The Epic of Gilgamesh

I read this only for the sake of saying I did, but it's on par with Greek mythology for entertainment and has actual plot twists that surprise. Not bad for a story that went missing for more than two millenia until it was rediscovered in the 19th century. Gilgamesh has the strength of a god but the mortality of a man. This anguish leads him to unjustly lord it over his people until a friend almost equal to him in strength is sent to correct his ways. Adventures ensue, and Gilgamesh learns more bitter lessons about loss and death. There's some intriguing parallels to stories from the Bible and echoes of Homer. I took the epic as a whole to be the story of human grappling with mortality: we feel like gods in our youth, strive to make show more names for ourselves, then endure the humbling of our pride and the hollows of tragedy that weather us, leading to maturity and eventually an acceptance of death. show less

’m certainly glad to have read this and spent a bit of time on it. I can’t say that I enjoyed it, in any conventional sense, but I certainly appreciate it.

A couple of points stand out for me.

I find it interesting that Gilgamesh is 2/3 god and 1/3 human. With the 1/3 human part, readers may be able to identify with Gilgamesh. His frustrated search for life everlasting and his eventual death seem to work as a way of reminding readers of the fate of mortals. Readers may also identify with Gilgamesh’s loss of Enkidu. The godly exploits are perhaps harder to identify with, but I like to think that by making those 2/3 reside the same person that readers may be able to see some of the divine in themselves as well.

The early part of the show more poem, before Enkidu’s death, also seems to serve a function. The killing of Humbaba and maybe the Bull of Heaven seems like a kind of consolidation of the divine in the gods by killing symbols of the divine in nature. I don’t know but I sense some parallels in the development of Abrahamic religions. Then there’s the flood story here with enough direct parallels to other flood stories that one cannot help but see the influence. show less

Certainly not my first or second time reading this great adventure tale, I just had a hankering to see the stupidity of Enkindu and Gilgamesh, may they always be praised above all mortals, those two stupid louts of the age of Gemini. Still, it was neat to see the mash-up of the tree of life and death inside a tale that predates anything else we've found. I especially loved the baking of bread in the house of Enoch, um, I mean Noah, um, I mean the house of Utnapishtim. Some really great magical symbolism throughout the tale, even if the main characters are caricatures of themselves.

Some stories never grow old. The Epic of Gilgamesh has stayed fresh for 4,000 years. There’s love, loss, epic battle, and a quest to learn how you are supposed to live, knowing you will someday die. All the elements, in short, of a gripping tale. Gilgamesh may be an ancient Mesopotamian king—part god, part man—but he acts and sounds like a disaffected modern. Humankind has undergone many profound transformations. The human condition, meanwhile, with all its attendant hopes and fears, stays constant.

L'epopea di Gilgamesh si è rivelata molto diversa da come me l'immaginavo. Io, forse con troppa naif-ità mi aspettavo un'impresa eroica stile epica greca. Invece il nostro seppure semidio si comporta tutt'altro che da tale. È un anti-eroe, che fallisce e quando non lo fa è solo grazie all'appoggio suo fedele amico Enkidu. Gilgamesh è un semidio che è ossessionato dall'idea di morire dimenticato, e questo è il suo unico successo: ancora oggi parliamo e leggiamo di lui. La cosa più affascinante, che per me è rappresentativa dell'originalità di questo racconto, è la struttura anti-climax del tutto. Ogni volta che ci si aspetta una sopraffazione di Gilgamesh sulle avversità del fato, ecco invece che la narrazione vira verso show more conclusioni veramente inaspettate. L'esempio più eclatante è alla sua prima prova di forza contro il guardiano della foresta. Dopo pagine e pagine di un viaggio il nostro è di fronte alla bestia e... si addormenta. Ho riso per 5 minuti netti. Ma a ben pensarci... chi non lo farebbe, semidio o no, dopo giorni e giorni di viaggio?!
Altro aspetto assolutamente inaspettato per me è stato quello della cattiveria degli dei, della loro puerile isteria, in questo ricorda molto il Dio dell'antico testamento, che agisce più per ripicca che per altro, come agiscono per ripicca anche questi "Dei vicini". Anche da questo punto di vista il testo è assolutamente affascinante, l'impossibilità del genere umano di comprendere l'atteggiamento ermetico del divino.
Valutazione 4 show less

If you can read it in just a few hours, does it qualify as epic? If the introduction is longer than the actual text, is it still epic? With regards to The Epic of Gilgamesh, yes it is. Size doesn't matter here. One of the oldest stories extant concerns Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. His people finally get tired of him bedding all the young women and beating the crap out of all the men (apparently he was a cross between the Incredible Hulk and Bill Clinton). They beseech the gods to come up with a companion who can equal him in strength, so they can have a bit of a break. Enter Enkidu, and a beautiful friendship is born. They have a blast beating the hell out of each other, and have some great adventures. I think something else was going on show more too, since it kept mentioning Gilgamesh loving him like a woman. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But what really impressed me about him was that even though he was the biggest, baddest mo-fo on the planet, that didn't preclude him from realizing, “hey, I'm not going to be here forever. One of these days, I'm gonna die. That scares me.” That brought him down to earth, and made him someone I could relate to. And for me, that's what really made it epic. show less

This was my first experience of Gilgamesh, the ancient Sumerian epic that predates Homer's Odyssey by about 1500 years. What a brilliant, simple story; no wonder it has survived. I found Herbert Mason's verse narrative brief and easy to read, but deeply impactful.

Gilgamesh is a king of Uruk (historically, fifth in line after the Great Flood, which the poem mentions). He lives a self-absorbed life, driving his people harshly or neglecting them, using the women, building the walls, but mostly just being idle. He awakens from this life when he meets Enkidu, a man from the wild who has been tamed by a prostitute. Enkidu and Gilgamesh become friends in the most inseparable sense, equals in all.

When Gilgamash is possessed by a desire to show more destroy the brutish god Humbaba, Enkidu is seized with fear. He knows from his time in the forest of Humbaba's dark power, and pleads with his friend not to go. But Gilgamesh is resolved, and Enkidu accompanies him. Enkidu is killed, and Gilgamesh finally discovers what human sorrow is. Spent with grief, he embarks on a winding quest to bring his friend back to life. What will be the end?

I love the prayer of Ninsun, Gilgamesh's mother who was a minor goddess. She says to the god Shamash,

...Why did you give my son
A restless heart, and now you touch him
With this passion to destroy Humbaba,
And you send him on a journey to a battle
He may never understand, to a door
He cannot open. You inspire him to end
The evil of the world which you abhor
And yet he is a man for all his power
And cannot do your work. You must protect
My son from danger. (33)

It captures the futility of humanity in our quest for transcendence, our spiritual discontent which we cannot remedy. All our good deeds come to nothing, and the last appeal is always to the deity. Striking also to me was the monotheism of Utnapishtim, the wise man Gilgamesh seeks out to save his friend. Mason hints in the afterword that this expression of monotheism may cause some controversy among scholars... interesting.

Casual readers like me always wonder, when we pick up a work like this of which there are so many versions and translations, if we have chosen The Right One. If we have maximized our reading experience, if we have latched on to something of which those who know would approve. I have to let worries like this go and simply enjoy the book, whichever version it is, that has fallen to me. I don't know what other translations are like, but I found this one intensely human and accessible.

Strangely powerful, from across thousands of years Gilgamesh draws us into its story and remains with us. It is, of course, the universality of loss, the desperation of sorrow, and the long road home of acceptance that make Gilgamesh's journey ours. Recommended. show less