Etana

Summary

Etana is the king of Kish in Mesopotamian tradition, the king who is said to have gone up to heaven on the back of an eagle. The Sumerian King List says that after the flood had swept over and kingship had come down from heaven, kingship was at Kish, and among its kings it names "Etana, the shepherd, who ascended to heaven and consolidated all the foreign countries, became king; he ruled for 1,500 years", followed by his son Balih.

His epic begins with a city that had no king. The gods planned the city of Kish and laid its foundations, the Igigi founded its brickwork, and they said: let Etana be its master builder. People had no king yet; no turban or crown had been bound on, and sceptre, turban, crown and shepherd's crook lay before Anu in heaven. Kingship came down from heaven, and Ishtar looked for a shepherd and searched everywhere for a king.

There was a shrine of Adad, and in its shade a poplar grew, with an eagle at its top and a serpent at its foot. The eagle and the serpent made a pact of friendship and swore before Shamash: whoever transgresses the limits of Shamash, may Shamash deliver him to a slayer. They hunted by turns: the eagle caught wild oxen and asses and the serpent and its young ate, the serpent caught buck and gazelle and the eagle and its young ate. When the eagle's young were grown, he plotted evil: I will eat the serpent's young, then go up and dwell in heaven. His littlest fledgling, who was wise, said: do not eat, father, the net of Shamash will hunt you down. He did not listen, went down and ate the serpent's young. When the serpent came back and found its nest empty it wept before Shamash: your net is the wide earth, your trap the distant heaven; let that malignant "Anzu", who harboured evil against his friend, not escape you. Shamash told the serpent: cross the mountain, I have caught a wild ox for you; open its belly and lie in wait inside. The birds came to eat; the eagle held back at first, then went down and worked his way into the entrails, and the serpent seized him by the wings, cut off his wings and feathers, plucked him and threw him into a pit to die of hunger and thirst. The eagle prayed to Shamash every day, and Shamash said: you are wicked, you have done what the gods abhor, I will not come near you; but I will send you a man who will help you.

Etana prayed to Shamash every day: Shamash, you have eaten my fattest sheep, the earth has drunk the blood of my lambs; give me the plant of birth, show me the plant of birth, take away my disgrace and give me an heir. Shamash told him: cross the mountain, you will find a pit with an eagle thrown into it, and he will show you the plant of birth. He found him, and in the old version grasped his hand in the seventh month and brought him out of the pit in the eighth, and the eagle ate like a ravenous lion until he was strong again, and said to Etana: my friend, let us be friends; ask me what you want. Etana said: open my eyes to what is hidden from me. The eagle carried him up, and at one league said: look, my friend, how the land is now. He said: the wide sea has become like a paddock. At the second league: the land has become a garden plot, and the wide sea the size of a trough. At the third league Etana said: I looked, but could not see the land, nor could my eyes find the wide sea; my friend, I will not go up to heaven, set me down, let me go back to my city. He fell, and the eagle swooped and caught him in his wings again and again, until he was within three cubits of the ground. Later Etana dreamed that the two of them passed the gates of Anu, Enlil and Ea, then of Sin, Shamash, Adad and Ishtar, and that he saw a house, broke its seal and went in, and Ishtar sat there enthroned with lions beneath her throne. The eagle said: your dreams are clear; come, let me take you up to heaven. They went up and passed the gates as he had seen, and there the tablet breaks off. Of the ending only the King List's word remains: Balih, son of Etana, ruled after him.

The idea the story turns on is that the kingship that came down from heaven lasts only with an heir, and that the heir can only be had by going up to where kingship came from. The way there passes through a broken oath: the eagle that betrayed his friend fell into the pit, and the king who wants to go up needs his wings, so each saves the other, and Shamash, who judges between the serpent and the eagle, is the one who shows the king the way. The ascent itself is a test of sight: the land shrinks to a field and the sea to a trough, then the land vanishes from the eye, the man is afraid and falls, and he goes up again only after seeing in a dream where the road ends.

We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this. It is written e-ta-na, and the Sumerian essay reads it from atana or waṭana, to settle and abide. Lane: atana bi-l-makān, he remained and stayed in a place and became fixed there; the waṭan is the settled place of abode a man takes as his home. Etana is then "the one who settles and makes fast", which is what the texts say of him: the gods build Kish and say "let Etana be its builder", Akkadian itinnu, which the editors in the electronic Babylonian Library suggest may be an ancient etymology of his name, and the King List says he "consolidated all the countries". What he seeks in the story is an heir to keep his house and kingship after him.

Linguistic Root

The essay's readings

The Sumerian essay gives three readings: atana and waṭana, to settle and abide, which it puts first, and ʿatana, to grow strong and hard; it also mentions watīn, the artery by which the heart lives. The Sumerian structural essay places waṭana in the ascent story: the settled founder who seeks lasting life so that his kingship may stand firm. Lane: atana bi-l-makān, he stayed in a place, became fixed and settled there; the waṭan is the place of abode. Lane has no ʿ-t-n; Tāj al-ʿArūs gives ʿatanahu ilā l-sijn, he drove him hard to prison, and al-ʿutun, the strong ones.

The meaning puts atana and waṭana first: the gods make Etana the builder of their city, and the King List says he "consolidated the countries". The letters need discussion. The e at the start of the name usually shows in Akkadian that a guttural, ʿ or ḥ, has dropped, as the project's laws say, while a glottal stop alone does not colour the vowel; so the first letter is closer to ʿ, which strengthens ʿatana in the letters and weakens it in the sense. Initial w is kept in Old Babylonian, so waṭana needs it to have dropped. One spelling writes the t with the sign that also reads ṭ, so the writing does not exclude waṭana. The first reading is nearer the story, and the letters do not decide yet.

Historical Context

The editors of the epic in the electronic Babylonian Library say that the story of Etana was probably known in the third millennium BCE, that the oldest surviving manuscripts come from Babylonia and Susa in the first half of the second millennium, then four Assyrian tablets from Aššur in its second half, then copies from Ashurbanipal's libraries at Nineveh in the first millennium. The Babylonian Catalogue of Texts and Authors names its author as the sage Lu-Nanna. An Old Babylonian wisdom text mentions his ascent and his childlessness, and divination texts refer to his journey to heaven as late as the second century BCE. In the Epic of Gilgamesh Enkidu dreams of the House of Dust: "there sat Etana, there sat Šakkan", and there sat Ereshkigal, queen of the netherworld.

Key Mythic Narratives

The Old Babylonian version

On the Old Babylonian Morgan tablet the story begins with the great gods, the Anunna, taking counsel over the land, and the Igigi ordaining a feast for the people; they had not yet given them a king, and the seven gates were barred against the mighty. On the Susa tablet the eagle and the serpent swear: "may the path be lost to him, may he not find the way, may the mountains deny him their passes", and then they give birth together, the serpent in the shade of the poplar and the eagle above it. In column vi of the Morgan tablet the eagle is brought out of the pit in the eighth month, and Etana asks that his eyes be opened to what is hidden from him.

The eagle the serpent called "Anzu"

In the serpent's complaint to Shamash the eagle is called anzû: "that malignant Anzu, who harboured evil against his friend". The bird that in another epic steals the Tablet of Destinies from Enlil gives his name here to any great bird that betrays. See Anzu. Standard version, Tablet II, 72.

Symbolic Reading

The Sumerian structural essay reads Etana's ascent as "human ambition" to pass beyond death and earthly limits, and sets it beside the ascents to heaven of Semitic tradition, the Prophet's night journey and Idris; the Sumerian essay compares him with the Greek Icarus. The text makes the ambition a particular request: an heir to inherit the kingship, and a plant of birth, not of lasting life. The reading the text supports from people's lives is that the king is a shepherd, as the King List calls him, and that his flock and house cannot last without a child, so he slaughters his sheep and lambs for Shamash and asks for a son, as the head of any household does.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

The eagle at the top of the tree and the serpent at its foot is one of the pictures of the world tree: Yggdrasil has an eagle at the crown and a dragon at the root with a squirrel carrying hostile words between them, and Inanna's tree has a snake at the root and Anzud's chick in the branches. In Etana's story the two swear friendship and then the bird betrays it.

Garuḍa, king of birds in India, is the enemy of serpents and flies to heaven to take the drink of immortality to ransom his mother from the serpents' slavery, as Etana's eagle flies the king to heaven in search of the plant of birth.

The eagle of Jupiter carries the Trojan boy up to heaven in Ovid's telling, where he becomes the gods' cupbearer; see Ganymede. Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.155–161.

Kingship came down from heaven to Kish with sceptre and crown, and the gods made Etana its builder and king, so his story is one of the gifts that come to people from heaven, as among the culture heroes. Adapa too went up to Anu's heaven and stood at its gate, was offered the bread of life and refused it; Etana went up seeking the plant of birth.