The Epic that is Gilgamesh

I. Summary

The Epic opens with an introduction to Gilgamesh, the mighty king of Uruk-Haven -  an unparalleled man and king who is two-thirds god and one-third man. It would seem, however, that because of his greatness and his consequent lack of any human equal, he abuses his power and oppresses his people, especially the women, presumably by taking them to bed unceremoniously. In response to the people’s complaints, the gods create Enkidu, a wild man equal to Gilgamesh’s “stormy heart” (Tablet I, p. 5). Enkidu is referred to by the god Anu as “zikru,” which according to the footnotes, is often translated as “reply or response.” The translators do not use this meaning, preferring instead to leave the word in Akkadian, but I think the implication of “zikru” meaning “reply/response” could be a good first step for high school students to begin thinking about literary structures. I will elaborate on this later.

After the gods create Enkidu, the wild man, he is “civilized” – made more man than beast – by having sex with a harlot, who was sent to seduce him. The harlot introduces Enkidu to human lust and desire, and he is no longer content to live among the animals. Thus, the harlot brings Enkidu back with her to Uruk-Haven, where he wrestles with Gilgamesh, and, after being bested, becomes his loyal companion, beyond even a bond of brotherhood.

After time passes, Enkidu feels himself becoming weak within the walls of Uruk-Haven, and Gilgamesh takes him out to best Humbaba, guardian of the Cedar Forest and the Great Cedar Tree. The duo – encouraging each other throughout – bests Humbaba, and return with his head and the trunk of the Great Cedar. After the battle, Gilgamesh scorns the affections of the love goddess, and at her angry beckoning, the gods unleash the terrible “Bull of Heaven” to punish them. But Gilgamesh and Enkidu together defeat the Bull as well, and Ishtar, still angry, sheds a sickness upon Enkidu that slowly kills him, sending Gilgamesh into uncontrollable grief.

Seeing Enkidu die, Gilgamesh is confronted with the prospect of his own mortality. Frightened, he travels alone to the ends of the earth seeking Utanapishtim, the only man to be granted immortal life, with the hope of attaining it himself. Gilgamesh pushes himself so hard on his journey that he loses the beauty and physical grandeur of his youth. When he finally finds Utanapishtim, he discovers that he cannot obtain immortality, and he is sent back to Uruk-Haven with a plant that promises to restore his youthful splendor. But the plant is stolen by a snake on the return, and Gilgamesh arrives back at Uruk-Haven an old man, left to contemplate the deeds of his life.

II. Response

I had bought a copy of the Epic about six months ago because I knew I wanted to read it, but I never made time for it. Consequently, I never took a close look at the inside, and I did not realize how incomplete our translation of the story is.

One cannot help but notice how the narrative is solely about the bond between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, containing no other character with any three dimensional quality. Even Enkidu is not as developed as Gilgamesh. Once he becomes civilized, though he is great, he becomes a victim of his humanity (though at the hands of the gods). Despite his godly narrative persona, Gilgamesh is a human character. He alone experiences the range of human emotion.: He is overconfident, courageous, fearful, and sorrowful. Lastly and most importantly, he is nostalgic at the end of his life.

At the end of the book, one element surprised me, and I think it would prove a good discussion among urban secondary students. When Gilgamesh is seeking immortality, his encounters with Siduri, the tavern-keeper; Urshanabi; and Utanapishtim imply that the purpose of humanity is essentially revelry, or to achieve a status in which revelry is possible. After the Vanderbilt student in me objected, another part of me realized there is truth in that idea. We should not strive to be indulgent, wasteful and careless, but if we use Maslow’s hierarchy as the guideline, the self-actualized person, one who has met all of their seven needs, is someone who can revel in themselves -  not selfishly, but with contentment and camaraderie, knowing that they have contributed their upmost to the world. I wonder, could Gilgamesh revel in that way? The story ends so suddenly, and my impression is that he is melancholy at the end, and genuinely troubled, not yet come to terms with the death of Enkidu and his eventual demise.

III. Context in Literature: Similarities and Differences

Though my historical knowledge of stories from ancient cultures is shallow, I am able to make the more seemingly obvious cultural connections offered by the Epic.

A significant element of Gilgamesh’s story is the myth of the Flood, or the “Myth of Atrahasis (Utanapishtim), in which the entire earth is flooded and only one man, his family, and the animals he brings survive on a ship of sorts. The story of Noah is the judeo-christian version of the same story, found in the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Pentateuch. The action of Noah’s story and Atrahasis’s are identical on a superficial level, as alluded to above, but the premises of both stories couldn’t be more different. In the “Myth of Atrahasis” the flood is the result of either the god’s annoyance at the noise and overpopulation caused by humanity, or simple carelessness. Atrahasis (Utanapishtim) is favored by one god and is thus given the notice and wherewithal to survive, but his survival is more of a foil to extinction than deliberate preservation. In the story of Noah, God is angry at how sinful the world has become (perhaps the biproducts of their sin were noise and overpopulation?), and He deliberately charges Noah with the preservation of humanity. God’s intention is to purify the humankind once again, not to annihilate it.

Other parallels with Genesis are scattered throughout the Epic, notably the presence of the snake that carries off Gilgamesh’s second chance at youth. In Genesis, the serpent initiates humanity’s loss of Eden and eternal life without death (“You are dust and to dust you shall return”). The parallel is not exact, but dual use of the serpent to steal from a human something that is against human nature as we know it – a second chance at youth, immortality, pure innocence – is no mistake.

From a language perspective, the Epic, though written in cuneiform, must have been part of an oral tradition, or oral presentation, because of its reliance on repetition. In the over-arching narrative and individual dialogue, there is extensive repetition of lines that undoubtedly served as a way of keeping the reader hooked into the story. Blatant repetition is also a significant part of The Odyssey, which, if memory serves, was originally sung. Though Homer’s use of repetition is not nearly as extensive, certain lines and descriptions are consistently used to establish a certain culture and tone/mood within the story.

IV. Teaching and Learning

The Epic of Gilgamesh would be an ideal first book to read for a high school literature class, especially freshmen or sophomores, when they don’t know that they could be reading Dickens. The Epic explores the nature of our humanity and what ultimately defines us as physical beings. One would have a hard time holding a deep discussion about societal and cultural ideologies, gender roles, or power in The Epic. While those elements are all there, they are not developed. The purpose of the narrative is for Gilgamesh and Enkidu to discover and face their humanity and their mortality (the latter being a subset of the former). Since human characters constitute the basis for the majority of literature that secondary students read, a good first step in developing their critical lenses is to have them begin thinking about what it means to be human. What are the indicators of our humanity, and how do we react to them? Death, companionship (brotherhood and sisterhood), lust/sex, drive for success (?), legacy, fun/revelry, cruelty. These are all things that history has shown are either necessary or inevitable human experience. How do we react to them? With courage? With fear? With faith?

The one point I would want to hammer home more than any other is thinking of Enkidu as a “response” to Gilgamesh. I remember hearing some author describe writing as putting a bunch of characters in a room and seeing what they do, and I have yet to hear a better way of describing how narrative works internally. In all literature – even Faulkner – we have one focal character at a time, and we continue to read, listen, or watch because we are waiting to see how other characters and other parts of the world react to that character. If Enkidu is a reaction to Gilgamesh, who is Othello’s reaction? Who is Odysseus’s reaction? Who or what is Okonkwo’s reaction? And from there – who is your reaction? Whose reaction might you be? How might you react in this or that situation? In this way, The Epic could be a great tool for initiating metacognition.

Reading through what I would later realize is probably an outdated copy of The Epic, I was constantly drawn to the transparency of translation and the gaps in the text. My first reaction was, “If there are gaps in the text, why can’t my students fill them in?” I suspect doing this activity with different sections of The Epic would do a lot to demystify literature and take some of the later canonical texts off of their pedestals. Also, because we are dealing with an ancient Sumerian narrative, not all the translation is that smooth, and I would like to remind my students that what we are reading is a translation, not the original words. When a section feels awkward, why don’t they re-translate it however they feel necessary for the story to make sense? This could be a great tool getting students to help each other illuminate texts, so that they don’t rely so much on my infallible knowledge of interpretation.