“With dawn’s first glow the horizon was darkened with a roiling cloud, soon engulfing the sky—within thundered Storm and Twin-destruction, Slaves of The Wind Lord, the three deities of the tempest, scourging the mountains first in their wrath.

“Pestilential War, [1] husband of Death, Burst the Dams of the Under Sea.

“The Earth Lord, son of The Wind Lord, opened the sluices of Heaven and rain fell in torrents.

“The powers of the Underworld set the flammable things of the earth afire.

“A deathly silence muted the heavens and the bright sky turned dark.

“The lands were broken and scattered like the shards of a pot.

“For a day the tempest tore the world to tatters, then Monstrous Flood was unleashed, scattering people like war.

“The rain fell so thick as to blind the eye.

“Even the gods quaked, their own eternal powers turning on them until they fled, cowering beneath the Heavenly Walls as Mighty Sky shut his palace gates against the Monstrous Flood.

“Sky’s sweet-lipped lover, Seed-Looser repented her evil-speaking against man at the convergence of the eternal powers. She moaned now with grief, that her earthly children would be devoured by Monstrous Flood, ‘I have birthed a race, only to see them swept away.’

“The other gods lamented alongside her, their lips parched and scabbed.

“The earth was smashed and then drowned for six days and into the seventh night. On the seventh day the rain relented. The Great Deep was all about, no land in sight, as if we bobbed upon the watery roof of a sunken world. Humanity had been returned to the clay from which it had been formed.

“I cracked the hatch and was kissed with the blessed rays of The Sun, so that I prostrated myself and cried.

“We soon ran aground on the heights of Mount Nimush. For six days and into the seventh night, the mountain held us close.

“On the seventh day I loosed a dove, which flew off and back, finding no perch.

“I waited, then I sent off a swallow, and it too returned, not having found a perch.

“I waited, then sent off a raven, which found a branch, perched, ate and flew off, never to return.

“When the waters had run off to reveal the land, I sacrificed a sheep upon the mountaintop to appease the gods, and set free the animals which Cosmos had instructed me to preserve.

“Two ranks of seven votive pots were arranged, where I burned reed, cedar, and myrtle, to sooth the wrathful powers with the upward wafting fragrance, bringing a holy visitation of the eternal powers:

“Seed-Looser held out her wedding gift from The Sky, the necklace of lapis lazuli.

“The Great Lady of The Sky then blessed the sacrifice and invited her fellow gods, all except for The Wind Lord who had drowned her children with his Monstrous Flood.

“But The Wind Lord came, and raged at the other gods, ‘Who aided these humans? The Flood was supposed to eradicate them!’

“His son, The Earth Lord, answered, ‘Cosmos is the cleverest of us all. Who else could arrange this?’

“Cosmos then said to The Wind Lord, counselor of the Eternal Powers, ‘You, wise and brave, how did you so recklessly send the Monstrous Flood to destroy mankind? To punish the sinner is just, but to punish all men for the sins of some is not. Rather than flood, you should have sent lions or wolves, [2] famine or pestilence. [3] I did not break my oath by disclosing our pact to them, simply whispered of it to a fence, which He Who Found Life happened to hear. Now you must decree his fate.’

“The Wind Lord then came aboard and took my hand, led out me and my wife and had us kneel before him. Touching our foreheads he blessed us, ‘Hear, oh gods, He Who Found Life is mortal no longer. He and his wife shall enjoy eternal life, living forever at the Source of Rivers, far away.’

“Then they conveyed us here, to this distant abode, at the Source of Rivers, and so we abide.”

1. Nergal

2. Two deep-seated holdover fears from the primal period of the Enkidu myth

3. The two core fears of the settled society

The second half of Book Eleven, which will appear in the print and e-book version, in two parts:

Seven Loafs: The Lesson of He Who Found Life

The Secret of Youth: Gilgamesh Returns with the Secret of the Gods