The Story of Gilgamesh
Once upon a time, many
thousands of years
ago, there lived a king called Gilgamesh in a city in Mesopotamia. The
city was called Uruk. It was close to the river Euphrates. It was
night. Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, went out into the dark and looked over
his city. People, his people, lived in these houses and they worked
hard for him. Every day, he told them to work hard for him. There was a
big wall around the city, around the temples, the palace and all the
houses. The workers had built that for him, too. Gilgamesh always made
them work. The Gods had given him super-human strength. He was proud
and arrogant. But he was alone, too, because there was nobody like him
anywhere in the world.
He had gone into the
streets of Uruk because of a dream. Now he was waiting for his mother,
a priestess of the Sun God. She wanted to explain the dream to him.
“Mother”, he shouted, when
she was near him. “In my dream I saw a great axe lying in the middle of
the city. Nobody knew where it came from. I took it and brought it to
my room in the palace. Can you tell me what my dream meant?”
“That is a good dream, my
son, be happy”, said the mother. “This axe is a man. You will find him,
and he will be your friend and brother.”
This dream became true very
soon. The Gods had decided to give Gilgamesh a friend. In the steppes
of the country, they had made a man. The had used mud and clay and dirt
and earth and had formed a man, as strong as a lion, who had lived with
the animals and had drunken water with them at the watering holes in
the desert. Dark hair covered his body, and he had long hair on his
head.
One day a priestess found
this wild man. She called him Enkidu. She gave him some clothes. She
taught him how to eat. She showed him civilisation. She cut his hair.
The animals did not like him anymore and so she brought him into the
city of Uruk. At the city gate, a very big door in the wall around the
city, Enkidu met Gilgamesh. First, the two heroes looked at each other,
then they fought. It was a terrible fight. Nobody could win, and in the
end, Gilgamesh stood up and said: “Enkidu, you are the axe I saw in my
dream. You are my friend and my brother!” From that day on, both were
best friends. They went together everywhere.
Because life in the city
was boring, they went to the Forest of the Cedars. There they fought
the guardian of the forest, the giant demon Humbaba. Then they hacked
down giant trees: They were the Gods’ trees. The Gods were angry.
They sent Bull of Heaven
down to Uruk. Every time the bull breathed, hundreds of people died.
Working together again, Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed the Bull of Heaven.
The Gods were angry, again.
The Gods were really angry:
“Enkidu must pay for this! He must be ill! He must lie in bed! He must
have bad dreams. Enkidu must die for this!” For nine days, Enkidu had a
temperature, and Gilgamesh looked after him. He saw that Enkidu had
enough to drink and a bit to eat. Then the king of Uruk saw that life
left his friend. Enkidu was lying quiet and still. He did not move or
breathe, and Gilgamesh cried. But crying did not help against death,
because Enkidu was dead. There was a big funeral for Enkidu. But
Gilgamesh was afraid: “What if I must die, too?“ he asked himself. He
was afraid of death. “There is only one man I know who has never died.
He is as old as the hills and still alive. Utnapishtim, the
great-great-great-great-grandfather of my family. He lives in a country
far away from here, but I want to visit him and see if he can tell me
the secret of life and death.”
So Gilgamesh went out, he
walked east, where this man, lived. He walked through a steppe and came
to the mountains that were as high as the sky. They were so high that
he could not climb over them. At the foot of the mountains, there was a
small entrance. There were two guardians, two figures with strange
bodies. A man and a woman, two scorpions with human faces. They called:
“Young hero, where are you going? Why is your cloak so dirty? Why are
you crying?”
He answered: “I must cry,
because my brother Enkidu lies still and quiet, and I am searching for
the source of life.”
“Gilgamesh, there is no
chance for you. You can’t climb over this mountain; you can’t walk
through this entrance. Twelve hours is the time you need for this way.
You must die before you see the sun again.” But Gilgamesh said: “I want
to do this. I must do it.” And the scorpion woman said to the scorpion
man: “Let him go through. He is half man, half God.” And the scorpion
man said: “You are a hero, Gilgamesh, go your own way. The door in the
mountains is open for you.”
Step by step, Gilgamesh
walked through the dark tunnel. It was totally dark around him. He did
not see what was behind him; he did not see what was before him. But he
remembered Enkidu, and that gave him the power to go on. After nine
hours, he felt the wind, after eleven hours he saw a small light at the
end of the tunnel, and when twelve hours were over, he stepped out of
the mountain and into the garden of the Gods.
It was beautiful. Really
beautiful. He had never before in his life seen anything so beautiful.
This beauty was all new to him. All plants and all flowers were of
gems. The fruits were diamonds and rubies and sapphires and emeralds.
The sun was shining in the trees, a beautiful light was everywhere.
Close to the exit of this garden, where the ocean was, was the house of
Siduri. She gave food and drink to the people who came in this garden.
She invited them to stay. Siduri was shocked when Gilgamesh walked in:
“Young hero, where are you going? Why is your cloak so dirty? Why are
you crying?”
He answered: “I must cry,
because my brother Enkidu lies still and quiet, and I am searching for
the source of life.” “Gilgamesh, there is no chance for you. Stay here
and have fun every day. Have a party as long as you can. Your are a
man. And because you are a man, you must die one day.”
Gilgamesh did not listen.
He left this paradise and went down to the sea. There he saw a
fisherman who was working on his boat. “Take me with you”, said
Gilgamesh. “I am looking for a man from my family. He cannot die and he
lives on the other side of the sea.”
The fisherman answered:
“You must go over alone. Go into the forest and cut down a long, thin
tree. With it, you must push the boat forward. But be careful, because
you mustn’t get yourself wet. This is the Sea of Death. When the water
touches you, you die.” Gilgamesh did what the man told him. When he saw
the land on the other side, he had no trees left. He took his cloak and
held it in the wind. With the wind in his sail, he came to the other
side.
Utnapishtim saw him when
left the boat. “You must be Gilgamesh”, he said. “No other hero is so
strong.” Then he asked: “Young hero, where are you going? Why is your
cloak so dirty? Why are you crying?”
He answered: “I must cry,
because my brother Enkidu lies still and quiet, and I am searching for
the source of life. Tell me, Utnapishtim, how is it that you haven’t
died?”
“Gilgamesh, there is no
chance for you. A long time ago, the Gods killed everybody in the world
with a huge flood. But they told me to build an ark, a big ship for me
and my family and my animals. That is how they saved my life. Then I
came here and built my house. Since that time I have lived here.“
Gilgamesh asked him: “Tell
me what I must do. I don’t want to die.” The old man asked him: “Can
you stay awake for seven days? Seven days without sleep? When you can
do this, I will tell you what you can do.”
“Of course I can stay awake
for seven days,“ said Gilgamesh. Then he sat down. But he so tired from
his long walk, that he slept the next minute.
“There, our hero sleeps”,
said Utnapishtim to his wife.
“Do you want to wake him
up?“ she asked.
“No, but I am going to put
a bread next to him for every day he sleeps.”
After seven days and seven
nights, Gilgamesh woke up. “Have I slept only a short time?”
Utnapishtim showed him the
seven pieces of bread. “The first bread is dry, the second one green,
the third one hard like a stone, the fourth one has become dark, the
fifth one is still soft, the sixth has been baked a moment ago. My wife
is working on the seventh one.”
Then Gilgamesh saw that he
had failed the test. “Wash yourself, put on fresh, clean clothes, and
go home to where you came from”, said Utnapishtim. “You can’t stay
here.”
Gilgamesh did what
Utnapishtim said. He cleaned himself, his skin was white again, and he
was no longer dirty. “But because you are a hero, I want to tell you
something”, said Utnapishtim. “Down at the bottom of the sweet sea is a
magic plant. When you find it and take it, you will find new life.
Gilgamesh went home, over the sea. At the deepest place of the sea, he
went down and dived into the water. He found the magic plant, took it
and swam back up again.
On the other side of the
sea, Gilgamesh walked home. He walked for days. At one place in the dry
and hot desert, he found an oasis with fresh water. He took off his
clothes and had a bath. But then a snake came. It saw Gilgamesh and his
clothes and the magic plant on his clothes. It ate the magic plant.
Gilgamesh ran to the snake and touched it. It was too late. The snake
left its old skin and got away. Now Gilgamesh had the old and dry and
dirty snakeskin in his hands. He cried.
So Gilgamesh came back to
Uruk. He was no longer bad and terrible to his people. He was now a
good kind. He had become mild. He often thought about his brother
Enkidu. One day, he saw Enkidu’s ghost. Enkidu spoke to him. Gilgamesh
heard his voice: “Oh friend, do not forget me. I lie still and quiet.
Heavy is the earth, and terrible is my end.” This is what Gilgamesh
answered: “Enkidu my brother, do not say things like that. Don’t cry. I
took off my clothes in the oasis and had a bath. A snake ate the Plant
of Life. It left its dirty skin. It looked like silver when it got
away. I know now that it lives. Wait for me Enkidu. I, too, will leave
my skin and come to you. We will be brothers again.”
non volio 2005