The Epic of Gilgamesh in Play Book Tag

Jun 25, 2018 Michael rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, mythology, religion, iraq

This epic mythological tale was a surprisingly fun read overall and a powerful portrait of the power of male friendship and grief at its loss. Written about 1,700BC, it stars a king of the ancient Mesopotamian king of Uruk living around 2,700BC who is arrogant and unjust to his people. For example, every new bride is his for the bedding before the bridegroom has his joy. The people pray to the gods for relief from his tyranny, and in answer a temple prostitute is sent into the wilds to bring bac This epic mythological tale was a surprisingly fun read overall and a powerful portrait of the power of male friendship and grief at its loss. Written about 1,700BC, it stars a king of the ancient Mesopotamian king of Uruk living around 2,700BC who is arrogant and unjust to his people. For example, every new bride is his for the bedding before the bridegroom has his joy. The people pray to the gods for relief from his tyranny, and in answer a temple prostitute is sent into the wilds to bring back a soulmate for Gilgamesh. The wild man, Enkidu, has been living in innocence among the animals and knows nothing of civilization. The priestess makes love to him for days on end and by such means is he seduced to her quest.

After a period of competitive interactions, including wrestling matches, the king and tamed monster become bosom buddies and probably lovers. The goddess Ishtar takes a fancy to Enkidu, who rejects her advances and promises of heavenly rewards, backed up by the king heaping many insults on her head. In revenge, she gets the top gods to lend her the ferocious Bull of Heaven Peace to kill the king and his buddy. A comic scene of their quick disposal of the beast ensues.
Peace and justice begins to bloom in the kingdom. But Gilgamesh just has to express of superman role by finding a monster to slay. He persuades Enkidu to join him on a mission to kill the giant Humbaba, who has long been tasked by a god to guard a sacred cedar forest. Enkidu advises the king against such a foolish challenge, both from its danger and affront to the god. But his loyalty and love of the king leads him to buck but up his friend’s courage and turn the battle into success at the point of disaster. This seals Enkidu’s doom. When sickness and death is brought down on him, Gilgamesh’s grief seems to hold no bounds, much in the vein of Achilles written 1,000 years later:

Then he veiled Enkidu’s face like a bride’s.
Like an eagle Gilgamensh circled around him,
he paced in front of him, back and forth,
like a lioness whose cubs are trapped in a pit,
he tore out clumps of his hair, tore off
his magnificent robes as though they were cursed.

In his despair, Gilgamesh is tormented by intimations of his own mortality. He is driven to leave his kingdom on a long, perilous quest to find the one man the gods have blessed with immortality, Utnapishtim, and learn his secret for gaining that status. All he gets for his efforts is platitudes, a diversionary tale of Noah’s Ark (cribbed much later as a lesson for the Torah), and a special healing plant, which the king loses by neglect to a snake on the way back home. At the end, his arrival at the beautifully walled city of Uruk is described identical to the beginning verses of the epic.

This version of the tale was composed by Mitchell as a synthesis of prior translations and with invented insertions for all the missing sections lost among the collection of clay tablets inscribed with Sumerian cuneiform as discovered at the late date of 1853 in a dig at Ninevah. Half of the volume is a delightful commentary on the details of the epic and interpretations about their meanings and significance. Quite the eye-opener for me, having always presumed ancient tales to comprise very simplistic analogies about human nature and the conflicts between good and evil. A nice complement to similar conclusions reached from recent reads of the Iliad and Odyssey.
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Mar 17, 2022 L.S. Popovich rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: iraq, great-masterpieces, canon, epic-fantasy, 5-star, audiobook, 2022, mythology

An excellent and indispensable piece of literature. Entertaining and elegant. Re-readable but also unforgettable. The first hero + anti-hero. Primordial but universal. The first friendship depicted in literature. The first anything depicted in literature. Makes me wonder what the author would be capable of composing had they lived in an advanced society, with access to precedent works. How are myths created, dramatized, preserved, and translated? The supplementary material enlightens us on the c ...more

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Dec 19, 2011 Kelly Lynn Thomas rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, myth-and-lore, classics

I'd like to point out that giving a star rating to Gilgamesh is rather ridiculous. Yes, I could rate the translation/edition, but I don't think this is the one I have and I couldn't find the one I have. So yeah. It's fucking Gilgamesh. It's fucking awesome. ...more

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