earlier than Greek legends; goes back to 2500 BCE Sumer
influenced Greek legend
beginning of Epic of Gilgamesh parallels beginning
of Odyssey
like heroes of Iliad, Gilgamesh says his name
will live on even if he dies; and he writes his story down on stone to
preserve it
Greek and Mesopotamian underworlds of the dead are
similar
Gilgamesh a real person; Sumerian king of Uruk, c. 2600
BCE.
but mythical, not real, elements attached to his
life
king lists say he lived for 126 years—
this can't be true, it's part of the legend
said to be 2/3 divine, 1/3 mortal
Epic of Gilgamesh—model of hero story
Gilgamesh abuses his power; gods create a rival to tone him
down
rival Enkidu: he is a primitive wild man; by sleeping with a woman he
becomes wiser and less wild, becomes more civilized
Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight; find each other worthy opponents;
become friends
Gilgamesh and Humbaba
Gilgamesh and Enkidu go to the Land of the Living (the
gods), guarded by Humbaba whom they kill
Gilgamesh and Ishtar (goddess of love)
G. insults Ishtar when she asks to sleep with him; she
sends the Bull of Heaven to destroy him, but he and Enkidu kill
it; Enkidu has to die, in retaliation
Gilgamesh and the search for immortality
G. seeks out Utnapishtim (equivalent of Noah), who survived
the great flood and now has eternal life
on the journey, kills lions, goes through darkness on the
sun's path, reaches the garden of the gods (like the Garden of
Eden) by the edge of the sea; rejecting mortality he crosses
the sea and meets Utnapishtim
Utnapishtim tells story of the great flood; Gilgamesh fails
a test to conquer Sleep (as practice for conquering Sleep's
brother, Death); he retrieves a youth-restoring herb from under
the sea, but on his way home a snake eats it
etiological: explains why snakes can renew their youth (by shedding
skin)
Gilgamesh weeps at realization that he cannot achieve
immortality
Themes in the Epic of Gilgamesh
Nature vs. Culture
Enkidu is wild; intercourse with woman
leads to his leaving the wild, cutting his hair, becoming wise
and civilized
Gilgamesh goes into wild, wears animal skins in grief
when Enkidu dies, and goes off to achieve immortality—turns his
back on mortality and civilization both, but unsuccessfully
Immortality vs. mortality
Gilgamesh finally realizes that
mortality is part of the deal even, perhaps especially, for
heroes; the fact that mortals must die affects their actions in
life, and is part of what can make them heroic
Ambiguous nature of love
Ishtar, love goddess, also represents
death; poem catalogues the terrible fates of her many
lovers
Near Eastern mythology is full of stories about the
love goddess sleeping with a young man, his consequent death, then rebirth—love
and death interconnected
related to this is the theme of
hostility to women; Enkidu blames the whore he slept with for
bringing him out of the wild into culture, and causing all his
troubles
Folktale elements in the Epic of
Gilgamesh
See Powell's list of folktale patterns in the Epic of
Gilgamesh. All these elements also appear in Greek myth; we will see some
in the Odyssey, most in the story of Heracles
