The Story - Part One
The Epic of Gilgamesh is a great tale of heroism, adventure, mortality, and friendship. It begins in Uruk, where Gilgamesh was king. The epic introduces this king as someone who is a purely tyrannical monarch. He is descended from the gods, and is even 1/3 god (however that works out). The epic explains that Gilgamesh is a mean-spirited king who takes whatever man's wife or daughter he sees fit at whatever time. He forces men to work to death to build the walls of his great city. He is not a idealized pastoral king or shepherd of the land. The people cry out to gods to remove the burden of Gilgamesh from them.
The gods hear this cry and decide to make a man as strong as Gilgamesh to kill the king. This will appease the crying of the people, they believe. So they create Enkidu. Enkidu is made out in the wilderness. He is a hairy beast of a man who roams with the wild animals and has nothing to do with mankind. This becomes a problem for the local hunters and farmers who rely upon hunting wild game to survive. They go to the city to report the wild man living in the wilderness to the priests and get their sagely advice. This advice is pretty interesting.
The priests tell the farmer to take a temple prostitute out to the wilderness and let her initiate Enkidu into the ways of civilization through sex.
There he is. Now, woman, make your breasts bare, have no shame, do not delay but welcome his love. Let him see you naked, let him possess your body. When he comes near uncover yourself and lie with him; teach him, the savage man, your woman's art, for when he murmurs love to you the wild beasts that shared his life in the hills will reject him.
Sure enough, the harlot and Enkidu come together and have sex for six days and seven nights. However,
when the gazelle saw him, they bolted away; when the wild creatures saw him they fled
The epic's commentary on all this is that "Enkidu had grown weak, for wisdom was in him, and the thoughts of a man were in his heart."
So Enkidu returns with the harlot to Uruk. To make a long story short (just kidding), when Enkidu and Gilgamesh meet each other, they engage in a massive combat even extending to the city walls. They cannot defeat each other and eventually bond over their mutual strength. They begin a great friendship that comprises the middle section of the epic.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu go off on great adventures. They hunt together, even hunting the great Humbaba. Humbaba was an ancient creature that lived in the Cedar Forest beyond the seventh mountain range. He was the guardian of this land and was placed there by the gods to be a terror to men. Gilgamesh and Enkidu slew this great beast and decapitated it. The gods do not take vengeance upon the heroes because they offer Humbaba's head as a sacrifice for their great victory.
In the sixth tablet of the epic, Gilgamesh has important dealings with the goddess Ishtar. Ishtar, becoming enamored of Gilgamesh and his mighty feats, decides to present him with an offer of marriage. One might think that marrying the goddess of love and fertility is a good idea, but Gilgamesh doesn't see it this way. Gilgamesh responds that he is not the first man the goddess has proposed to, nor does he expect to be the last. Gilgamesh points out that if he should accept the offer, he would have nothing to give the goddess as worship or gift.
The Bull of Heaven is killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu who then offer its heart to the sun god Shamash. In a moment of extreme impiety, Enkidu rips the thigh off the creatures corpse and hurls it at Ishtar. It is for this action that Enkidu is doomed to die.
The death of Enkidu begins the final stage of the epic saga and truly deserves it's own post. Stay tuned and the final portion of the narrative will be revealed.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu go off on great adventures. They hunt together, even hunting the great Humbaba. Humbaba was an ancient creature that lived in the Cedar Forest beyond the seventh mountain range. He was the guardian of this land and was placed there by the gods to be a terror to men. Gilgamesh and Enkidu slew this great beast and decapitated it. The gods do not take vengeance upon the heroes because they offer Humbaba's head as a sacrifice for their great victory.In the sixth tablet of the epic, Gilgamesh has important dealings with the goddess Ishtar. Ishtar, becoming enamored of Gilgamesh and his mighty feats, decides to present him with an offer of marriage. One might think that marrying the goddess of love and fertility is a good idea, but Gilgamesh doesn't see it this way. Gilgamesh responds that he is not the first man the goddess has proposed to, nor does he expect to be the last. Gilgamesh points out that if he should accept the offer, he would have nothing to give the goddess as worship or gift.
Which of your lovers did you ever love for ever? What shepherd of yours has pleased you for all time?Then he begins to recount to her the fates of previous lovers and uses these stories to decline the goddesses offer of marriage. Ishtar becomes enraged and cries out for the death of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. She asks her father, Anu, to release the Bull of Heaven to take her vengeance on Gilgamesh for his petulance.
The Bull of Heaven is killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu who then offer its heart to the sun god Shamash. In a moment of extreme impiety, Enkidu rips the thigh off the creatures corpse and hurls it at Ishtar. It is for this action that Enkidu is doomed to die.
The death of Enkidu begins the final stage of the epic saga and truly deserves it's own post. Stay tuned and the final portion of the narrative will be revealed.
