The Epic of Gilgamesh

by Anonymous

For him the epic was first and foremost ‘das Epos der Todesfurcht’, the epic about the fear of death.

In the fourteenth century, at the height of the Late Bronze Age when the eastern Mediterranean was dominated by the great powers of the Egyptian New Kingdom and the Hittite Empire, the lingua franca of international communications in the Near East was the Akkadian language.

the Deluge.

R12306130605 Atra-hasis

Said Enkidu to her, to the harlot:I 215 ‘Come, Shamhat, take me along to the sacred temple, holy home of Anu and Ishtar, where Gilgamesh is perfect in strength, like a wild bull lording it over the menfolk. ‘I will challenge him, for [my strength] is mighty,I 220 [I will vaunt] myself in Uruk, saying “I am the mightiest!” [There] I shall change the way things are ordered: [one] born in the wild is mighty, strength he possesses.’

R12306130619 Amazing how strong the influence of a beautiful woman's word of encouragement... too strong!

a woman’s counsel struck home in his heart.

he drank the ale, a full seven jugfuls. His mood became free, he started to sing, his heart grew merry, his face lit up.

I shall face a battle I know not.

Now, my friend, how frightened I am!]

R12306141527 Sarcasm is millennia-years-old.

Taking each other hand in hand, Gilgamesh and Enkidu went to the Palace Sublime.

R12306141533 Today it isn't uncommon for men in Asia, paticularly South Asia, to walk hand-in-hand.

I shall face a battle I know not, ‘I shall ride a road I know not:

One friend is one alone, but [two are two!]V 75 ‘Though they be weak, two ……, [though one alone cannot climb] a sloping rampart, two [will succeed!]

Why have you come here into my presence?

R12306152038 I didn't know either

‘Why, my friend, [do you] speak like a coward?V 130 With your feeble talk you vex my heart.

R12306152047 Gilgamesh Uttered the same lines to Enkidu when the former had been convincing the latter to join his quest. Then he spoke concerning matters unknown. Funny how Gilgamesh trembles at that which is known.

‘Never, O Gilgamesh, did a dead man please a master, [but a slave] alive [brings profit] to his owner.

my life so precious: [as for] the hunter, the trapper-man, who let me not get as much as my friend:

‘O Enkidu, why curse Shamhat the harlot, who fed you bread that was fit for a god,VII 135 and poured you ale that was fit for a king, who clothed you in a splendid garment, and gave you as companion the handsome Gilgamesh?

one who [falls] in combat [makes his name,] but I, [I do not fall] in [combat, and shall make not my name.]’

teeming Uruk,]

I shall weep for Enkidu, my friend,

Like a lioness deprived of her cubs,

R12306172154 Did the ancient Sumerians, unlike the Greeks, know that lions sprang forth from lions and lionesses, not lions and tigers? This I recall from Grube'sb Iliad

‘I am afraid of death,

the darkness was dense, [and light was there none:]

What became of my friend [was too much] to bear, [so on a far road I wander the] wild;

R12306181239 Death anxiety may push one to deign to face the unknown or enter the wilderness.

But you,] you toiled away, and what did you achieve? You exhaust yourself with ceaseless toil. You fill your sinews with sorrow, bringing forward the end of your days.

‘Man is snapped off like a reed in a canebrake! The comely young man, the pretty young woman – all [too soon in] their [prime] Death abducts them! ‘No one at all sees Death, no one at all sees the face [of Death,]X 305 no one at all [hears] the voice of Death, Death so savage, who hacks men down.

‘But the seventh day when it came,XI 130 the gale relented, the Deluge ended.

‘I brought out a raven, I let it loose: off went the raven, it saw the waters receding,XI 155 finding food, bowing and bobbing, it did not come back to me.

He crossed the first mountain range, he did not find the cedar he wanted, he crossed the [second] mountain range, [he did not find] the cedar he [wanted,]UrF he crossed the third mountain range, [he did not find] the cedar he wanted, he crossed the fourth mountain range, [he did not find] the cedar he wanted, he crossed the fifth mountain range, he did not [find] the cedar he wanted, he crossed the sixth mountain range, he did not find the cedar he wanted, but crossing the seventh mountain range, he found the cedar he wanted.

R12306181534 Why seven?

[The bane of mankind is thus come, I have told you,] [what (was fixed) when your navel-cord was cut is thus come, I have told you.] [The darkest day of mortal man has caught up with you,] [the solitary place of mortal man has caught up with you,] [the flood-wave that cannot be breasted has caught up with you,] [the battle that cannot be fled has caught up with you,] [the combat that cannot be matched has caught up with you,] [the fight that shows no pity has caught up with you!]

do not go down to the Great City with heart knotted (in anger),

Even … the wrestler can be caught in a throw-net! A bird of the sky, once fenced in by the net, does not escape one’s hand! A fish of the deep sees the … rushes no more, when the young fisherman casts his net, it is trapped within! No man, whoever he may be, can ascend … from the midst of the Netherworld,