where the fragments of Celtic mythology were made over into the collection of romantic stories that we know as the Mabinogion.

¹⁰ Iranian Mythology, Volume VI of Mythology of All Races.}

JEWISH: POST-CHRISTIAN PERIOD

The Jewish stories that have come down to us in the Haggadah are more akin to the Persian than they are to any other stories. Their monotheism seems to be nominal, veiling a real dualism. Thus, God creates the Angels on the second day "lest man believe that the Angels assisted God in the creation of the heavens and the earth." This suggestion of rivalry is in many of the stories: God is on one side, the Angels on the other. The Angel Samael who becomes Satan is, in his opposition to the Most High, like Angra Mainyu in relation to Ahura Mazda. The stories that form the Haggadah were developed between the second and the fourteenth century of our era. They are accessible in "The Legends of the Jews" by Louis Ginzberg. Four volumes. Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society.

GREEK

The myths given are mainly from Hesiod's Theogony and the Homeric Hymns, works composed between the eighth and the sixth century B.C. Little remains to be said on the subject of Greek mythology. But it is worth while repeating some sentences written by Miss Jane Harrison:

All men, in virtue of their humanity, are image-makers, but in some the image is clear and vivid, in others dull, lifeless, wavering. The Greeks were the supreme ikonists, the greatest image-makers that the world has ever seen, and, therefore, their mythology lives on today.¹²

¹² Myths of Greece and Rome. London, Ernest Benn, Ltd.}

LATIN

It is important to separate the Greek and Latin mythologies: Iuppiter, though akin to, is not the same as Zeus; Iuno is not the same as Hera. Minerva is not the same as Athena, Neptune is not the same as Poseidon. "The Romans worshipped not gods, not dei," writes Miss Jane Harrison, "but powers, numina":

These numina were only dim images of activities. They had no attributes, no life histories; in a word, no mythology. We must always remember that mythology, the making of images, is only one and, perhaps, not the greatest factor in religion. Because the Romans were not ikonists, it does not follow that they were a people less religious than the Greeks. The contrary is probably true. A vague something is more awe-inspiring than a known something.

Mars the Death-dealer was the central object of Italian worship, according to Mommsen, in that epoch when the Italian stock dwelt by itself in the Peninsula. He was the champion of the burgesses, hurling the spear, protecting the flock, and overthrowing the foe. Mommsen goes on to say:

To Mars was dedicated the first month not only in the Roman calendar of the months, which in no other instance takes notice of the gods, but also probably in all the other Latin and Sabellian calendars. Among the Roman proper names, which in like manner contain no allusion to any other god, Marcus, Mamercus, and Mamurius appear in prevailing use from very early times; with Mars and his sacred woodpecker was connected the oldest Italian prophecy; the wolf, the animal sacred to Mars, was the badge of the Roman burgesses, and such sacred national legends as the Roman imagination was able to produce referred exclusively to the god Mars and to his duplicate, Quirinus. . . . While abstraction, which lies at the foundation of every religion, elsewhere endeavoured to rise to wider and more enlarged conceptions and to penetrate ever more and more deeply into the essence of things, the forms of Roman faith remained at, or sank to, a singularly low level of conception and insight. . . . In the religion of Rome there was hardly anything secret except the names of the gods of the city, the Penates; the real character, moreover, even of these gods was manifest to everyone. . . . Of all the worships of Rome, that which, perhaps, had the deepest hold was the worship of the tutelary spirits that presided in and over the household and storechamber: these were, in public worship, Vesta and the Penates, in family worship the gods of the forest and field, the Silvani, and especially the gods of the household in its strict sense, the Lases or Lares, to whom the share of the family meal was regularly assigned. . . . Respecting the world of spirits, little can be said. The departed souls of mortal men, the "good" (manes), continued to exist as shades haunting the spot where the body reposed (dii inferi), and received meat and drink from the survivors. But they dwelt in the depths beneath, and there was no bride that led from the lower world either to men ruling on earth or upward to the gods above. The hero-worship of the Greeks was wholly foreign to the Romans. . . . Numa, the oldest and most venerable name in Roman tradition, never received the honours of a god in Rome as Theseus did in Athens

The stories of Romulus and of Numa are taken from Plutarch's Lives and Livy's History where the personages are treated as historical characters. The story of Pomona and Vertumnus is taken from Ovid.

GRAECO-ROMAN

The story of Cupid and Psyche is a literary production; however, it is given in this collection of stories from the mythologies because it became something of a sacred story--a focus for religious thought. And, besides, the literary production was based on an old Greek folktale that had in it religious elements. It must be remembered that the mother of Cupid is not the Venus of early Roman mythology nor the Venus Genetrix of Lucretius's poem; she has been merged with Aphrodite, the goddess who belonged to the southern and eastern islands of the Greek archipelago. In the form we know it the story belongs to a late period: it was written by Apuleius of Medaura who was born A.D. 124, and it forms an episode in the novel which we call "The Golden Ass." There is an Elizabethan translation by Adlington besides the better-known translation which Walter Pater gives in his "Marius the Epicurean."

CELTIC

Celtic mythology is known to us only in the fragments that have come down to us through Irish (Gaelic) and Welsh (Brythonic) romances. Of the mythology of the Continental Celts we know nothing:

On the Continent the Celtic tribes came in contact with the rich and highly organised Graeco-Roman mythology, and discarded their own mythic romance. In the British Isles Celtic mythic romance escaped the destructive influence of Rome, was spared by Christianity, and served, almost down to the present day, as a backbone and rallying centre to the peasant lore about the fairies, which is substantially the old agricultural faith, preserved in rude and crude form, and partly reshaped by the fierce opposition or the insidious patronage of Christianity. Gaelic peasant lore only differs from that of other parts of Europe, because Gaeldom has preserved, in a romantic form, a portion of the pre-Christian mythology. Thanks to the fact that this mythology enters largely into the Arthurian romance, the literature of modern England has retained access to the fairy realm, and has been enabled to pluck in the old wonder-garden of unending joy fruits of imperishable beauty/.{fr. 15}

In Ireland a learned class who took pride in preserving the relics of the national past, wrote down histories and romances that contained mythological material. We have these histories and romances in documents of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Book of Leinster and the Book of the Dun Cow: the material on which they are based is of a much earlier period. In Wales a material less copious and more distorted, was, between 1080 and 1260, shaped into the romances that we know in the Mabinogion.

The Celts were known in the ancient world for their positive beliefs concerning the survival of the soul. They appear to have had a conception of a Happy Otherworld which was similar to that of the early Greeks:

Although from fifteen hundred to two thousand years separate the earliest recorded Greek and Irish utterances in a form, substantially speaking, yet extant, yet both stand on much the same stage of development, save that Ireland has preserved, with greater fulness and precision, a conception out of which Homeric Greece had already emerged. Examination of the mythologies due to other Aryan races, or rather, to prejudge nothing, to peoples speaking Aryan tongues equally with the Greeks and Irish, reveals the remarkable fact that Greeks and Irish alone have preserved the early stage of the Happy Other. world conception in any fulness/.{fr. 16}

The Celtic religion appears to have been the worship of the Powers of Life and Increase:

{fn. 15. Alfred Nutt: The Voyage of Bran, Vol. 2, in the Grimm Library.}

{fn. 16. Ibid.}

In Greece the Powers of Life and Increase, worshipped by the primitive agriculturists, are but one element in the completed Hellenic Pantheon, and this has been subjected to so much change, to such enlargement and glorification, as to be well-nigh unrecognizable. In Ireland, to judge by extant native texts, these powers must have constituted the predominant element of the Pantheon, and cannot have departed very widely from their primitive form. . . . In the main that mythology had for its dramatis personae the agricultural Powers of Life and Increase, in the main it was made up of stories of which the ultimate essence and significance were agricultural/.{fr. 17}

The same authority offers the following conclusions on the subject of Celtic mythology as it is revealed in the Irish romances:

The features common to Greek and Irish mythology belong to the earlier known stage of Aryan mythical evolution, and are not the result of influence exercised by the more upon the less advanced race. Survivals in Greece, they represent the high-water mark of Irish pre-Christian development; hence their greater consistency and vividness in Ireland. Fragmentary as they may be in form and distorted as it may be by its transmission through Christian hands, we thus owe to Ireland the preservation of mythical conceptions and visions more archaic in substance if far later in record than the great mythologies of Greece and Vedic India.{fr. 18}

The Celtic stories given here deal mainly with adventures in the Happy Otherworld, in the Divine Land. The Voyage of Prince Bran is a typical story. Translated by Kuno Meyer, it is published with a comment by Alfred Nutt which is a study of Celtic mythology. The poems form the oldest part of the story; they date back to the eighth, or possibly to the seventh century. In the Divine Land to which Prince Bran voyages take place the events which lead up to the birth of Etain and afterwards to the death of King Conaire. This Divine Land is also the scene of Pwyll's adventures in the Welsh story. Pwyll, Arawn, and Mathonwy were originally divinities in Celtic Britain: their stories are taken from the Welsh Mabinogion.

{fn. 17. Alfred Nutt: The Voyage of Bran, Vol. 2, in the Grimm Library.}

{fn. 18. Ibid.}

FINNISH

The mythology out of which the Finnish stories come belonged to the Finno-Ugric stock which includes the Finns and their near relations the Esthonians, and the more remotely related Lapps and Hungarians.

We know this mythology through the folk-epic of Finland, the Kalevala, and the Magic Songs of the Finns and the Esthonians. As we have them now, the Finno-Ugric traditions reflect a definite locale--the land of forests and lakes of North Europe. Until the last century these traditions existed in peasant memory and speech. Scattered parts of the poem that is now known as the Kalevala were published in 1822 by Zacharias Topelius. Elias Lönnrot collected the remainder and arranged the twenty-two or twenty-three thousand verses into fifty runes. The metrical form in which the Kalevala has come down has been imitated by Longfellow in Hiawatha.

It is startling to realize that a mythology existed on the lips of a European people in our time. There has been, of course, a Christian influence on the traditions out of which the folk-songs that make the Kalevala have come. A large part of this poetry had its rise in the Middle Ages and Catholicism had an influence on a few incidents.

The episode given here is from the Kalevala, W. F. Kirby's translation, Runo XIII and XIV. John Abercromby's "The pre- and proto-historic Finns with the Magic Songs of the West Finns" has also been used.

ICELANDIC

When we realize that in France, Britain, and Ireland, Christianity had been established for six hundred years before it was introduced into Iceland and the Scandinavian countries, we are aware of what a long lifetime the mythology of northern Europe had in comparison, let us say, with the mythology of Celtic Britain and Ireland. The Icelandic mythology is part of the Scandinavian which is again part of the mythology of the Germanic people. It had a separate development in Norway, and a separate development, perhaps, in Iceland where the records that we have of it were made. Iceland, at the time, was the centre of the Scandinavian world. As shaped in the Icelandic poems and stories, this mythology has been influenced by Christianity. Of the great poem that tells of the creation of the world and the gods, the "Voluspo," the latest translator, Mr. Henry Adams Bellows, writes:

That the poem was heathen and not Christian seems almost beyond dispute; there is an intensity and vividness in almost every stanza which no archaizing Christian could possibly have achieved. On the other hand, the evidences of Christian influence are sufficiently striking to outweigh the arguments of Finnur Jonsson, Müllenhof, and others who maintain that the "Voluspo" is purely a product of heathendom. The roving Norsemen of the tenth century, very few of whom had as yet accepted Christianity, were nevertheless in close contact with Celtic races which had already been converted, and in many ways the Celtic influence was strongly felt/.{fr. 19}

We owe our knowledge of this mythology to the Poetic and Prose Eddas--the first a collection of poems celebrating the gods and heroes of the olden times, and the second a handbook giving an account of the gods and the old system of divinity, with a number of separate stories about the gods and heroes. Scholars now agree that the poems that make up the Poetic Edda were shaped between 900 and 1050. The Prose Edda was composed by an Icelandic scholar, Snorri Struluson, about the year 1220. The rediscovery of this mythology was hailed by the whole Germanic world, and treated as a racial inheritance: it lives as no other European mythology lives to-day through the expression it has been given in the tragic music of Richard Wagner's "Ring" operas.

{fn. 19. Introduction to the Poetic Edda. New York, the American-Scandinavian Foundation.}

INDIAN

India's is the most heavily mythologized of civilizations; the mythology revealed in its literature is threefold. There is, first of all, that of Aryan India which has connections with the mythologies of Persia, Greece, and Italy: because we know it through the Vedic Hymns (shaped between 1200 and 800 B.C.), we name it the Vedic mythology. Then comes a mythology which nominally arises out of the Vedas but which is quite different in idea and outlook: this is the Bra_hmanical, the living mythology of India, revealed to us in the enormous epics which were shaped about the fourth century B.C., the Ra_ma_yana and the Maha_bha_rata. Buddhism, a movement which originally aimed at simplifying the Bra_hmanical system, added new entities to the country's mythology: out of it came a mythology connected with beings who incarnate from period to period in order to redeem mankind: the stories of these incarnations and of the efforts of the Buddhas-to-be to attain enlightenment are its subjects; connected with it are cycles of animal-stories which tell of the incarnations of Buddha in animal forms. Unlike Persia, unlike Europe, India never had her mythology displaced by movements such as Zoroastrianism or Christianity.

India, in respect to her mythology, is like a watershed: there systems which take us to look in opposite directions are close to each other. We have Dyaus Pitar, the Sky Father, who is the same as Zeus and Iuppiter; with him we have Indra, the Storm God, Agni, the Fire God, and the Celestial Twin Horsemen, who are similar to the divinities in European mythology; we have also Yama who assembles the dead, the Yima of old Persia mythology who becomes the Jamshi_d of mytho-romance: we are destined to meet this divinity in the Far East where he has become the god of the dead, Emma, in Buddhist Japan. This, the Vedic, was the mythology of a simple-minded, agricultural, cattle-raising people. Then comes the Bra_hmanical, which arises out of philosophical ideas: time and space are conceived of in dimensions that are frightening to one of European culture; there are unnumbered worlds, unnumbered periods of creation; the gods are immortal, but they are destined to be absorbed in the absorption of the universe at the end of a cosmic cycle. The Bra_hmanical mythology as presented in the epics is a very rich one. Four stories in this collection are taken from it: the Churning of the Ocean and the Birth of the Ganges from the Ra_ma_yana, Savi_tii_ and the God of the Dead and Damayanti_'s Choice from the Maha_bha_rata. The story of Gotama's Attainment is out of Buddhist mythology, and is one of the scriptural stories of the Buddha who, historically, was Prince Siddha_ratha who lived in the fifth century B.C. In the early Vedas the story-material is meagre: these Indian hymns are voluminous as compared with the Homeric Hymns, but none of them give us, as most of the Homeric Hymns do, a consecutive story. The Heavenly Nymph and her Mortal Husband is told from the only extended statement in the hymns. The story is also told in later literature. But in the later version the atmosphere has been changed. In the Vedas the Apsarases are nymphs who have something austere about them; in later literature they are types of voluptuousness. An attempt has been made to get the atmosphere of the early Aryan world in the retelling of the story, and to reveal the simple forms of the Vedic gods. It is of interest to note that these gods, the devas, become in Persia, after the Zoroastrian movement, the dae_vas who are demons. Later, these fallen dae_vas become the divs, or demonic beings, of the Arabian story-tellers.

CHINESE

There is not in China, as there is in India and there was in Greece, any dramatization of divine activities--at least, not in literature; there is no Chinese Hesiod, nor Homer, nor Va_lmi_ki. The Chinese people seem to have had no curiosity about their origin which could be thought of as the origin of mankind; the philosophers have concerned themselves with ethics and politics, and the poets with human relations and the influences of nature. According to Confucius's disciples, the subjects on which the master declined to speak were "extraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder and spiritual beings." This attitude, transmitted to the literate classes, did away with interest in mythology. Undoubtedly, Chinese popular traditions contain a variety of stories about personages who might be regarded as mythical. But such stories are so prosaic and fantastic, so literal and ingenious, that we have no way of retelling them with becoming seriousness. To literate Chinese the universe has been created and is sustained by impersonal forces; that which makes a mythology--personification of supernatural powers and their identifications with some of the interests of mankind-is not conceived of by them.

The story of the creation by P’an Ku is a popular one, deriving from Taoism: Chinese scholars maintain that it was introduced from some outside country. The Celestial Weaver Maid and the Herdsman is a stellar myth, and has to do with the stars Aquilia and Vega. The personages in the story are honoured by women who practise the crafts of needlework and embroidery. The story is popular in Japan as well as China.

JAPANESE

In distinction to Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, Shintoism is the primitive body of beliefs of the Japanese people. The two cosmological myths given here are from Shinto sources. The triumph of the Sun Goddess over darkness and disorder is identified with the triumph of the Imperial dynasty over forces that were hostile to it: the Imperial family claim descent from the Sun Goddess.

POLYNESIAN

The widely spread Kanaka or Maori people have a rich and remarkably homogeneous mythology: the same divine beings figure in stories told in most of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. "We find," writes Miss Martha Warren Beckwith, "the same story told in New Zealand and Hawaii, scarcely changed, even in name.{fr. 20} " In one sense, practically all Polynesian stories are mythological, for, to quote Miss Beckwith again:

Gods and men are, in fact, to the Polynesian mind, one family under different forms, the gods having superior control over certain phenomena . . . the supernatural blends with the natural exactly the same way as to the Polynesian mind gods relate themselves to men, facts about one being regarded as, even though removed to the heavens, quite as objective as those which belong to the other, and being employed to explain social customs and physical appearances in actual experience./

The Polynesians, like the ancient Egyptians, thought of the soul as being double: a part of it could go wandering and be brought back, or be taken away and restored by spells of sorcerers.

The most direct and significant statement of Polynesian myth is "Pele and Hiiaka" by N. B. Emerson. In this narrative we have the mythical history of the Hawaiian Fire Goddess taken down from the lips of people for whom it was still a belief by a man who knew the people and understood their traditions. Only a bare outline of it is given here: as published it extends to over 200 pages; 170 mele, or dramatic poems, are given in the course of the narrative.{fr. 21} When we read this myth we realize how separate Polynesian culture is. The Polynesian Creation Myth is from New Zealand, and is given by Sir George Grey in his "Polynesian Mythology." The story of Maui's attempt to win immortality for men is from the same work. The other story about Maui is in part from New Zealand and in part from Hawaii: it is told in my own "At the Gateways of the Day,"{fr. 22} but is ultimately based on stories given by Mr. W. D. Westervelt in his "Maui the Demi-god." Maui is a pan-Polynesian hero, and stories about him are told upon nearly all the islands which the Kanaka-Maori people reached.

{fn. 20. The Hawaiian Romance of Laieikawai: Thirty-third Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology.}

{fn. 21. Pele and Hiiaka, a Myth from Hawaii, by N. B. Emerson: Honolulu, 1915.}

{fn. 22. Published by the Yale University Press.}

PERUVIAN

The two great civilizations of America, the Middle American and the South American, appear to have had their rise about the same time, and in each a period of decadence seems to have set in just before the advent of the European conquerors. We have much less information about the civilization we name Inca than the one we name Aztec. Most of what we know about the antiquities of Peru comes from the writings of Garcilasso de la Vega, whose father was Spanish and whose mother was Peruvian, and who regarded himself as a descendant of the Incas and an interpreter of their traditions. Garcilasso has been translated into English by Sir Clements Markham, whose own books upon Peru tell us practically all that is known about the ancient monuments, literature, and traditions of the Incas. In the first story, I have imagined someone like Garcilasso speaking. The second is not mythological; it is probably a folk-tale. But the mythological survivals of the Incas are so scanty that any story that has even a slight connection with their mythology, and that has some portion of their imagination in it, is of interest. "The Llama-herder and the Virgins of the Sun" is retold from a version given by Sir Clements Markham; it was told to Fray Martin de Morua, who was a Quichua scholar, in 1583.

CENTRAL AMERICAN AND MEXICAN

In regarding Central America and Mexico as a single cultural area, I accept the authority of Eduard Seler, who, grouping Guatemala, Yucatan, and the area that includes Mexico City together, writes:

The unity of this entire region of ancient civilization is most clearly expressed by the calendar, which these people considered the basis and alpha and omega of all high and occult knowledge/.{fr. 23}

According to this view, the Mayan, the Toltec, and the Aztec are varieties of a single culture.

{fn. 23. Unity of Mexican and Central American Civilization: Report to Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 28.}

The most dramatic rendering of the mythology belonging to this culture is in a book written in Guatemala, in a Mayan language, some time in the seventeenth century. This is the "Popul Vuh." The Spanish version of the native text was translated into French by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, and our main knowledge of this curious and exciting book is derived from this translation. Two stories in this collection are from the "Popul Vuh"--the story of the Creation, and the story of the adventures of the Twin Heroes. A little material has also been taken from an English version of parts of another native book--the "Annals" of the Cakchiquel Indians. The rest of the stories are Aztec; they belong to the people whose capital was where Mexico City now stands. The political and material power that this people had attained to is revealed in the impression that their great city, Tenochtitlan, made on the chronicler of the Spanish Conquest, Bernal Diaz:

We counted amongst us soldiers who had traversed different parts of the world: Constantinople, Italy, Rome; they said that they had seen nowhere a place so well aligned, so vast, ordered with such art, and covered with so many people./

Of the Aztec stories, the most appealing is the one that tells of Quetzalcoatl, his beneficence and his banishment from Tollan. Scholars maintain that Quetzalcoatl was a Toltec divinity, or that he was the last of the Toltec kings, and bore the name of their principal divinity. His story then symbolizes the fall of the mild and enlightened Toltec civilization before the onslaught of the war-like Aztec tribes. Another interpretation is given by Mr. Lewis Spence:

From April or May to the beginning of October the trade-wind blows from the east coast over the Plateau of Anahuac, bringing with it abundance of rain, and accelerating vegetable growth, thus actually "sweeping the ways for the rain-gods." Its advance is comparatively slow, the rains beginning three or four weeks earlier in Vera Cruz than in Puebla and Mexico. At the beginning of October, however, it is invariably modified by the local monsoon, which interrupts it over wide areas, or in certain districts invades it in violent cyclonic storms, dissipating its energies and altering its course. Quetzalcoatl represents the gentle trade-wind, which ushers in the growth-making rains. His reign of peace, plenty, and fertility over, he comes into opposition with Tezcatlipoca, who represents the monsoon and who chases his rival "from city to city," ravening at him like a tiger, says Mendieta, and at last hustling him out of the country. That Tezcatlipoca is also a god of wind is certain, as is proved by one of his names, Yoalli Ehecatl, "Wind of Night," and that he is the monsoon or hurricane is proved beyond all doubt by the circumstance that he is said to have rushed along the highways at night at extraordinary speed, and that Hurakan, his Quiche name, is still employed for the very wind he represented, and has become a generic name for a tempestuous wind in practically all European languages, which have without question adopted it from the American word.{fr. 24}

As we look upon the powerful sculptures of the ancient Mexicans and their compact drawings we get the impression of a strangely earthbound civilization: it was as if all of the figures were rooted; in some of the drawings hands are in movement, but it is like the movement of branches of trees, and we can never think of the faces as being lifted to the skies. In their mythology we have the impression of thought which can never become abstract. This literalness leaves theirs the most terrible of the religions connected with any of the great civilizations. Always they wanted rain, and they strove to give example to the rainmaking deities by pouring out human blood. They sacrificed thousands of human victims every year; every Aztec ceremony culminated in human sacrifice. Something, however, can be said for this religion:

Students of religious phenomena not infrequently show distaste for the deeper consideration of the Mexican faith, not only because of the difficulties which beset the fuller study of this interesting phase of human belief in the eternal verities, but also, perhaps, because of the "diabolic" reputation which it has achieved, and the grisly horrors to which it is thought those who examine it must perforce accustom themselves. It is certainly not the most obviously prepossessing of the world's religions. Yet if due allowance be made for the earnestness of its priests and people in the strict observance of a system the hereditary burden of which no one man or generation could hope to remove, and the religion of the Azteca be viewed in a liberal and tolerant spirit, those who are sufficiently painstaking in their scrutiny of it will in time find themselves richly rewarded. Not only does it abound in valuable evidences for the enrichment of the study of religious science and tradition, but by degrees its astonishing beauty of colour and wealth of symbolic variety will appeal to the student with all the enchantment of discovery. The echoes of the sacred drum of serpent-skin reverberating from the lofty pyramid of Uitzilopochtli, and passing above the mysterious city of Tenochtitlan with all the majesty of Olympian thunder, will seem not less eloquent of the soul of a vanished faith/

{fn. 24. Lewis Spence: The Gods of Mexico.}

than do the memories of the choral chants of Hellas. And if the recollection of the picturesque but terrible rites of this gifted, imaginative, and not undistinguished people harrows the feelings, does it not arouse in us that fatal consciousness of man's helplessness before the gods, which primitive religion invariably professes and which reason almost seems to uphold?/{fr. 25}

{fn. 25. Lewis Spence: The Gods of Mexico.}

ZUÑI

The pueblo-dwelling Indians, of whom the Zuñi are the chief representatives, belong to a stage of culture that the great civilizations of Middle and South America had come directly out of. And as in Middle and South America, the whole form of Zuñi culture, the whole trend of Zuñi religious thought, is conditioned by the cultivation of maize. The story given here is taken from Cushing's "Zuñi Creation Myth," published as a report of the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1896. Cushing's remarks on Zuñi culture which are here quoted come out of observations which he made in the period between 1879 and 1881:

The Zuñi faith . . . is a drop of oil in water, surrounded and touched at every point, yet in no place penetrated or changed inwardly by the flow of alien belief that descended upon it. . . . Yet a casual visitor to Zuñi, seeing, but unable to analyze the signs above noted, would be led to infer quite the contrary by other and more potent signs. He would see horses, cattle, donkeys, sheep, and goats, to say nothing of swine and a few scrawny chickens. He would see peach orchards and wheat fields, carts (and weapons now), and tools of metal; would find, too, in queer out-of-the-way little rooms, native silversmiths plying their primitive bellows and deftly using a few crude tools of iron and stone to turn their scant silver coins into bright buttons, bosses, beads, and bracelets which every well-conditioned Zuñi wears, and he would see worn also, especially by the men, clothing of gaudy calico and other thin products of the looms of civilization. Indeed if one did not see these things and rate them as at first the gifts to this people of those noble old Franciscan friars and their harder-handed, less noble Spanish companions, infinitely more pathetic than it is would be the history of the otherwise vain effort I have above outlined; for it is not to be forgotten that the principal of these gifts have been of incalculable value to the Zuñi. They have helped to preserve him, through an era of new external conditions, from the fate that met thirty other and less favored Pueblo tribes--annihilation by the better-armed, ceaselessly prowling Navajo and Apache, and for this alone, their almost sole accomplishment of lasting good to the Zuñi, not in vain were spent and given the lives of the early mission fathers.

I have called the collection "Orpheus," naming it after the minstrel who, according to the poet of the Argonautica, sang "how the earth, the heaven, and the sea once mingled together in one form, after deadly strife were separated each from the other; and how the stars and the moon and the paths of the sun ever keep their fixed place in the sky; and how the mountains rose, and how the resounding rivers with their nymphs came into being, and all creeping things."{fr. 26}

PADRAIC COLUM.

{fn. 26. Apollonius Rhodius: The Argonautica, translated by R. C. Seaton, the Loeb Library.}

EGYPTIAN

OSIRIS AND ISIS

When Osiris reigned death was not in the land. Arms were not in men's hands; there were not any wars. From end to end of the land music sounded; men and women spoke so sweetly and out of such depth of feeling that all they said was oratory and poetry.

Osiris taught men and women wisdom and he taught them all the arts. He it was who first planted the vine; he it was who showed men how and when to sow grain, how to plant and tend the fruit-trees; he caused them to rejoice in the flowers also. Osiris made laws for men so that they were able to live together in harmony; he gave them knowledge of the Gods, and he showed them how the Gods might be honoured.

And this was what he taught them concerning the Gods: In the beginning was the formless abyss, Nuu. From Nuu came Rê, the Sun. Rê was the first and he was the most divine of all beings. Rê created all forms. From his thought came Shu and Tefênet, the Upper and the Lower. Air. From Shu and Tefênet came Qêb and Nut, the Earth and the Sky. The Earth and the Sky had been separated, the one from the other, but once they had been joined together. From the eye of Rê, made out of the essence that is in that eye, came the first man and the first woman.

And from Qêb, the Father, and Nut, the Mother, Osiris was born. When he was born a voice came into the world, crying, "Behold, the Lord of all things is born!"

And with Osiris was born Isis, his sister. Afterwards was born Thout, the Wise One. Then there was born Nephthys. And, last, there was born Sêth. And Sêth tore a hole in his mother's side--Sêth the Violent One. Now Osiris and Isis loved each other as husband and wife, and together they reigned over the land. Thout was with them, and he taught men the arts of writing and of reckoning. Nephthys went with Sêth and was his wife, and Sêth's abode was in the desert.

Sêth, in his desert, was angered against Osiris, for everywhere green things that Sêth hated were growing over the land--vine, and grain, and the flowers. Many times Sêth tried to destroy his brother Osiris, but always his plots were baffled by the watchful care of Isis. One day he took the measurement of Osiris's body--he took the measurement from his shadow--and he made a chest that was the exact size of Osiris.

Soon, at the time before the season of drought, Sêth gave a banquet, and to that banquet he invited all the children of Earth and the Sky. To that banquet came Thout, the Wise One, and Nephthys, the wife of Sêth, and Sêth himself, and Isis, and Osiris. And where they sat at banquet they could see the chest that Sêth had made--the chest made of fragrant and diversified woods. All admired that chest. Then Sêth, as though he would have them enter into a game, told all of them that he would give the chest to the one whose body fitted most closely in it. The children of Qêb and Nut went and laid themselves in the chest that Sêth had made: Sêth went and laid himself in it, Nephthys went and laid herself in it, Thout went and laid himself in it, Isis went and laid herself in it. All were short; none, laid in the chest, but left a space above his or her head.

Then Osiris took the crown off his head and laid himself in the chest. His form filled it in its length and its breadth. Isis and Nephthys and Thout stood above where he lay, looking down upon Osiris, so resplendent of face, so perfect of limb, and congratulating him upon coming into possession of die splendid chest that Sêth had made. Sêth was not beside the chest then. He shouted, and his attendants to the number of seventy-two came into the banquetting hall. They placed the heavy cover upon the chest; they hammered nails into it; they soldered it all over with melted lead. Nor could Isis, nor Thout, nor Nephthys break through the circle that Sêth's attendants made around the chest. And they, having nailed the cover down, and having soldered it, took up the sealed chest, and, with Sêth going before them, they ran with it out of the hall.

Isis and Nephthys and Thout ran after those who bore the chest. But the night was dark, and these three children of Qêb and Nut were separated, one from the other, and from Sêth and his crew. And these came to where the river was, and they flung the sealed chest into the river. Isis, and Thout, and Nephthys, following the tracks that Sêth and his crew had made, came to the river-bank when it was daylight, but by that time the current of the river had. brought the chest out into the sea.

Isis followed along the bank of the river, lamenting for Osiris. She came to the sea, and she crossed over it, but she did not know where to go to seek for the body of Osiris. She wandered through the world, and where she went bands of children went with her, and they helped her in her search.

The chest that held the body of Osiris had drifted in the sea. A flood had cast it upon the land. It had lain in a thicket of young trees. A tree, growing, had lifted it up. The branches of the tree wrapped themselves around it; the bark of the tree spread itself around it; at last the tree grew there, covering the chest with its bark.

The land in which this happened was Byblos. The king and queen of the city, Melquart and Astarte, heard of the wonderful tree, the branches and bark of which gave forth a fragrance. The king had the tree cut down; its branches were trimmed off, and the tree was set up as a column in the king's house. And then Isis, coming to Byblos, was told of the wonderful tree that grew by the sea. She was told of it by a band of children who came to her. She came to the place: she found that the tree had been cut down and that its trunk was now set up as a column in the king's house.

She knew from what she heard about the wonderful fragrance that was in the trunk and branches of the tree that the chest she was seeking was within it. She stayed beside where the tree had been. Many who came to that place saw the queenly figure that, day and night, stood near where the wonderful tree had been. But none who came near was spoken to by her. Then the queen, having heard about the stranger who stood there, came to her. When she came near, Isis put her hand upon her head, and thereupon a fragrance went from Isis and filled the body of the queen.

The queen would have this majestical stranger go with her to her house. Isis went. She nursed the queen's child in the hall in which stood the column that had closed in it the chest which she sought.

She nourished the queen's child by placing her finger in its mouth. At night she would strip wood from the column that had grown as a tree, and throw the wood upon the fire. And in this fire she would lay the queen's child. The fire did not injure it at all; it burned softly around the child. Then Isis, in the form of a swallow, would fly around the column, lamenting.

One night the queen came into the hall where her child was being nursed. She saw no nurse there; she saw her child lying in the fire. She snatched the child up, crying out. Then Isis spoke to the queen from the column on which, in the form of a swallow, she perched. She told the queen that the child would have gained immortality had it been suffered to lie for a night and another night longer within the fire made from the wood of the column. Now it would be long-lived, but not immortal. And she revealed her own divinity to the queen, and claimed the column that had been made from the wonderful tree.

The king had the column taken down; it was split open, and the chest which Isis had sought for so long and with so many lamentations was within it. Isis wrapped the chest in linen, and it was carried for her out of the king's house. And then a ship was given to her, and on that ship, Isis, never stirring from beside the chest, sailed back to Egypt.

And coming into Egypt she opened the chest, and took the body of her lord and husband out of it. She breathed into his mouth, and, with the motion of her wings (for Isis, being divine, could assume wings), she brought life back to Osiris. And there, away from men and from all the children of Qêb and Nut, Osiris and Isis lived together.

But one night Sêth, as he was hunting gazelles by moonlight, came upon Osiris and Isis sleeping. Fiercely he fell upon his brother; he tore his body into fourteen pieces. Then, taking the pieces that were the body of Osiris, he scattered them over the land.

Death had come into the land from the time Osiris had been closed in the chest through the cunning of Sêth; war was in the land; men always had arms in their hands. No longer did music sound, no longer did men and women talk sweetly and out of the depths of their feelings. Less and less did grain, and fruit-trees, and the vine flourish. The green places everywhere were giving way to the desert. Sêth was triumphant; Thout and Nephthys cowered before him.

And all the beauty and all the abundance that had come from Rê would be destroyed if the pieces that had been the body of Osiris were not brought together once more. So Isis sought for them, and Nephthys, her sister, helped her in her seeking. Isis, in a boat that was made of reeds, floated over the marshes, seeking for the pieces. One, and then another, and then another was found. At last she had all the pieces of his torn body. She laid them together on a floating island, and reformed them. And as the body of Osiris was formed once more, the wars that men were waging died down; peace came; grain, and the vine, and the fruit-trees grew once more.

And a voice came to Isis and told her that Osiris lived again, but that he lived in the Underworld where he was now the Judge of the Dead, and that through the justice that he meted out, men and women had life immortal. And a child of Osiris was born to Isis: Horus he was named. Nephthys and the wise Thout guarded him on the floating island where he was born. Horus grew up, and he strove against the evil power of Sêth. In battle he overcame him, and in bonds he brought the evil Sêth, the destroyer of his father, before Isis, his mother. Isis would not have Sêth slain: still he lives, but now he is of the lesser Gods, and his power for evil is not so great as it was in the time before Horus grew to be the avenger of his father.

RÊ, HIS GOING-DOWN AND UPRISING

There were two brothers each of whom possessed an overmastering strength: the name of the first brother was Edfu, and the name of the second was Nefer-ka. Edfu was a soldier, and his strength was in his arms, and Nefer-ka was a scribe; he knew of spells that are written down in a book that has come from Thout, the God of Magic and of Writing and Reckoning. Behold! these two brothers had come to the house of their father, and it had become known to them, as it was known to him, that death was coming upon their father.

Now their father had sent to the scribes for the book in which is written the description of the journey and the trials of the soul after death, and he would not be at peace until he had taken that book into his still living hands. Therefore he called upon his sons to keep guard over him so that no evil spirit might come upon him and take the strength out of his hands or the sight out of his eyes until he held and looked into the book that is called the Book of the Dead.

Each of his sons swore before him that he would hold back such evil spirit, the one thinking of the overmastering strength that was in his arms, and the other thinking of the overmastering strength that was in the spells he possessed. Swift messengers had been sent to the scribes, and these messengers would be back with the morning light.

Behold! Edfu went forth and stood at the east side of the house, his strength knit like the panther of the South, and his brother, Nefer-ka, went forth and stood at the west side of the house, intent as the hawk of Horus.

It was the hour when Rê, the Sun God, goes down into the Under. world. And the soldier, watching that going-down, thought upon the vengeance wrought by Rê: what he thought upon kept Edfu fierce and wakeful.

The soldier thought to himself: Now Rê was mocked by men who said to themselves, "Rê has reigned over us for hundreds of years; he has become old; his bones are like silver, his flesh is like gold. Who is Rê now that he should he a master over us?"

And Rê, hearing men talk like this, said, "These men who make mock of me will flee into the deserts and the mountains when I send forth against them my daughter, even Sekhmet." The soldier watching towards the east recalled the appearance of Sekhmet.

She had a lion's head upon a woman's body. At the word of her father she went forth against men and her voice resounded horribly. She made the rivers run with the blood of men. The soldier, watching in the night, had a vision of men fleeing before lion-headed Sekhmet as before the army of Pharaoh. The mountains did not hide them, the deserts did not hold them. Sekhmet slew and slew, and her voice re. sounded as a lion's. Those whom she did not reach to slay were over. come by terror because of her resounding voice. So Sekhmet strode through the land of Egypt.

The soldier told himself what had happened afterwards: Rê began to have pity upon men, and he sought to deliver men from Sekhmet. But even Rê could not deliver men from the lion-headed Goddess--of herself she must cease to slay. Rê pondered on how this might be brought about. At last he said to Thout who had all his counsel, 'Tall to me the messengers who are as swift as the storm-clouds." Thout called upon them, and the messengers appeared before the majesty of Rê.

He said to the messengers, "Run to Elephantine; hasten; go and bring back to me quickly the fruit that causes sleep, even the mandrake. Be swift, for what has to be accomplished must be accomplished ere dawn."

The messengers hastened as the storm-wind. They came to Elephantine; they took up the fruit that causes sleep, even the mandrake. Scarlet was that fruit; the juice of it was the colour of men's blood. The messengers brought the fruit before the throne of Rê.

Then the Gods and Goddesses--even Shu whose place is in the upper air, and Qêb, and Nut and Nuu from whom came Rê himself--even these great Gods crushed the barley and made the beer. Seven thousand measures of beer the Gods made then. They brewed it in haste, for the dawn was about to break; with the beer they mixed the juice of the mandrake. Rê saw that the mixture was like to the blood of men; he said, "With this beer I can save mankind."

The Gods took the seven thousand measures of beer, and ere the night passed they brought the beer to the place where men and women had been slain by Sekhmet, the lion-headed Goddess. They spilled the beer over the fields; its colour was the colour of blood.

Then came Sekhmet ready to slay. As she passed she looked to this side and to that, looking out for her prey. No thing living did she see. The fields were covered with beer that was the colour of blood. Sekhmet laughed; her laughter was like the roaring of a lioness. She thought in her heart that, she had shed all this blood. She stooped and she saw her face reflected therein, and she laughed again. She stooped and drank; again and again she drank. Then laughter came from her no more, for the juice of the fruit that causes sleep had mounted to her brain. No longer could she slay. And she went when Rê called to her, "Come, my daughter; come, my sweet one; come and rest." The lion-headed Goddess rested, and so men were saved from her destructiveness.

Edfu the soldier looked towards the east, and, behold! there was a redness there that was like the redness of the beer that had covered the fields when Sekhmet the lion-headed Goddess saw her face reflected therein. And still Edfu, crouched like the panther of the South, watched against the coming of whatever evil spirit that might strive to enter the house with malice against his father.

At the west side of the house Nefer-ka the scribe watched: on his lips, ready to pronounce, were the spells he had learned. He had watched from the time of the going-down of the sun, from the time of the daily death of Rê.

And Rê, being dead, was laid on the boat that is named Semektet, the boat that is seven hundred and seventy cubits in length. Nefer-ka the scribe knew what journey Rê was to make in that boat: he followed Rê on his journey through the Underworld.

The boat Semektet, with the dead Rê laid upon it, makes its way through the Realm of the Dead. The twelve Goddesses of Night take their places in the boat to guard Rê. With them goes Up-uaut, the Opener of the Ways. With them goes Isis, the sister and the wife of Osiris, she to whom is known the greatest spells.

Slowly goes the boat of Rê, slowly it goes, passing through the Realm of the Dead. At the entrance to every region there, there is a great gate. The guardian of each hour speaks the name at which the gate opens; then the boat of Rê goes through. And when the Goddess of the First Hour has given place to the Goddess of the Second Hour, and when the Goddess of the Second Hour has given place to the Goddess of the Third Hour, the boat of Rê, the boat Semektet, comes into the region named Amentet where Osiris reigns.

Then, thinking of what passes during that Third Hour and in that Third Realm, the scribe Nefer-ka looked up into the sky, and, behold! there were the never-vanishing stars which are the souls of those who have been justified by Osiris.

In the realm of Amentet Osiris reigns, Osiris who is God of the Dead. All who die come before his throne for judgment. Their hearts are weighed against the Feather of Truth. The throne of Osiris is beside a running stream; from its waters a single lotus blossom arises. Upon the blossom the four children of Horus, the son of Osiris, stand, their faces towards Osiris. The first has the face of a man, the second has the face of an ape, the third has the face of a jackal, the fourth has the face of a bird of prey. The heart of the dead man is weighed against the Feather of Truth: if The man has not been purified the feather weighs down the scale, and it sinks lower and lower. If the man has been made pure the feather sinks and the heart rises. Then Thout, the God of Writing and of Reckoning, takes the heart and puts it back into the breast of the man; Horus takes the man by the hand. All this the scribe Nefer-ka saw as though it had been before him, for he had been instructed in all that is in that book that is called the Book of the Dead.

The Goddess of the Third Hour gives place to the Goddess of the Fourth Hour, and the boat in which Rê is laid comes before another gate. The name of the guardian of that gate is pronounced; the gate opens; the boat makes its way through another region. All desert is this region. The Fourth Hour passes and the Fifth Hour is at hand. The Goddess of the Fifth Hour pronounces the name, and the boat that is named Semektet enters the Fifth Region.

On either side guarding this region are creatures whose bodies are the bodies of lions and whose faces are the faces of men; they dig into the sand with talons that are the talons of eagles. Sokar the Fierce is guardian of this region. He stands upright there, he who has the head of a hawk on the body of a man.

The Goddess of the Fifth Hour makes way for the Goddess of the Sixth Hour. The gates are flung wide as the name is pronounced. Then the boat enters the realm that is named Abyss of Waters--the Sixth Realm of the Realm of the Dead.

As the scribe thought upon these mysteries he knew that the Sixth Hour was passing. Behold! The Morning Star that now leads the boat of Rê onward appeared in the sky. This, the Sixth Hour, is an hour that is evil for men. For in the realm that is named Abyss of Waters is the monster ’Apop who holds the world together in his coils, but who waits to destroy Rê the Giver of Light and Life, and plunge the world into lifeless dark. Now as the boat of Rê journeys through the Sixth Realm those on the boat behold on the banks of the river the vast shapes of the Gods. The Gods cry aloud to Rê as he passes lifeless in the boat that is named Semektet; their voices that are as the roaring of bulls come across that vast abyss as the murmur of bees. The monster ’Apop hisses and roars and strains at the chains that bind him.

But now Isis takes her place beside Rê. Her spells prevail and the monster is made helpless. The boat goes on and past the great sand-banks; ’Apop struggles to make himself free.

In the Seventh Hour the boat passes through a region of darkness and cold. But in this region is Khepri the Renewer. Here there is a great coiled serpent with five heads, and within his coils is Khepri. In the form of a scarab he flies into the boat of Rê; he awaits the time when he can bring back life to Rê On goes the boat; the Goddess of the Seventh Hour gives place to the Goddess of the Eighth Hour. In the Eighth Hour the boat passes through the region where are the tombs of the Gods. The tombs stand by a river: high mounds of sand are they: at each end of each tomb the head of a man watches the passing by of Rê Also a monstrous lion looms out of the darkness.

The Eighth Hour passes; the Ninth Hour passes and the Tenth Hour. Now a name is spoken, and the boat of Rê comes to the Eleventh Region.

The scribe Nefer-ka thought upon this region. It is a region feared by those who are rejected by Osiris. Near by are Pits of Fire. Goddesses whose breaths are of flame hold in their hands gleaming swords of fire. The scribe lifting up his head saw in the sky what seemed to be reflections from these Pits of Fire.

The Goddess of the Eleventh Hour now gives place to the Goddess of the Twelfth Hour. The name of power is pronounced once more, and the last great gate is opened. Now Khepri fastens himself upon Rê; Rê is transformed into Khepri and lives again. Out between pillars of turquoise comes the boat of Rê. And where the boat goes there is a great island on which the Gods rest: there stands the Tree of Life, growing between the ocean and the sky, between the upper and lower worlds. Its fruit keeps the Gods and the souls of the dead who have been justified before Osiris in eternal youth; the past as well as the future is written on its leaves. Now as the boat passes with Rê living once more within it the Gods come as dogs to his feet, rejoicing to greet him.

The Sun, renewed, was showing himself once more to men. The scribe Nefer-ka held his hands out to the disk and chanted his salutation to Rê, the Great One: He commanded, and the Gods were born.
Men came forth from his eyes, and the Gods from his mouth.
He it is who made the grass for the cattle, and the fruit: tree for men; he who created that wherein live the fishes in the stream and the birds in the heaven; he who putteth the breath in the egg, and nourisheth the son of the worm, and produceth the substance of insects; he who maketh what is necessary for mice in their holes and nourisheth the birds on every tree.
It is for love of him that the Nile cometh, he, the sweet, the well-beloved. and at his rising men do live.
And this Chief of the Gods hath yet his heart open to him that calleth on him. He protecteth the fearful against the audacious man.
Therefore is he loved and venerated by all that doth exist, in all the height of heaven, in the vastness of the earth, and the depth of the sea.
The Gods bow down before thy majesty and exalt their Creator.
They rejoice at the approach of Him who did beget them:
Be praised! say the wild beasts. Be praised! saith the Desert.
Thy beauty conquers hearts.

In the light of the risen Sun, Nefer-ka the Scribe saw the messengers coming towards the house of his father, one of them bearing in his hands the book that described the journey and the trials of the Dead, and behold! Edfu, his brother, was standing before him declaring that his father's living hands were stretched out to hold the book, and that his eyes had sight yet in them to read what was in the book.

BABYLONIAN

IN THE BEGINNING

In the beginning there was Apsu the Primeval, and Tia_mat, who is Chaos. There were no other beings. The waters were not separated; they and the earth mingled, and there was no ground for the growth of anything. Then nothing bore name; no destinies had been ordained.

Then the Gods came into existence: Lakhmu and Lakhamu. Ages passed. Other Gods came into existence: Anshar and Kishar. Ages passed. Then Ea, Anu, and Bel came into existence.

The Gods considered how the waters might be separated from each other, how the earth might be separated from the waters, how names might be given and destinies ordained. And as the Gods considered these things, the realm of Tia-mat, the Mother of All, was made small for her. She conceived a hatred for the Gods; with Apsu she plotted the destruction of those whom she had borne.

Then, behold! Tia-mat roused up the Ancient Monsters; she spawned monsters never known before. She made ready to destroy the Gods. The Gods felt their realm shake, and they were affrighted.

Then Anshar opened his mouth and spoke to Anu, his son. He said to Anu, "Go forth and appease Tia-mat, so that the Gods may not be destroyed by her who bore them." Anu went forth. He saw the monsters that Tia-mat had formed; his heart failed him, and he turned back to the dwelling-place of the Gods. They were filled with fear when they looked upon the countenance of Anu.

Then Ea was sent forth to appease Tia-mat. He saw the Ancient Monsters that she had roused up. They were sharp of tooth and cruel of fang; they bore merciless weapons. Ea was affrighted, and he turned back to the dwelling-place of the Gods. The Gods looked upon his countenance and they were affrighted. The lesser Gods wailed bitterly, crying, "What has changed that she should conceive this hatred for us? We do not understand the evil will of Tia-mat!"

Then Marduk, his heart prompting him, rose in the assembly of the Gods. He opened his mouth and spoke, saying, "Lo, I, Marduk, will be the champion of the Gods if ye decree in your council that whatever I do shall remain unaltered, and that whatsoever my mouth speaketh shall never be changed nor made of no avail." Then the Gods said, 'Thou shalt be the chiefest among the great Gods; established shall be the words of thy mouth; irresistible shall be thy command; none of the Gods shall transgress thine ordinances! O Marduk, thou art our champion!"

They prepared for him a lordly chamber; they bestowed upon him the sceptre, the throne, and the ring. And the Gods girded weapons upon their champion: they gave him his bow and his spear; they put a club in his right hand and he grasped it; they hung a quiver by his side. He himself prepared a great net for the taking of the monsters that Tia-mat had formed and the Ancient Monsters that she had roused up.

Tia-mat raged; she was full of wrath against the Gods. With terror and with splendour she clothed her monsters so that their crested heads were lifted high. She gave them invincible weapons. With poison in. stead of blood their bodies were filled. The dwelling-places of the Gods were shaken as she gave the battle signal to her hosts, as Tia-mat uttered the spell that aroused them for battle.

Then Marduk went into his chariot; the lightning and the thunderbolt were in his hands. The Gods beheld him and knew that none could inspire such terror as he. He harnessed his four horses; he yoked them to the chariot. Ferocious, high of courage, swift of pace were Marduk's horses; moreover, they had been trained to trample enemies underfoot. They gnashed with their teeth and their bodies were flecked with foam. So Marduk went forward, and the seven winds he had created followed in his course. They were the Storm and the Hurricane; the Whirlwind, the Four-fold Wind and the Seven-fold Wind; the Wind that has no Equal, and the Wind that is called the Evil Wind. The Gods followed Marduk.

Now when Marduk neared where Tia-mat was, the movement of Tia-mat's host ceased; the monsters were affrighted by the appearance of Marduk. But Tia-mat rushed on; she uttered angry cries; with unbent neck she taunted the Gods. All things were shaken.

Marduk let loose the Evil Wind. Tia-mat's mouth was opened; the wind rushed in and filled her belly. She lay down: no more could she give battle-orders to her monsters. Marduk drove his spear through the heart of Tia-mat. He stood upon her prone body. Then, sweeping his net around, he took the monsters in his net. The whole world was filled with their cries.

He trampled on Tia-mat, and she, the Mother of All, was as a reed that is broken. With his club he shattered her skull. He cut channels for the blood to flow out of her, and he bade the winds bear her blood away into the secret places.

As a man splits a flat fish, Marduk split the body of Tia-mat. He set one half of her above as a covering for the heavens; he fixed bolts there so that the floods that are above may not be voided upon the earth, and he stationed a watchman to guard the bolts. Of the other half of Tia-mat's body he made the earth. He divided all that was made between Anu, Bel, and Ea--the Heavens, the Earth, and the Abyss. He fixed the stars in their places; he ordained the year and divided it; he caused the Moon God to shine, and he gave him the night for his portion.

Thereafter Marduk devised a plan. He opened his mouth and he spoke to Anu, Bel, and Ea. "My blood I will take and bone I will fashion; I will make man to inhabit the earth so that the service of the Gods may not fail ever." So Marduk spoke, and man began to live upon the earth.

GILGAMISH

Into the Temple where his mother dwelt Gilgamish went, and when she saw by the look upon his face that he was bent upon going on some strange journey or upon doing some terrifying deed, his mother cried out to Shamash, the Sun God, asking him why he had given her son a heart that could never keep still. And Gilgamish, hearing her cry, said to her, "Peace, O woman! I am Gilgamish, and it must be that I shall see everything, learn everything, understand everything." Then his mother said to him, "These longings are yours, O Gilgamish, because not all of you is mortal. Two-thirds of your flesh is as the flesh of the Gods and only one-third is as the flesh of men. And because of the God's flesh that is on you, you must be always daring, always rest. less. But yet, O my son, you have not immortal life. You must die because a part of you is man. Yea, Gilgamish, even you must die, and go down into the House of Dust."

And Gilgamish, hearing his mother say this, groaned loudly, terribly; the tears flowed down his cheeks; no word that was said to him might content him. He groaned, he wept, even although in the courts of the Temple he heard the women sing:

Who is splendid among men,
Who is glorious among heroes?

And answer back, one to the other:

Gilgamish is splendid among men,
Gilgamish is glorious among heroes.

In a while he rose up and he said, "O Ninsunna, O my mother, what is it to die?"

Then Ninsunna, his mother, made answer, and said, "It is to go into the abode out of which none ever returns: it is to go into the dark abyss of the dread Goddess, Irkalla. They who dwell there are without light; the beings that are there eat of the dust and feed on the mud." So his mother said, and Gilgamish, the great king, groaned aloud, and the tears flowed down his face.

Gilgamish dwelt in Erech, and was king over the people there. The works that he did in Erech were mighty, surpassing the works of men. He built walls round the city that were an hundred cubits in thickness and in height over a hundred cubits. He built towers that were higher than any that men had builded before. He built great ships that went upon the great sea. All these things he did because Gilgamish had a restless heart. But the people of Erech groaned because of the labours he laid upon them; they groaned and sent up prayers to the Gods.

The Gods harkened to the prayers of the people of Erech; they said in the Council of the Gods, "Behold, Gilgamish lays upon the people labours that crush them. The life goes out of them, and they no longer can offer sacrifice to the Gods. He lays these labours upon them because he alone is mighty in the world. But if we make one who is mightier than he, Gilgamish will be abashed when he sees that one, and no longer will he think that he is lord of all; then will he not engage in labours that give his people no rest."

The Gods called upon the Goddess Aruru. And Aruru considered in her heart how she would make one who was mightier than Gilgamish. Thereafter she washed her hands and she took clay and mixed her spittle into it. And Aruru made a being, a living male creature that was in the likeness of the God Anu. His body was covered all over with hair so that he appeared to be clothed in leaves. The Gods named him Enkidu, and they gave him the wild places of the earth for his portion.

And Enkidu, mighty in stature, invincible in strength, lived in these wild places. Gilgamish passed through the land he dwelt in, but saw him not. Gilgamish passed through the land to make war upon Khumbaba who dwelt in the country where the forests of cedars are. Those who went with him were struck with awe when they saw the cedars in their height and in their closeness of growth together; they were worn out because of their journey and the fear that possessed them, and they prayed to the Gods to deliver them from under the hand of a king who had a heart that was so restless. They came upon Khumbaba whose voice was like the roar of a storm, whose breath was like a gale of wind. They fought the armies of Khumbaba, these soldiers of Gilgamish, and Gilgamish himself fought Khumbaba and with his own hand slew him. And then Gilgamish and his army passed through the country where Enkidu maintained himself, but they saw not Enkidu. And Enkidu, mighty in stature, invincible in strength, drank the water that the wild cattle drank and ate the herbs that the gazelles lived on; he was a friend to the wild beasts and he knew not the faces of men.

Now when Gilgamish returned to Erech, his city, after having overthrown Khumbaba, he heard the women in his palace sing:

Who is splendid among men,
Who is glorious among heroes?

And he heard the women answer back, one to the other:

Gilgamish is splendid among men,
Gilgamish is glorious among heroes.

But he remembered what had been told him about the House of Dust and the Abyss of the Goddess Irkala; he groaned, and the tears coursed down his face.

Below the forest of cedars dwelt a hunter, a young man who dug pits and laid nets for the wild beasts that were upon the mountains. One day, expecting to find many wild beasts in his pits and his nets, he went to them, but behold! the pits he had digged were filled up and the nets he had laid were torn; also the prey had been taken out of the nets and the pits. Then the young man, the hunter, went up the mountain, and coming nigh a pit he had made he watched, for he saw something at the pit. He saw the shoulders and the head of a man. And he watched the man come out of the pit, and he had upon his shoulders a gazelle that had fallen into it. And behold! the man went to where a company of gazelles stood waiting, and they were not fearful of the man. He laid down the gazelle he carried, and the gazelle joined the company of gazelles. Then the man went back and filled up the pit with earth, and went with great strides towards the forest. The young man, the hunter, saw that he was all naked and covered with hair; and that the hair on his head was long and like a woman's. The hunter was affrighted, and he went from the place. He came upon others of the pits he had digged, and they were all filled up; there was no creature near any of them, nor was there one under any of the nets he had laid.

Then was the hunter made anxious. He said within himself, "What shall become of me? I till no land, and I know of no way of living save by my nets and my pits! But if the creatures that have been snared are taken out of my pits and from under my nets, what shall I do to find food for myself and my parents?" He wept as he spoke thus to himself, and, carrying no beast, he went back to the hut where his father was.

His father heard what the young man said and considered it. "This is one who is friendly to the beasts and knows not the faces of men," he said. "What he has done he will do again and yet again, and there will be no prey left for us in the pits or under the nets. Therefore, we must have him led away from this place. Often have you brought beasts to the Temple in Erech to be sacrificed there to Anu and Ishtar and the rest of the Gods. Go to that city and into the place of the mighty Gilgamish, and have those in the Temple give you a woman of the Temple to go with you. And when the one who has not seen the faces of men sees the face of the woman of the Temple, and sees her take off her veil, he will be amazed; he will go to the woman of the Temple, and she will speak with him and will draw him from this place."

The young man, the hunter, did as his father instructed him: he went into Erech, the city that Gilgamish ruled over, and he went within the Temple. He spoke to Ninsunna, the mother of Gilgamish. And having heard what he had to tell, the mother of Gilgamish brought to him a woman of the Temple; she put the woman's hand in the hunter's hand, and the young man brought the woman out of that place and into the mountainous region where he had looked upon Enkidu.

It was then that Ishtar the Goddess stood before Gilgamish in her terrible beauty. She said unto him, "Thou, O Gilgamish, shalt be my man; I shall be thy woman. Thou shalt come into my house, and those who sit upon the thrones shall kiss thy feet. Gifts from the mountain and the lowland shall be laid before thee. I shall make to be harnessed for thee a chariot of lapis-lazuli and gold; the wheels of it shall be gold and the horns upon it shall be precious stones. Thou shalt harness to it mighty horses; they shall prance proudly; there shall be no horses like unto the horses that shall be under thy yoke. All these things shall be for thee when, with perfume of cedar upon thee, thou shalt come into my house."

Gilgamish made answer to the Goddess; in wrath he spoke to Ishtar, the Beautiful One, the Terrible One, answering her: "Thy lovers have perished. Thy love is like to a door that letteth in the storm. Thy love is like a fortress that falls upon and crushes the warriors within it. The lover of thy youth, Tammuz, even he, was destroyed; destroyed are all the men whom thou hadst to do with. The creatures who come under thine influence rejoice, but they rejoice for a while only: the wing of the bird is broken through thee; the lion is destroyed; the horse is driven to death. Thou sayst thou lovest me, Ishtar. Loved by thee I should fare as they have fared."

When Ishtar heard the words that Gilgamish spoke she was filled With wrath. She left the place where he was. She meditated evil against him. In a while she made a fire-breathing bull and sent it down into Erech to destroy Gilgamish and Gilgamish's people.

The young man, the hunter, went back into the mountain regions where he had digged pits before and spread his nets. He brought the woman of the Temple with him. He made her to sit nigh the place where the wild beasts came to drink; he bade her draw to her the wild man if he should come to drink with the beasts.

Then the hunter went away. The Temple woman sat by the pool, plaiting the tresses of her hair. One by one the beasts came to drink, but finding there the scent of a human creature they went away.

At last Enkidu, the wild man, came down to the pool. He did not have the power of scent that the beasts had. He went into the drinking-place and he filled his palms with water, and he raised them up to his mouth, and he drank. The Temple woman saw him there in his great stature, with the hair on his head long and flowing as if it were a woman's, and the hair on his skin making him look as if he were dressed in leaves. She called out; she spoke, and Enkidu heard her voice.

He saw her; she held her arms out to him; she took off her veil. Then Enkidu was astonished. He went towards her, and she took his hand, and she led him away. He came under the spell of the Temple woman's beauty; he would not leave her, but stayed where she stayed at the edge of the forest. On the sixth day he rose up and went away from where she stayed. His heart had become hungry to look upon the wild beasts whose friend he had been. He went towards where the companies of gazelles were. The gazelles fled from him. He went to where the wild cattle grazed, and the wild cattle fled as soon as he came near to them. He went to where the panthers were, and the panthers bounded away when he came near to them. Then Enkidu was sore in his heart. He cried out, "Why do my friends, the beasts, forsake me?" He did not know that the beasts had wind of another human creature in the wind that was from him. Wherever he went the beasts fled from him. Then Enkidu was made ashamed; his knees gave way under him; he swooned away from shame.

When he rose up again he went back to where the Temple woman stayed, and the beasts still fled before him. The Temple woman waited for him; she smiled upon him; she held out her arms to him, and spoke flattering words to him. He stayed with her and she spoke to him of Erech, and of the Temple, and of Gilgamish the Mighty. At last she led him with her to Erech, Gilgamish's city.

It was then that Gilgamish had his struggle with the fire-breathing bull that Ishtar, in her anger, had sent against him and his people. Multitudes of the inhabitants of the city had been destroyed by the bull. Gilgamish--even he--was not able to prevail against the Bull of Heaven. He lodged an arrow in the neck of the bull. Still it came on against him, and Gilgamish had to flee from before it.

And the bull came upon the way along which Enkidu was coming with the woman of the Temple. He laid his hands against the front of the bull, and held it. Then Gilgamish came and delivered mighty blows between its horns and its neck, and when the bull would have trampled upon him, Enkidu, with his mighty strength, pulled it backwards. Gilgamish with Enkidu attacked the bull again. Long they fought against the fury of the fire-breathing bull, but at length the two of them slew Ishtar's mighty creature.

The Goddess appeared upon the battlements and cursed them for having destroyed the Bull of Heaven. And Enkidu, fearless before Gods and before men, tore the flesh from the side of the bull and threw it at the feet of Ishtar. The Goddess and all the women of the Temple made lamentations over the portion of the bull that had been flung up to them.

But Gilgamish called together the people of the city. He showed them the creature that had been slain. They looked, and they marvelled at the size of the horns, for they were horns that could hold six measures of oil. Gilgamish took the horns of the Bull of Heaven to the Temple of the God Lugalbanda, and he hung them before the seat of the God. He made friends with Enkidu. And he and Enkidu went down to the river Euphrates, and there they washed, and they came back and they stood in the market-place. All men marvelled at the stature and power of these two, Gilgamish and Enkidu. Gilgamish took Enkidu to his palace; he gave him the raiment of a king to put on; he gave him a chair, and he had him sit on his left side; he gave him food fit for the Gods to eat, and wine fit for a king to drink. These two mighty men became friends, and they loved each other exceedingly.

Together Gilgamish and Enkidu hunted; together they made war; the lion and the panther of the desert fell to their bows and spears. And at last the people of Erech had rest from their labours, for no longer did Gilgamish make them weary raising great buildings, and they had peace, for no longer did he bring them to make war upon the people of far lands.

A time came when Enkidu longed for the life of the forest. Thither he went. And Gilgamish, when he knew that his friend has gone from Erech, put on coarse attire; he arrayed himself in the skin of a lion, and he pursued Enkidu. And Enkidu was glad because of this, for he knew that his friend, the noble Gilgamish, would not forsake him. Together they lived in the forest; they hunted together and they became more and more dear to each other.

Later Enkidu had a dream that terrified him. He dreamt that there were thunderings in the heavens and quakings in the earth. He dreamt that a being came before him and gripped him in talons that were the talons of an eagle, and carried him down into a dread abyss. There Enkidu saw creatures that had been kings when they were upon the earth; he saw shadowy beings offering sacrifices to the Gods. He saw in the House of Dust priests and magicians and prophets dwelling. He saw there Bêlit-sêri who writes down the deeds done upon the earth.

Enkidu was terrified; he knew not the meaning of the dream that had come to him. To Ninsunna he went, and he told her his dream. She wept when she heard him tell it. But she would not tell him the meaning that it had.

Thereafter Enkidu lay down on the well-decked bed that Gilgamish, his friend, had given him. He groaned upon his bed. Gilgamish came to comfort him, but Enkidu, although he had joy of Gilgamish's coming, could not banish from his heart the thing that had been shown him in his dream. For ten days he lay upon his bed with Gilgamish beside him. In two days more his sickness became more grievous. Then Enkidu lay silent, and Ninsunna said to her son, "Now is Enkidu dead."

Long gazed Gilgamish upon Enkidu, his friend in the palace, his companion in the hunt upon the mountains and in the forest, his brave ally in his fight against the Bull of Heaven. Long gazed Gilgamish upon his friend lying there. Then Gilgamish said:

"What kind of sleep is this that is upon thee?
"Thou starest out blankly and hearest me not.
"Shall this sleep be upon Gilgamish also? Shall I lie down and be as Enkidu?
"Sorrow hath entered into my soul.
"Because of the fear of death that hath come upon me my heart is restless; I shall go; I shall wander through the lands."//

Then Gilgamish touched the breast of his friend, and he found that the heart in his breast was still. Tenderly, as though leaving it over a bride, Gilgamish laid the covering over Enkidu. He turned away; he roared in his grief as a lion or as a lioness robbed of her young. And when his roarings had ceased, his mother said to him, "What dost thou desire, my son, and what is it that will quiet the grief and the restless. ness that are in thine heart?"

Gilgamish said to her, "My desire is to escape death which hath taken hold of Enkidu, my friend."

His mother said, "Only one hath escaped death; the one is Uta-Napishtim the Remote, thine ancestor."

THE STORY OF UTA-NAPISHTIM AND OF THE DELUGE THAT DESTROYED ALL THAT WAS ON THE EARTH

Now in the Temple there were tables on which were inscribed the history of Uta-Napishtim the Remote, of him whom the Gods had made immortal. These tables had the very words of Uta-Napishtim upon them. And these are the words that were written there:

"I lived in Shurippak, the city of the sun, a city that was old, and had the Gods dwelling in it. The Gods decided in their hearts to destroy mankind by wind and by flood, so that none would be left living. on the earth. Anu, the Father of the Gods, was there when this thing was thought upon, and Enlil, the Warrior of the Gods, and En-urta, the Messenger of the Gods. But the Gods considered again, and they decided to leave living on the earth one man and his family.

"Ea went to the place where I was. He cried to me where I slept; he cried to me to come out of my house and to build a ship; he cried to me to abandon all my possessions and to save my life.

"He told me of the dimensions of the ship I was to build; he told me of the measures of grain I was to take on board that ship. And he commanded that I should go before the elders and people of the city and say to them that Enlil bore ill-will towards them and that he was set upon destroying them. Then I said to Ea, 'Whither shall I sail when I have built the ship?', and he said, 'To the Gods. Trust thy ship upon the flood and be not fearful.'

"I spoke to the elders and the people of the city. They but mocked me. I gathered my servants around me and I began the building of the ship. I made it a hundred and twenty cubits in length; I covered it with pitch and bitumen; I provided a strong steering-pole for it. And when the ship was built I loaded it with grain, and took my family on board it. The beasts of the field and of the wilderness, also the birds came on board it; they came in pairs. When all was made ready the God Shamash appeared before me. He signified to me that at even-tide a great flood would be loosed upon the earth.

"A rain-flood came at even-tide. I watched the darkness coming and the storm. Terror possessed me as I watched. I went within where my family were and the beasts and birds were in pairs, and I bolted down the doors; yea, I bolted down the nine parts which I had made inside the ship. I committed the ship and all that was on board of it to the mercy of the Gods.

"Then a black cloud came up, and out of the black cloud and the whirlwind the Gods thundered. The Star Gods of the Southern Sky brandished their torches. Every gleam of light was turned to darkness. Floods descended out of the heavens. The waters attacked mankind as in a battle. Fathers no longer saw their children; brother no longer saw brother. The rains descended until the waters mounted to the tops of the hills. As they mounted up, the Gods themselves were filled with fright; they went out of their own places; they went into the high heaven of Anu. Ishtar, the Lady of the Gods, cried out like a woman in travail. Yea, Ishtar lamented, crying against herself for speaking of this flood in the presence of the Gods. The Gods of the Southern Sky wailed with her, and for six days and six nights rain fell and the wind beat down all that was upon the land.

"But after the seventh day the raging flood ceased; the whirlwind and the rain-storm ceased, and the waters no longer rose. I looked over the waters; I saw that calm had come. Calm had come, but the land had been laid out flat, and mankind had been turned to mud. I bowed myself down; I fell upon my face and tears flowed down my cheeks. I looked to the four quarters of the world and all that I saw was the open sea. Then for twelve days the ship went on. The ship rested on the mountain of Nisir and it moved no more.

"And when, after seven days, the ship still rested, I opened an air-hole and light fell upon my face. I let a dove fly forth. The dove came back to the ship for there was no place for her to light. I let a swallow fly forth. The swallow also returned. I let a raven fly forth. The raven did not return; she saw the land come up through the sinking waters; she ate; she pecked on the ground; she croaked, and did not come back to me.

"Then I brought out all that was on board the ship; I brought all to where the four winds blew. I offered up a sacrifice. I poured out a libation where I stood upon the peak of the mountain. There Ishtar, the Lady of the Gods, appeared before me; she cursed Bel for having brought about the flood.

"The God Bel was wroth seeing that a portion of mankind had been saved from the flood. He raged. He cried out, 'None shall be left alive; no man shall be left living in this destruction! But the God En-urta pleaded with Bel for mankind, and Bel relented. Then the God Ea went to the ship, and took me by the hand, and brought me forth and brought my wife forth; he turned our faces towards one another and made us kneel together. He blessed us, saying, 'Formerly Uta-Napishtim and his wife were mortals; now let Uta-Napishtim and his wife be like the Gods themselves, having immortal life.'"

The tables having been read to the end, Gilgamish said, "How may I go to where Uta-Napishtim is, and what is the way to his dwelling? I would go to him whom the Gods have made undying and find out from him how a man may save himself from going down into that abyss that is Irkalla's."

His mother said, "All that we know is that the dwelling-place of Uta-Napishtim is beyond Mount Mashu, where the sun rises and sets."

Thereupon Gilgamish set out for Mount Mashu. In the foothills of the mountains he was attacked by lions; he killed many of the lions, but others followed him almost till he had reached the top of the mountain. And when he came nigh to the top of the mountain he saw the dread guardians of the place where the sun rises and sets. They were the Scorpion Men, and they were fearful even to look upon. And Gil. garnish said when he saw them, "Would that Enkidu, my friend, were with me now, for only with his help might I overcome the guardians here, the glance of whose eyes makes me tremble." He went on; he came before the dread guardians of the mountain-top, and he, even Gilgamish, bowed himself humbly before them.

The Scorpion Men said, one to the other, "The bodies of those who come this way we devour, but behold! the man who comes towards us has flesh that is two-thirds flesh of the Gods. We may not devour his body." With voices that made shake the rocks of the mountain-top they bade Gilgamish pass by. And they cried out to him that he was entering into a region of darkness, and that no one who had gone that way had ever come out of that darkness.

And, lo! Even as they spoke Gilgamish went into the darkness. The sight of the sky and the mountain was cut off from him. The darkness became thicker and heavier as he went on; no mortal had ever gone through darkness such as this darkness. For a space that was equal to a day and a night, Gilgamish went on, went through a deep and deeper darkness. He thought that the light would never come into his eyes again. And then he came into a place where there was light. He saw bright daylight all round him. He saw before him a garden that was filled with bright flowers and glowing fruits.

This was the place and this was the garden of the Goddess Siduri-Sabitu. In the garden was the Tree of the Gods: Siduri-Sabitu guarded it. Gilgamish saw the Goddess. Siduri-Sabitu sat upon a throne beside the sea. She said to him:

"Who are you who come to this Place with wasted cheeks, and with face bowed down?

"Your heart is sad; your form is dejected, and lamentation is in your heart! None such as you come here, to the garden in which is the Tree of the Gods."

She ordered her servants to close the gate of the garden against him. Gilgamish laid hands upon the gate and he shook it so that its foundations rocked. He said to the Goddess, "I go to where Uta-Napishtim the Remote is, to Uta-Napishtim, my ancestor."

She spoke to him from her throne while his hands were still upon the gate, making its foundations rock. And he said to her, "I am Gilgamish, and Enkidu, who was my friend, has become like the dust. The fate of my friend lies heavily upon me, and therefore do I travel this way so that I may speak with my ancestor, Uta-Napishtim, and be rid of my fear of death. O Sabitu, thou who sittest by the sea, and hast charge of the gate, speak to me, and tell me the way to the land where Uta-Napishtim abides. Give to me a description of the way. If it be possible, I will cross the sea to come to his country. If it be impossible to cross the sea, I will cross over the land, even if it be a land that darkness rests upon."

Then the Goddess Siduri-Sabitu, the guardian of the gate, knowing that two-thirds of his flesh was as the flesh of the Gods, made answer to Gilgamish. She said to him, "The sea that I sit beside and that thou dost look upon is the Waters of Death. None have crossed these waters heretofore save Shamash, the Sun God."

"I would cross these waters," Gilgamish said.

Said Siduri-Sabitu, sitting on her throne beside the sea, "There is a Ferryman, Ur-Shanabi, who crosses this water. Find him, and may. hap he will ferry thee across to where Uta-Napishtim is."

He waited by the sea until he saw the Ferryman, Ur-Shanabi. He went into his boat. For fifty days and nights they voyaged across the Waters of Death, and the Ferryman warned Gilgamish not to touch with his hand the waters they passed over. They reached the limits of the Waters of Death; they came to the land where Gilgamish's ancestor, Uta-Napishtim, had his abode.

Uta-Napishtim the Remote walked with his wife by the waters. He saw the boat of Ur-Shanabi coming towards him. He, astonished that another beside Ur-Shanabi was in the boat, waited by the shore.

Gilgamish came out of the boat, and he went to the two figures that stood by themselves. Uta-Napishtim knew his descendant, and he spoke kindly to Gilgamish.

Then Gilgamish told him of what had happened to him in the world of men; he told how his friend Enkidu had been taken from him, becoming as dust, he who had been like the panther of the desert, he who had aided him to destroy the Bull of Heaven. "Shall not I myself also be obliged to lay me down and never rise up to all eternity?" he cried to Uta-Napishtim. And again he cried, "I was horribly afraid. I was afraid of death, and therefore have I fled from my own country." But Uta-Napishtim the Remote made answer to Gilgamish, and he said, "None may find out the day of their death, for Mammitum, the Arranger of Destinies, has settled it, and none knows but Mammitum."

And as Uta-Napishtim spoke Gilgamish ate and refreshed himself. Having refreshed himself he lay in the boat and drowsiness overpowered him; he fell into a slumber. Then Uta-Napishtim said to his wife, "Behold the one who would find immortality; he cannot keep drowsiness away from him." Gilgamish slept. For six days the wife of Uta-Napishtim baked bread and laid it beside him. On the seventh day when she brought him bread, she touched him, and Gilgamish wakened up.

Then all day he questioned Uta-Napishtim about the ways of escaping death. Uta-Napishtim told him that at the bottom of the sea that he had crossed, and in the middle of it, there grew a plant, and that he who ate of it nine days after it had been gathered would escape death. Having told him this, Uta-Napishtim told the Ferryman to make ready to take Gilgamish back across the Waters of Death.

The Ferryman made ready; the wife of Uta-Napishtim gave Gilgamish bread to last him for his journey across. When they came to the middle of the sea, Gilgamish fastened stones to his feet and let himself sink down in the water. He found the plant that grew at the bottom of the sea, and, rejoicing, he gathered it. He went into the boat and they came to a land under the mountain. The land was pleasant, and Gilgamish rested himself there. Not yet had come the time for him to eat the plant he had gathered.

A serpent smelled the plant and came to where Gilgamish was. Now Gilgamish would bathe in the water of a pool, for he needed the refreshment of water. He went into the pool. And while he was in the pool the serpent came upon the plant and ate it--yea, ate all of the plant. Then was Gilgamish left without that which would have given him escape from death. He wept, and the spirit of Enkidu came before him, and told him of the Land of the Dead and of how men fared who entered into it.

ISHTAR'S DESCENT INTO THE WORLD BELOW

A time came when the Lady of the Gods, even Ishtar, thought upon the spouse of her youth, upon Tammuz; her heart inclined her to go down into the realm of Irkalla, into the Place of Darkness where Tammuz had gone. So, in all the magnificence of her apparel, in all her splendour and power, the Lady Ishtar went into the cavern that goes down to the realm of Irkalla. She came to the place that is surrounded by seven walls, that has seven gates opening into it, the place where the Dead sit in unchanging and everlasting gloom. Before the first gate she called upon the Watchman, Nedu: "Ho, Watchman! Open thou the gate that I may enter in!" The Watchman looked at her from over the gate; he did not speak to her; he did not open the gate to her. "If thou openest not the gate, I will smite upon it; I will shatter the bolt, and beat down the doors! Yea, I will bring away the Dead that are under the rule of thy mistress! I will raise up the Dead so that they will devour the Living, so that the Dead shall outnumber those that live!" So spoke the Lady of the Gods standing before the gate in all her power and splendour.

And hearing her commanding voice and looking upon her in all her power and splendour, Nedu, the Watchman of Irkalla's realm, said, "Great Lady, do not throw down the gate that I guard. Let me go and declare thy will to the queen, to Irkalla." He went before the queen. And hearing of the coming of the Lady of the Gods, Irkalla was angered terribly. She bade the Watchman open the gates and take possession of the new-comer according to the ancient usages. He returned to the first gate. He laid hands upon that side of the gate on which the dust lies thick; he drew the bolt on which the dust is scattered. "Enter, O Lady, and let the realm of Irkalla be glad at thy coming; let the palace of the land whence none return rejoice at thee." He said this and he took the great crown off Ishtar's head. "Why hast thou taken the great crown off my head?" "Enter so, O Lady; this is the law of Irkalla."

So Ishtar entered through the first gate and saw the second wall before her. With head bent she went towards it. The Watchman at her coming opened the second gate. "Enter, O Lady, and let the realm of Irkalla be glad at thy coming; let the palace of the land whence none return rejoice at thee." He said this and put forth his hand and took that which was at her neck, the eight-rayed star. "Why, O Watchman, hast thou taken the eight-rayed star?" "Enter so, O Lady; this is the law of Irkalla."

So the Lady Ishtar, her head bent, the radiance gone from her, went through the second gate and saw the third wall before her. The Watchman opened the gate that was there. "Enter, O Lady. Let the realm of Irkalla be glad at thee; let the palace of the land whence none return rejoice before thee." He said this and he took the bracelets from off her arms-the bracelets of gold and lapis-lazuli. "Why, O Watchman, hast thou taken the bracelets from off mine arms?" "Enter so, O Lady; this is the law of Irkalla."

So Ishtar, her head bent, the radiance gone from her, and no longer magnificent in the gold of her ornaments, went through the third gate and saw the fourth wall before her. The Watchman opened the gate that was there. "Enter, O Lady. Let the realm of Irkalla be glad at thee; let the palace of the land whence none return rejoice before thee." He said this and he took the shoes from off her feet. "Why, O Watchman, hast thou taken the shoes from off my feet?" "Enter so, O Lady; this is the law of Irkalla."

So the Lady Ishtar, her head bent, the radiance gone from her, no longer magnificent in the gold of her ornaments, with stumbling and halting steps went through the fourth gate and saw the fifth wall before her. The Watchman opened the gate that was there. "Enter, O Lady. Let the realm of Irkalla be glad at thee; let the palace of the land whence none return rejoice before thee." He said this, and he put forth his hand, and he took her resplendent veil away. "Why hast thou taken the veil from me?" "Enter so, O Lady; this is the law of Irkalla."

So Ishtar, her head bent, the radiance gone from her, no longer magnificent in the gold of her ornaments, no longer resplendent in her apparel, with stumbling and halting steps went through the fifth gate and saw the sixth wall before her. The Watchman opened the gate that was there. "Enter, O Lady. Let the realm of Irkalla be glad at thee; let the palace of the land whence none return rejoice before thee." He said this, and he took off her outer robe. "Why hast thou taken my outer robe?" "Enter so, O Lady; this is the law of Irkalla."

So the Lady Ishtar, her head bent, the radiance gone from her, no longer magnificent in the gold of her ornaments, with apparel no longer full nor resplendent, with stumbling and halting steps went through the sixth gate and saw the seventh wall before her. The Watchman opened the gate that was there. "Enter, O Lady. Let the realm of Irkalla be glad at thee; let the palace of the land whence none return rejoice before thee." He said this, and he took off her garment. "Why hast thou taken off my garment?" "Enter so, O Lady; this is the law of Irkalla."

And naked, with her splendour, and her power, and her beauty all gone from her, the Lady of the Gods came before Irkalla. And Irkalla, the Goddess of the World Below, had the head of a lioness and the body of a woman; in her hands she grasped a serpent. Before her stood Bêlit-sêri, the Lady of the Desert, holding in her hands the tablets on which she wrote the decrees of Irkalla.

Ishtar saw the Dead that were there. They were without light; they ate the dust and they fed upon mud; they were clad in feathers and they had wings like birds; they lived in the darkness of night. And seeing their state, Ishtar became horribly afraid. She begged of Irkalla to give her permission to return from the House of Dust where dwelt high priests, ministrants, magicians, and prophets; where dwelt Tammuz, the spouse of her youth. But Irkalla said to her:

Thou art now in the land whence none return, in the place of darkness;
Thou art in the House of Darkness, the house from which none who enter come forth again;
Thou hast taken the road whose course returns not;
Thou art in the house where they who enter are excluded from light,
In the place where dus