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153 to end, until Enlil, on the Mount of Salvation where the ark came to rest, "holding me by the hand, took me aboard the ship; he took my wife aboard and made her kneel by my side. Standing between us, he touched our foreheads to bless us. Hitherto Utnapishtim has been mortal (Enlil said), henceforth Utnapishtim and his wife shall be as we gods are; Utnapishtim shall reside far away, at the mouth of the rivers. Thus they took me and made me reside far away, at the mouth of the rivers." That, Unapishtim concluded, is the whole truth about his escaping a mortal's fate. "But now, who will for thy sake call the gods to Assembly, that the Life which thou seekest thou mayest find?" Realizing that only a decree of the gods meeting in Assem- bly could give him Immortality, and not his own searches, Gilgamesh passed out; for a week he lay unconscious. When he came to, Utnapishtim called upon Urshanabi the boatman to take Gilgamesh back, "that he may return safe on the way by which he came." But as Gilgamesh was ready to depart, Utnapishtim, pitying him, decided to disclose to him yet an- other secret: Everlasting life is attained not by being immor- tal—it is attained by staying forever young! Utnapishtim said to him, to Gilgamesh: Thou hast come hither, toiling and straining. What shall I give thee to take back to your land? Let me disclose, Gilgamesh, a closely-guarded hidden matter— a secret of the gods I will tell thee: A plant there is, like a prickly berrybush is its root. Its thorns are like a brier-vine's; thine hands the thorns will prick. [But] if with thine own hands the plant you could obtain, Rejuvenation you will find. The plant grew underwater, perhaps in the well or spring in the splendid garden. Some kind of a pipe led to the source or depths of these Waters of Life. No sooner did Gilgamesh hear the secret, than he "opened the water-pipe, tied heavy In Search of Immortality