, like Ti-
Khumbi; or into those of princes, as Khumbanigash,
Khumbasundasa, Khumbasidh. The comparison between Khumbaba
and Combabos, the hero of a singular legend, current in the
second century of our era, does not seem to be admissible,
at least for the present. The names agree well in sound,
but, as Oppert has rightly said, no event in the history of
Combabos finds a counterpart in anything we know of that of
Khumbaba up to the present.

** G. Smith places at this juncture Gilgames's accession to
the throne; this is not confirmed by the fragments of the
text known up to the present, and it is not even certain
that the poem relates anywhere the exaltation and coronation
of the hero. It would appear even that Gilgames is
recognized from the beginning as King of Uruk, the well-
protected.

Ishtar saw him thus adorned, and the same passion consumed her which
inflames mortals.* "To the love of Gilgames she raised her eyes, the
mighty Ishtar, and she said, 'Come, Gilgames, be my husband, thou! Thy
love, give it to me, as a gift to me, and thou shalt be my spouse, and
I shall be thy wife. I will place thee in a chariot of lapis and gold,
with golden wheels and mountings of onyx: thou shalt be drawn in it by
great lions, and thou shalt enter our house with the odorous incense of
cedar-wood. When thou shalt have entered our house, all the country by
the sea shall embrace thy feet, kings shall bow down before thee, the
nobles and the great ones, the gifts of the mountains and of the plain
they will bring to thee as tribute. Thy oxen shall prosper, thy sheep
shall be doubly fruitful, thy mules shall spontaneously come under the
yoke, thy chariot-horse shall be strong and shall galop, thy bull
under the yoke shall have no rival.'" Gilgames repels this unexpected
declaration with a mixed feeling of contempt and apprehension: he abuses
the goddess, and insolently questions her as to what has become of her
mortal husbands during her long divine life. "Tammuz, the spouse of thy
youth, thou hast condemned him to weep from year to year.** Nilala, the
spotted sparrow-hawk, thou lovedst him, afterward thou didst strike
him and break his wing: he continues in the wood and cries: 'O, my
wings!'*** Thou didst afterwards love a lion of mature strength, and
then didst cause him to be rent by blows, seven at a time.**** Thou
lovedst also a stallion magnificent in t