Gilgamesh
It’s the last Sunday of the month so we’re looking at religion, and this weeks book is...not quite religious. But it IS the world’s oldest surviving myth, Gilgamesh, this version is by Stephen Mitchell. So let’s do this.
So, myth informs religion, which is why I picked this one. That and...well, I did start reading the Torah. And to be honest, I’ve known people who have made entire sermons out of “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth….” I feel like it would be exceptionally rude to glibly read through the whole thing, even just a single book, then try to summarize it. We’re talking thousands of years of humanities collective knowledge. It should not be speed read through and quickly recapped. I think it’s meant to be absorbed and mulled over with implications pondered.
And maybe Gilgamesh was meant for the same. I certainly saw some parallels between what I read in this legend, and a whole lot of what I’ve read about over the last few years. I’ll see if I can explain the parallels as I go through this.
Gilgamesh is a giant of a man, a leader, a king. He is two thirds divine and only one third human, the son of King Lugalbanda, who became a god, and the goddess Ninsun. You do realize that this epic is not completed...they did just find another chapter in 2011, which adds to chapter five and his battle in the Cedar Forest. So I have no doubt more is out there. Why do I say we know the poem is not completed? Well, chapter one, it says on his return from speaking with Utnapisham, who was made immortal for surviving the great flood, Gilgamesh brought back ancient forgotten rites, restoring temples that the flood had destroyed, renewing statutes and sacraments for the welfare of the people and the land. Well, this version ends after he starts his return from Utnapisham. So we don’t know what those forgotten rites were. Which is a shame, because that was probably fascinating.
Gilgamesh was the perfect man. The strongest, handsome, perfect, radiant.
And also, an asshole. He knows he’s the kings son, he knows he owns everything, the entire city is his. He does what he wants, taking sons from their fathers and crushing them, using daughters at his whim. This is where the concept of prime nocte comes from, the king has virginal rights over any new bride, and Gilgamesh exercises those rights exclusively.
The people are rightfully aggrieved by this tyrant, so they cry to the gods, asking for help from them the tyrant who rules over them. The gods hear this plea and go to Anu, the father of the gods, and speak on the behalf of the people. And ask him to intervene with Gilgamesh, the tyrant. And Anu agrees, and directs Aruru, who created humans, to make a double of Gilgamesh, perfect in every way, equal in every way, to balance out Gilgamesh’s assholishnish. So the NICE Gilgamesh. Kind of like the ID of Gilgamesh.
Aruru obeys and crafts from the clay of the earth Enkidu, a man, a warrior, a hero. He is brave, he is fierce, he is...hairy. That’s actually in the description “Hair covered his body, hair grew thick on his head and hung down to his waist, like a woman’s hair.”
And he’s a child of nature. He is not just dropped off in walled Uruk, he’s running around with the antelope and the deer, eating grass and drinking from the watering holes. Until one day a trapper sees him, and realizes this is the guy who has been letting animals out of his traps and filling in the pit traps he’s dug. But the trapper is NOT a big, brave, muscle bound, heroic man. So he asks his dad, who says hey, go ask Gilgamesh, the king in Uruk, he is wise, he’ll be able to help you out.
So the trapper goes to Gilgamesh and tells him about the savage man living in the forest, releasing his traps. And Gilgamesh says hey, go to the temple of Ishtar, and ask for the priestess Shamhat. Take her to the wilderness and have her seduce the man. Basically. A little more flowery. And the temple priestesses would “give their bodies to any man, in honor of the goddess.” So, I would not call that a sacred prostitute, because prostitutes accept money. And I”m not saying the TEMPLE wouldn’t accept money. But this was a sacred profession.
Shamhat goes with the trapper, and does as ordered, seducing Enkidu, after which he is no longer a wild man. Still not quite civilized, but the deer and antelope now run from him. And Shamhat convinces him to return with her to Uruk.
Two things I got out of this...guess how old the “I can tame him” trope of women’s romances is? I mean….Damn. Gilgamesh was discovered in the ruins of Mosul Iraq in 1844. And the earliest surviving texts are known to be 2100 b.c.e. So that’s a long running fantasy of women everywhere.
And Shamhat does it very well, talking him into challenging Gilgamesh for supremacy, and introducing him to cooked food. And when Enkidu reaches Uruk, he does challenge Gilgamesh, stopping him from taking the….ermm….bride price of a newly wed virgin, challenging him directly. Gilgamesh won, but it was not an easy win, and the two became fast friends.
After a while, Gilgamesh decides he needs to go to the Cedar Forest and kill Humbaba, who is the guardian of the forest, and an evil monster. Except...I don’t think he was evil. I see Enkidu coming to Uruk as the civilizing force that women have on men. And Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s need to slay the guardian of the forest is mans constant battle with nature. And fear of the unknown, to call the guardian of the forest evil.
So they travel for days and days, and each night they camp, Gilgamesh has horrible nightmares, that Enkidu always interprets as proof that they will be successful in their self-imposed mission. When you get to the end of the story, they take on a different significance. Although, I gotta say, reading through them, I am not at all sure how Enkidu came up with this is fine, you’re totally going to win and nothing bad will happen if we continue out of “the mountain fell down on top of us,” or “Lightning flashed, igniting the trees. By the time the flames died out, the ground was covered with ash.” But Enkidu did, and the two continued on to the Cedar Forest.
Where they fought Hambubu, who even asked for mercy, said he would be Gilgamesh’s servant. But Gilgamesh still killed him. So...yeah, conquering nature.
Having successfully killed the evil monster of the forest, Gilgamesh has now drawn the eye of Ishtar herself. And she makes a play for Gilgamesh. Only the civilizing force of Enkidu has taught Gilgamesh some self-restraint. Or at least, Gilgamesh has been paying attention to his own religious scripture, because he rejects Ishtar, pointing out that every man she’s loved before has been destroyed in the process.
Ishtar takes rejection very badly, and goes and complains to Anu and Antu, her mother and father, that Gilgamesh has slandered her, and demands the bull of Heaven to attack Gilgamesh. Anu asks her...did he really slander and insult you? Or did you make a pass and he rejected you? Ishtar insists she did nothing wrong, it was an unprovoked insult. So Anu sends the bull of heaven. Which Enkidu and Gilgamesh destroy, ripping off one of it’s legs and throwing it at Ishtar.
And that night, Enkidu has a terrifying dream of his own mortality. And he wakes up knows he’s dying. And he proceeds to die over the course of twelve days, cursing the huntsman who found him and cursing Shamhat for bringing him to civilization.
I read that I thought...well that’s typical. Man blames woman for his own choices. He absolutely could have walked away and returned to the deer and the antelope. But he wanted what she offered freely, and now it’s her fault that he made that choice.
Fortunately, and in a twist I did not see coming, the protector Shamash hears this cursing and calls Enkidu on his bullshit. Points out she gave him bread and beer and introduced him to his greatest friend, who he would never have met if not for Shamhat. So Enkidu changes his mind and instead blesses Shamhat. And then he dies.
And Gilgamesh is completely distraught, thinking of his friend returning to clay and rotting away to nothing. So he builds an enormous shrine for Enkidu, and then announces to his people that he is moving to the wild, where he will roam with matted hair in a lion skin.
And off he goes, fearing his own mortality in the face of Enkidu’s death, eventually wandering his way into the mountains, where he determines to find his ancestor Utnapishan, who survived the great flood and was granted immortality by the gods. After passing through the mountain where the sun rests, Gilgamesh meets a tavern keeper Shiduri, at the edge of an ocean. And she sees him and thinks he looks like a wild man, an impression he does nothing to dissuade by threatening to smash her locks and break down the door.
But they talk it out and he admits to being terrified of death and seeking Utnapishan. So she directs him how he can get there, by contacting the boatman Urshanabi and his Stone Men. And in keeping with the stellar first impression he is making on the land of the gods, he immediately smashes the Stone Men. Urshanabi says they were the ones who powered the boat across the waters of death...which it is literally death to touch.
But! He directs Gilgamesh to cut down 300 large branches and trim them for rowing, and he’ll pilot the ship if Gilgamesh will row, and with that they make it across the ocean to Utnapishan’s place. And Gilgamesh talks to Utnapishan, asking him how he attains immortality.
And here we get the very first written flood myth. And there are ALOT of similarities with the Noah story. Enlil became enraged with humanity and decided to wipe them out, swearing all the other gods to secrecy on the matter. One of the gods, Ea, whispered what was about to happen to a reed fence, behind which sat Utnapishan. Utnapishan paid attention and built a big ass boat, on which he put pairs of animals. Unlike Noah, he also saved artisans and craftsmen and scholars...you know, people who would be needed to rebuild a society, not just his family.
And Enlil was pissed at first. But Ea, the cleverest of gods who whispered the secret to a fence, wisely told Enlil “You, the wisest and bravest of the gods, how did it happen that you so recklessly sent the Great Flood to destroy mankind? It is right to punish the sinner for his sins, to punish the criminal for his crime, but be merciful, do not allow all men to die because of the sins of some.”
Enlil understood, and granted Utnapishan and his wife immortality.
Gilgamesh listens to all this, but this does not help him with his own fear of imminent death. Utnapishan challenges Gilgamesh to stay awake for seven days. Says maybe if he can start by conquering sleep, he might be able to conquer death. Utnapishan does this, knowing full well that as soon as he sits down, Gilgamesh is falling asleep. He also knows that Gilgamesh will deny having slept, so he has his wife bake a loaf of bread for every day Gilgamesh sleeps. When he wakes up, he has seven loaves of bread next to him in various states of staleness and decay.
Gilgamesh becomes forlorn all over again, worried about how he too will wither away to dust and clay one day. Utnapishan gives him one piece of hope, advising him to dive down to the bottom of the ocean and harvest a particular spiny plant which will restore him to youth and glory. This Gilgamesh does, and then in a moment of either supreme wisdom or supreme cowardice, he does not take it right away.
It could be seen as wisdom, to pause and reflect if this is the smart thing to do. Or cowardice because he determines to take it home and feed it to an old man first to see if it works. Bad news for Gilgamesh...it totally works! Even worse news, he finds out while on his way home, he sets the plant down, and a snake eats it. So he knows it works as the snake sheds its skin as it slithers away, and is rejuvenated into youth.
And with that Gilgamesh returns to Uruk, and the epic as we now have it ends. And we will STILL probably get a next chapter before George RR Martin finishes A Song of Ice and Fire.
This was an interesting foray into ancient literature, and it was genuinely interesting to see just how far back certain literary tropes go. And the wisdom of the ancient Gods….don’t punish the innocent for the crimes of the Guilty. A theme that is about due for a revival.
