Gilgamesh

by Stephen Mitchell

“My beloved friend is dead, he is dead, my beloved brother is dead, I will mourn as long as I breathe, I will sob for him like a woman who has lost her only child.”

‘If my grief is violent enough, perhaps he will come back to life again.’

When there’s no way out, you just follow the way in front of you.

There is no way to overcome death; there is no way to control reality. “When I argue with reality, I lose,” Byron Katie writes, “-but only 100 percent of the time.”

Only the gods live forever.Our days are few in number, and whatever we achieve is a puff of wind. Why be afraid then, since sooner or later death must come?

“Shouldn’t my cheeks be hollow, shouldn’t my face be ravaged, frost-chilled, and burnt by the desert sun? Shouldn’t my heart be filled with grief? Shouldn’t I be worn out and ready to collapse? My friend, my brother, whom I loved so dearly, who accompanied me through every danger—Enkidu, my brother, whom I loved so dearly, who accompanied me through every danger—the fate of mankind has overwhelmed him. For six days I would not let him be buried, thinking, ‘If my grief is violent enough, perhaps he will come back to life again.’ For six days and seven nights I mourned him, until a maggot fell out of his nose. Then I was frightened, I was terrified by death, and I set out to roam the wilderness. I cannot bear what happened to my friend—I cannot bear what happened to Enkidu—so I roam the wilderness in my grief. How can my mind have any rest? My beloved friend has turned into clay—my beloved Enkidu has turned into clay. And won’t I too lie down in the dirt like him, and never arise again?”