Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

ALEXANDER AND ETANNA. XXXIX
that Etanna wished to ascend to the highest heaven,
and an eagle said to him, "Rejoice, my friend,
"and let me carry thee to heaven. Lay thy breast
"on my breast, thy hands on my pinions, and letjoumey of
"my side be as thy side.'' When the eagle had and" aa"na
soared upwards for two hours with Etanna clasping '^°''^'''"''
him, he shewed the hero the great Ocean which
surrounded the world, and the earth's surface
which appeared like a mountain projecting from
it. After another two hours the eagle shewed him
that the Ocean clasped the land like a girdle, and
after a third two hours they saw that the sea had
become like a little pool of water.' At this moment
they reached the door of the gods Anu, Ea, and
Bel, and bird and man rested together. A gap
in the text comes here, but when the story begins
again the eagle is carrying Etanna to the goddess
Ishtar, and he flies upwards for three periods of
two hours each, drawing the hero's attention three
times in much the same words as before to the
rapidly diminishing earth. Presently the eagle's
strength seems to fail, and he falls down and down,
carrying the hero with him, and at length Etanna
falls on the earth and is dashed to pieces. Theongm of
Ethiopian translator received the story through the ' ^ '^^ '
Arabic from the Greek,^ and the Greek must, in
ii. Heft 2, p. 39off; and Meissner, Alexander und Gilgamos,
p. 17.
' See Lidzbarski in Bezold's Zeitschrift, Bd. viii. p. 266 f.
^ See Pseudo-Callisthenes, Bk. ii. chap. 41.