The same would apply to the twelfth tablet, which
is almost entirely didactic, intended to illustrate the impossibility
of learning anything of the fate of those who have passed out of this
world. It also emphasizes the necessity of contenting oneself with the
comfort that the care of the dead, by providing burial and food and
drink offerings for them affords, as the only means of ensuring for
them rest and freedom from the pangs of hunger and distress. However,
it is of course possible that the twelfth tablet, which impresses
one as a supplement to the adventures of Gilgamesh, ending with his
return to Uruk (i.e., Erech) at the close of the eleventh tablet, may
represent a _later_ elaboration of the tendency to connect religious
teachings with the exploits of a favorite hero.
II.
We now have further evidence both of the extreme antiquity of the
literary form of the Gilgamesh Epic and also of the disposition to
make the Epic the medium of illustrating aspects of life and the
destiny of mankind. The discovery by Dr. Arno Poebel of a Sumerian
form of the tale of the descent of Ishtar to the lower world and her
release [11]--apparently a nature myth to illustrate the change of
season from summer to winter and back again to spring--enables us to
pass beyond the Akkadian (or Semitic) form of tales current in the
Euphrates Valley to the Sumerian form.
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