TheEpic of Gilgamesh is a poem written on stone tablets sometime between 2700 B.C.
and around 600 B.C. in Mesopotamia. Not all of the tablets survived intact,
therefore scholars can only guess at what certain sections of the poem are
meant to say. The poem itself is about the hero Gilgamesh, a man who is halfgod and half human. Gilgamesh is stronger and more powerful than the people of
his village, Uruk, causing great unhappiness among the people. For this reason,
they ask the gods to make another man who would rival Gilgamesh. This man is
named Enkidu. Gilgamesh and Enkidu become good friends, but trouble follows
them wherever they go. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest known
pieces of literature that has survived.
•Enkidu : half-man/half-beast
. Bestie of Gilgamesh . He basically symbolizes the natural, non-civilized
world.
•Utanapishtim:A human given immortality who lives on the other side
of earth—literally. Gilgamesh visits him to discover the secret of immortality,
but ends up empty-handed .
•Humbaba : Giant who guards the cedar forest of Lebanon .
•Siduri : fishwife whom Gilgamesh meets on his journey .
Gilgamesh one-third human two-thirds god , Thestrongest human that ever existed , It was he who in his glorybuilt the walls of Uruk to keep his people
safe , but not from himself : He oppresses people so they cried out to thesky gods , in response , The gods created a wild man : Enkidu .
Enkidu lived with animals in the wild till a hunter
saw him and went to Gilgamesh and told him . Gilgamesh sent a priestess from
the temple to civilize Enkidu by introducing him to the ways of humans.
Having forsaken his animal existence, Enkidu and the
priestess start for Uruk. On their arrival she tells him of the strength andwisdom of Gilgamesh , at the same time, Gilgamesh was telling his mother the
goddess Ninsun about his dreams of meeting Enkidu, his equal, in combat.
Enkidu challenged Gilgamesh by barring his way to the
temple. An earth-shaking fight ensues in which Gilgamesh stopped Enkidu’s
onslaught. Enkidu praised Gilgamesh’s strength and the two enemies became
inseparable friends.
Years passed , Gilgamesh and Enkidu grew lazy and felt
bored so Gilgamesh suggested to goon an
adventure to The Cedar forest , to slay the demon Humbaba and to cut down his
trees . Enkidu refused at first but Gilgamesh convinced him .
On the trip to the Cedar Forest, Gilgamesh had
nightmares every night. Enkidu interprets the nightmares into pleasant things,
assuring Gilgamesh that everything will be alright. When they arrived to
confront Humbaba, Gilgamesh changed his mind and wanted to turn away. Enkidu,
however, urged him into going forward with the battle.
During the fight, Humbaba does all he can to prevent
Gilgamesh and Enkidu from killing him. Eventually, Gilgamesh slays him.
Afterward, they cut some Cedar trees and they return to Uruk triumphantly.
During the celebration, the goddess Ishtar asks Gilgamesh to make her his wife.
When he refuses, Ishtar brings the Bull ofHeaven to Uruk to kill Gilgamesh. However, with Enkidu’s help, Gilgamesh
slays the bull.
The gods were upset at Gilgamesh and Enkidu for
killing Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven. For this reason, they decided that one
of the men must die. They choose Enkidu. In a short time, Enkidu became ill and
died. Gilgamesh wasdeeply grieved by
this. Gilgamesh wentinto the wilderness
to find his ancestor named Utanapishtim, who can help him become immortal.
After telling Gilgamesh his story, Utanapishtim challenges Gilgamesh to prove
he is worthy of immortality by staying awake for six days and seven nights.
Gilgamesh fails, but Utanapishtim gives hima plant that will keep him youth and strong , but a serpent ate the
plant before Gilgamesh could eat it .
Gilgamesh inscribed his Travels and thoughts upon
stone tablets and placed them on the walls of Uruk so that people could gain
wisdom and remember him.
This Babylonian story of creation comes largely from the Enuma Elish,
which appears to have been written between 1900 and 1500 BC, perhaps during the
time of the Babylonian King Hammurabi. The tablets are broken and incomplete.
At the end of the story here, the details of the creation of humans are
supplemented with material from fragments of later writings. The latter may
date as late as the 500's BC, but their consistency with the earlier Enuma
Elish suggests that they tell the same story. The main actor in these tablets
is Marduk, the most powerful of the Babylonian gods. Like most Babylonian gods,
he has many names, and elsewhere he is sometimes known as Bel.
In the beginning, neither heaven nor earth had names. Apsu, the god of
fresh waters, and Tiamat, the goddess of the salt oceans, and Mummu, the god of
the mist that rises from both of them, were still mingled as one. There were no
mountans, there was no pasture land, and not even a reed-marsh could be found
to break the surface of the waters. It was then that
Apsu and Tiamat parented two gods, and then two more who outgrew the first
pair. These further parented gods, until Ea, who was the god of rivers and was
Tiamat and Apsu's geat-grandson, was born. Ea was the cleverest of the gods,
and with his magic Ea became the most powerful of the gods, ruling even his
forebears.
Apsu and Tiamat's descendents became an
unruly crowd. Eventually Apsu, in his frustration and inability to sleep with
the clamor, went to Tiamat, and he proposed to her that he slay their noisy
offspring. Tiamat was furious at his suggestion to kill their clan, but after
leaving her Apsu resolved to proceed with his murderous plan. When the young
gods heard of his plot against them, they were silent and fearful, but soon Ea
was hatching a scheme. He cast a spell on Apsu, pulled Apsu's crown from his
head, and slew him. Ea then built his palace on Apsu's waters, and it was there
that, with the goddess Damkina, he fathered Marduk, the four-eared, four-eyed
giant who was god of the rains and storms.
The other gods, however, went to Tiamat and complained of how Ea had
slain her husband. Aroused, she collected an army of dragons and monsters, and
at its head she placed the god Kingu, whom she gave magical powers as well.
Even Ea was at a loss how to combat such a host, until he finally called on his
son Marduk. Marduk gladly agreed to take on his father's battle, on the
condition that he, Marduk, would rule the gods after achieving this victory.
The other gods agreed, and at a banquet they gave him his royal robes and
scepter.
Marduk armed himself with a bow and arrows, a club, and
lightning, and he went in search of Tiamat's monstrous army. Rolling his
thunder and storms in front him, he attacked, and Kingu's battle plan soon
disintegrated. Tiamat was left alone to fight Marduk, and she howled as they
closed for battle. They struggled as Marduk caught her in his nets. When she
opened her mouth to devour him, he filled it with the evil wind that served
him. She could not close her mouth with his gale blasting in it, and he shot an
arrow down her throat. It split her heart, and she was slain.
After subduing the rest of her host, he took his club and split
Tiamat's water-laden body in half like a clam shell. Half he put in the sky and
made the heavens, and he posted guards there to make sure that Tiamat's salt
waters could not escape. Across the heavens he made stations in the stars for
the gods, and he made the moon and set it forth on its schedule across theheavens. From the other half of Tiamat's body he made the land, which he placed
over Apsu's fresh waters, which now arise in wells and springs. From her eyes
he made flow the Tigirs and Euphrates. Across this land he made the grains and
herbs, the pastures and fields, the rains and the seeds, the cows and ewes, and
the forests and the orchards.
Marduk set the vanquished gods who had
supported Tiamat to a variety of tasks, including work in the fields and
canals. Soon they complained of their work, however, and they rebeled by
burning their spades and baskets. Marduk saw a solution to their labors,
though, and proposed it to Ea. He had Kingu, Timat's general, brought forward
from the ranks of the defeated gods, and Kingu was slain. With Kingu's blood,
with clay from the earth, and with spittle from the other gods, Ea and thebirth-goddess Nintu created humans. On them Ea imposed the labor previously
assigned to the gods. Thus the humans were set to maintain the canals and
boundary ditches, to hoe and to carry, to irrigate the land and to raise crops,
to raise animals and fill the granaries, and to worship the gods at their
regular festivals.
Before time began there was only darkness and the
goddess Nammu, the Primordial Sea. She gave birth to Anki, the Universe. At
first they were Heaven and Earth in one, a vast mountain of soil and sky mixed
together. Anki produced Enlil, the air. Enlil separated his parents into An,
the sky , and Ki the mother earth. He pulled his mother down to form solid
ground and pushed his father up to form the heavens. He then created the moongod Nanna, who then created the sun god Utu. Enlil and Ki, air and earth joined
to produce Enki, the god of water, vegetation and wisdom, and the lord of the
universe. Enki gathered together part of the Primordial Sea and squeezed it
into rivers Tigris and Euphrates. He caused there to be cattle on the earth and
fish in the rivers. He built marshland around the rivers and made the soil rich
and fertile. Meanwhile in heaven, the gods were having a large, drunken
banquet. They decided to create humans. The first race was made of clay, and
weak in body and mind. At the time everyone was too drunk to see how poorly
they were made. The humans descended to live on Enki’s earth. Before long it
became clear that this race had too many problems to survive and be a credit to
the gods who created them. The gods decided to destroy them all in a great
flood. Only two people were worthy enough to survive- a man named Ziusudra andhis wife. Enki came to them with instructions. They were to build a wooden ark
and hide there until the flood waters subsided .The gods redirected the Tigris
and Euphrates and caused a violent flood, washing all the humans to their
deaths. The storms raged day and night until there was no dry land. Ziusudra
and his wife were safe in their wooden ark. They wept at the loss of mankind.
Finally the rivers shrank back and the land around them re-emerged. Ziusudraand his wife began a new generation of men and women and set up their villages
on the shores of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Years passed , Gilgamesh and Enkidu grew lazy and felt
bored so Gilgamesh suggested to go on an
adventure to The Cedar forest , to slay the demon Humbaba and to cut down his
trees . Enkidu refused at first but Gilgamesh convinced him .
