Destaney Evans
Professor Neville
History 101
9 October 2018
The Epic Of Gilgamesh
The Epic Of Gilgamesh is known as the earliest surviving work of literature. The Epic Of Gilgamesh addresses important themes such as life, death, friendship, immortality, and religion.
Gilgamesh, the main character in the Epic, is 2/3 God, and 1/3 human. Gilgamesh is king of a Sumerian city state called Uruk. While Gilgamesh sees himself as a great king, the people of Uruk think otherwise. Gilgamesh rapes the woman and wives in his city, and executes the males who dare to stop him. The people of Uruk pray to the Gods and ask for them to stop Gilgamesh. In the beginning of the Epic, Gilgamesh is a selfish, cocky king who only seems to care about himself, that is until Enkidu shows up.
Enkidu was a hairy man beast, short but powerful. Enkidu lives in the woods, and eats grass and milk from the animals. Enkidu stops the hunters from trapping and killing the animals in the woods, which angers the hunters. The hunter ends up complaining to Gilgamesh, however, Gilgamesh does not care. Gilgamesh advises the hunter to go to the temple and find a harlot to seduce Enkidu. After Enkidu falls into the harlots trap, they lay together for six days and seven nights. After the time they spend together, Enkidu gets rejected from the animals because now he smells like human. This was the hunters plan all along. The priestess then takes Enkidu under her wing, and teaches him to be human like. Due to Enkidu’s strength and power, the priestess believes he could challenge and beat king Gilgamesh, so she takes him back to Uruk to do just that. After entering Uruk, Enkidu blocks the wedding doors so Gilgamesh cannot enter and rape the soon to be wife. This causes Enkidu and Gilgamesh to begin wrestling. In the end, Gilgamesh wins, however, instead of killing Enkidu, Gilgamesh befriends him. They become inseparable, and come up with the idea to challenge and kill Humbaba.
Humbaba is the monster-like, guarder of the forest. He kills humans that dare to exploit or cut down nature. Gilgamesh and Enkidu pray to the Gods for weapons and armor in order to fight Humbaba, and they are given just that. The night before they plan to fight Humbaba, Gilgamesh has nightmares and wants to back out of their plan, however, Enkidu forces him to continue. Gilgamesh and Enkidu cut down a tree to grab Humbaba’s attention. After a fight, Gilgamesh and Enkidu execute Humbaba, which means nature now exists for humans.
After the fight, Goddess Ishtar, the goddess of love, sex, beauty, and war, is there to seduce and marry Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh rejects her, and so she goes to her father and tells on Gilgamesh. Her father then sends the Bull of Heaven to kill Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Gilgamesh and Enkidu are forced to kill the beast. This causes the Gods to become very angry. The Gods say that someone has to die now, which ends up being Enkidu. Enkidu suffers a long, painful death, which leaves Gilgamesh heartbroken and mournful. Gilgamesh cries and holds onto Enkidu’s body for six days and seven nights, until the people of Uruk decide to build a statue in memory of Enkidu. This is one of the first times in the Epic where the readers see emotion and selflessness from Gilgamesh.
After watching and experiencing the death of his best friend, Gilgamesh realizes the true meaning of life, and decides that he wants to seek immortality. On his journey to find immortality, Gilgamesh is no longer a perfect, strong, muscular man, and instead becomes thin, dirty, and hollow, to the point where no one recognizes him. During his journey, the Goddess of garden tells Gilgamesh to go the the Ferryman for immortality. The Ferryman takes Gilgamesh across the river of death to Utnapishtim and his wife’s garden of perfection. Utnapishtim and his wife are immortal. In order for them to share their secret of immortality, he has to stay up for six days and seven nights. Gilgamesh ends up falling asleep and tries to lie and say he did not. Tim tells Gilgamesh about the flood and the boat, and where to find the flower of forever youth. Gilgamesh plans to share it with all of Uruk, however while asleep a snake steals the flower and takes it down a well. Gilgamesh’s life now ends in death. The epic ends with a very important lesson; Humans cannot be immortal, and are only remembered by their deeds in life.
Throughout the epic, religion plays an impactful, relevant role. There are many similarities to The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament of the Bible. The most significant similarity is the Epic’s flood story and the biblical story of Noah’s arch. Both stories describe a God telling Utnapishtim and Noah to build boat which will save their family, animals and themselves. After both floods, Utnapishtim and Noah both send out doves to find dry land. Another similarity is Utnapishtim’s perfect garden, and the garden of Eden. The Epic also includes a character whose story bears even more similarities to stories in the Hebrew Bible: Gilgamesh’s possession of a plant of immortality is prevented by a snake. He is taught that the greatest response to mortality is to live life in appreciation of those things which make us truly human.