41 This is the value of the ideographic sign by which the abode of the
dead is designated. It also bears two other names, which are of
great importance, as proving that the Semites, far from borrowing
from the Greeks their belief in another life, have, on the contrary,
furnished the latter with the names which they have bestowed on the
regions of the departed. In the poem of the descent of Istar into
hell this region is, in fact, denominated _Eribus_, probably meaning
“the house of darkness,” from _Ereb_, “evening,” from whence the
Erebus of the Greeks; and _bit edie_, “the house of the eternities,”
from _ed_, “eternity,” from whence comes doubtless the Greek Hades.
The etymology αίδης is not historical, and may easily be an
arbitrary invention. Acheron, also, seems very probably derived from
_Acharon_, the West, the place of darkness, the land of the dead.
(See Talbot, _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_.)
42 _Prem. Civ._ The original text of this poem is given in _Choix de
Textes Cuneiformes_, pp. 100, 105.
43 _Transactions of the Soc. of Bibl. Archæol._ vol. i., p. 107, and
partially translated by Lenormant, _Prem. Civ._
44 See the two articles by M. Renan upon, or rather _against_, the
“Expédition en Mesopotame” of M. Oppert, in the _Journal des
Savants_, 1859.
45 “Let my mouth be filled with thy praise, alleluia, that I may sing,
alleluia; my lips shall greatly rejoice when I shall sing to thee,
alleluia, alleluia.”