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Now, I seye you, why] yit that Stratonice duellede with her formere housbond, hir mette a dreme how that Iuno bade hir to bylde the temple for hir in the Holy Cytee, and if sche sholde not obeye, sche manaced hir with manye harmes. Atte first, sche ne took no fors (note) of it; but after, whan a grete sykness hent hir, sche told the dreme to hir housbond and enforced hir to apayen (appease) Iuno, and behight (promised) to bylde the temple. Anon sche becam hool, and thanne hir housbond wolde sende hir to the Holy Cytee, and with hir a gret tresor and a gret hoost, some for to bylden and other some for here seurtee. Therfore he sompned oon of his frendes, a right fayr yong man that highte Combabe,The name Kombabos, which does not occur elsewhere in Greek, has been identified as that of the opponent of Gilgamesh in the Gilgamesh-Epic, Hu(m)-ba-ba (Schrader- Zimmern, p. 570, and note 2), Clay has shown (pp. 49-53) that this name is not Elamite, but Amorite or West Semitic; he holds that it was borne by a historical personage who lived in a cedar district of the West and humiliated Babylonia at the time of Gilgamesh, about 4000 B.c. However that may be, Kombabos is Humbaba, and in this story, which is the temple-legend, the name of Kombabos is the significant part; Stratonice has taken the place of an earlier female. I believe her immediate predecessor was Semiramis, from Ammianus Marcellinus, 14, 6, 17, and her general connection with this site; she in her turn probably ousted an earlier Sima or Ata, with whom Kombabos may have been brought into connection through building or rebuilding the temple (cf. Clay, p. 51, note 22). and seyde: “For thou art noble, Daun Combabe, I love thee most of alle mine frendes, and I preyse thee gretli for thy coninge and for thy gode wille to me, that thou hast discovered beforn. And now me nedeth of grete feyth, wherfore I wole that thou folwe my wyf, for to acomplisshe the werke in my name, and to perfourme the sacrifises, and to reule the hoost; and whan thou retornest thou schalt gete highe worschipe fro me.” Therwith anon Combabe gan preye and beseche him ful besily that he scholde not send him forth ne betaken (entrust) him nouther that tresor, that was moche to en:rust gret for him, ne his wyf, ne the holy werk. For he was adrad lest that ialousie scholde assayle him afterwardes as touching to Stratonice, that he moste lede forthe allone.
