The Epic of Gilgamesh

by Anonymous

‘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. ‘Ever do we build our households, ever do we make our nests, ever do brothers divide their inheritance,X 310 ever do feuds arise in the land. 11 ‘Then all of a sudden nothing is there!’ ‘Ever the river has risen and brought us the flood, the mayfly floating on the water. On the face of the sun its countenance gazes, then all of a sudden nothing is there!X 315 ‘The abducted and the dead, alike is their lot! But never was drawn the likeness of Death, never in the land did the dead greet a man. ‘The Anunnaki, the great gods, held an assembly, Mammitum, maker of destiny, fixed fates with them:X 320 both Death and Life they did establish, but the day of Death they do not disclose.’