This chapter directly addresses a popular literary-historical comparison between two well-known scenes, the encounter of Gilgameš and Ištar in the Epic of Gilgameš VI, and the encounter of Diomedes and Aphrodite in Iliad 5, but draws attention to possible links between the Gilgameš episode and the Mesopotamian lexical tradition. These links suggest that the episode may have emerged from a specifically Mesopotamian scholarly or didactic background, which, the author argues, makes scenarios of oral transmission of Gilgameš to the Greek world seem questionable. As in the case of Enūma eliš, the immediate Mesopotamian context of Gilgameš will have to be taken into account in any comparative effort to situate the literary texts in an even broader context.