Let him return in health by the road that he came, Let him return to his country by the great gate by which he came forth.’ Pir-napištim said to his wife: ‘The suffering of men hurteth thee. Come, cook his food, set it by his head.’ And the day that he lay down in the enclosure of his ship, She cooked his food, she set it by his head: And the day when he lay down in the enclosure of his cabin First his food was ground, Secondly it was sifted, Thirdly it was moistened, Fourthly she rolled out his dough, Fifthly she threw down a part, Sixthly it was cooked, Seventhly he (or she) touched him suddenly, and he awoke a man! Gilgameš said to him (even) to Pir-napištim the remote: ‘That sleep quite overcame me Swiftly didst thou touch me, and didst awaken me, even thou.’ ” Pir-napištim, in answer to this, tells Gilgameš what had been done to him, repeating the description of the preparation of his food in the same words as had been used to describe the ceremony (for such it apparently is), and ending by saying, “Suddenly I touched thee, (even) I, and thou awokest, (even) thou.” Thus putting beyond question the personality of the one who effected the transformation which was brought about, though he leaves out the word “man,” which hid from the hero the fact that a transformation had in consequence taken place in him. The ceremonies were not by any means finished, however, for the boatman or pilot had to take him to the place of lustration to be cleansed, and for the skin, with which he seems to have been covered, to fall off. The Babylonian patriarch then tells him of a wonderful plant which would make an old man young again, and Gilgameš gets possession of one of these. On his way to his own country in the company of the boatman or pilot, he stops to perform what seems to be a religious ceremony, at a well, when a serpent smells the plant,(10) and, apparently in consequence of that, a lion comes and takes it away. Gilgameš greatly laments his loss, saying that he had not benefited by the possession of this wonderful plant, but the lion of the desert had gained the advantage. After a journey only varied by the religious festivals that they kept, they at length reached Erech, the walled. Here, after a reference to the dilapidation of the place, and a statement seemingly referring to the offerings to be made if repairs had not, during his absence, been effected, the eleventh and most important tablet of the Gilgameš series comes to an end. Of the twelfth tablet but a small portion exists, though fragments of more than one copy have been found. In this we learn that Gilgameš still lamented for his friend Êa-banî, whom he had lost so long before. Wishing to know of his present state and how he fared, he called to the spirit of his friend thus—