406 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babyloniasmelt the sweet savour of the offering, and rejoiced that there
were men still left to prepare it for them. They gathered, we are
told,“like flies above the offerer,”while Beltis lifted up“the
bow that Anu had made.”
En-lil alone refused to be reconciled. He vented his wrath at
the escape of Xisuthros and his family upon the Igigi or angels,
who, as spirits, were more under his control than the gods.
[442] But Ea took the blame upon himself, and, after declaring that
the righteous must not suffer with the guilty, persuaded Bel to
promise that though he might send the wild beast, the famine,
and the pestilence upon mankind, the earth should never again
be visited by the waters of a flood. Then Bel entered the ship,
blessed Xisuthros and his wife, and translated them to the other
world.
After hearing the story, Gilgames fell into a deep sleep, which
lasted six days and seven nights, while the wife of Xisuthros
prepared magic food, which she placed at the head of the sleeper.
When he awoke he ate it, and his sickness departed from him.
But his skin was still covered with sores, and it was therefore
necessary that he should bathe in the purifying waters of the
ocean before the full strength and beauty of his youth came back
to him.
Xisuthros now tells him of the plant of immortality which
grows, covered with thorns, at the bottom of the ocean. The hero
accordingly ties heavy stones to his feet, and dives for it; and
though the thorns pierce his hands, he brings a branch of it to the
surface, and prepares to carry it to the world of men. But the gift
of immortality was not for men to possess. On his voyage home
Gilgames stops awhile at a fountain of cool water, and while he
bathes in it a serpent perceives the odour of the plant, and steals
it away. Vainly the hero laments its loss, the plant that“changes
age into youth”could never be brought to a world the law of
which is death.
Man must die, but what is the lot of the dead? This is the