[Illustration:  233.jpg ETANA CARRIED TO HEAVEN BY AN EAGLE.]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldaean intaglio.

“They at length arrive at the heaven of Anu, and rest there for a moment.  Etana sees around him nothing but empty space—­no living thing within it—­not even a bird:  he is struck with terror, but the eagle reassures him, and tells him to proceed on his way to the heaven of Ishtar. “’Come, my friend, let me bear thee to Ishtar,—­and I will place thee near Ishtar, the lady,—­and at the feet of Ishtar, the lady, thou shalt throw thyself.—­Place thy side against my side, place thy hands on the pinions of my wings.’  The space of a double hour she bore him:  ’Friend, behold the earth what it is.—­The face of the earth stretches out quite flat—­and the sea is no greater than a mere.’  The space of a second double hour she bore him:  ’Friend, behold the earth what it is,—­the earth is no more than a square plot in a garden, and the great sea is not greater than a puddle of water.’” At the third hour Etana lost courage, and cried, “Stop!” and the eagle immediately descended again; but, Etana’s strength being exhausted, he let go his hold, and was dashed to pieces on the ground.

The eagle escaped unhurt this time, but she soon suffered a more painful death than that of Etana.  She was at war with the serpent, though the records which we as yet possess do not vouchsafe the reason, when she discovered in the roots of a tree the nest in which her enemy concealed its brood.  She immediately proposed to her young ones to pounce down upon the growing snakes; one of her eaglets, wiser than the rest, reminded her that they were under the protection of Shamash, the great righter of wrongs, and cautioned her against any transgression of the divine laws.  The old eagle felt herself wiser than her son, and rebuked him after the manner of wise mothers:  she carried away the serpent’s young, and gave them as food to her own brood.  The hissing serpent crawled as far as Shamash, crying for vengeance:  “The evil she has done me, Shamash—­behold it!  Come to my help, Shamash! thy net is as wide as the earth—­thy snares reach to the distant mountain—­who can escape thy net?—­The criminal Zu, Zu who was the first to act wickedly, did he escape it?” Shamash refused to interfere personally, but he pointed out to the serpent an artifice by which he might satisfy his vengeance as securely as if Shamash himself had accomplished it.  “Set out upon the way, ascend the mountain,—­and conceal thyself in a dead bull;—­make an incision in his inside—­tear open his belly,—­take up thy abode—­establish thyself in his belly.  All the birds of the air will pounce upon it....—­and the eagle herself will come with them, ignorant that thou art within it;—­she will wish to possess herself of the flesh, she will come swiftly—­she will think of nothing but the entrails within.  As soon as she begins to attack the inside, seize her by her wings, beat down her wings, the pinions of her wings and her claws, tear her and throw her into a ravine of the mountain, that she may die there a death of hunger and thirst.”