* Ishtar’s declaration to Gilgames and the hero’s reply have been frequently translated and summarized since the discovery of the poem.  Smith thought to connect this episode with the “Descent of Ishtar to Hades,” which we shall meet with further on in this History, but his opinion is no longer accepted.  The “Descent of Ishtar” in its present condition is the beginning of a magical formula:  it has nothing to do with the acts of Gilgames.

** Tammuz-Adonis is the only one known to us among this long list of the lovers of the goddess.  The others must have been fairly celebrated among the Chaldaeans, since the few words devoted to each is sufficient to recall them to the memory of the reader, but we have not as yet found anything bearing upon their adventures in the table of the ancient Chaldaeo-Assyrian classics, which had been copied out by a Ninevite scribe for the use of Assur-bani-pal, the title of the poems is wanting.

*** The text gives kappi, and the legend evidently refers to a bird whose cry resembles the word meaning “my wings.”  The spotted sparrow-hawk utters a cry which may be strictly understood and interpreted in this way.

     **** This is evidently the origin of our fable of the
     “Amorous Lion.”

Thou didst also love the shepherd Tabulu, who lavished incessantly upon thee the smoke of sacrifices, and daily slaughtered goats to thee; thou didst strike him and turn him into a leopard; his own servants went in pursuit of him, and his dogs followed his trail.* Thou didst love Ishullanu, thy father’s gardener, who ceaselessly brought thee presents of fruit, and decorated every day thy table.  Thou raisedst thine eyes to him, thou seizedst him:  ’My Ishullanu, we shall eat melons, then shalt thou stretch forth thy hand and remove that which separates us.’  Ishullanu said to thee:  ’I, what dost thou require from me?  O my mother, prepare no food for me, I myself will not eat:  anything I should eat would be for me a misfortune and a curse, and my body would be stricken by a mortal coldness.’  Then thou didst hear him and didst become angry, thou didst strike him, thou didst transform him into a dwarf, thou didst set him up on the middle of a couch; he could not rise up, he could not get down from where he was.  Thou lovest me now, afterwards thou wilt strike me as thou didst these."**

* The changing of a lover, by the goddess or sorceress who loves him, into a beast, occurs pretty frequently in Oriental tales; as to the man changed by Ishtar into a brute, which she caused to be torn by his own hounds, we may compare the classic story of Artemis surprised at her bath by Actseon.

** As to the misfortune of Ishullanu, we may compare the story in the Abrabian Nights of the Fisherman and the Genie shut up in the leaden bottle.  The king of the Black Islands was transformed into a statue from the waist to the