Epic of Gilgamesh: Difference between revisions

[[Image:Gilgamesh.jpg|thumb|Gilgamesh]] While composed nearly five thousand years ago (2500-1500 BCE), ''Gilgamesh'' seems very as contemporary in its thematic concerns as it is alien in many of its cultural practices. Many of these themes emerge from a lost mythological tradition and a culture that is equally non-extant, the bonds of friendship, fear of death, and the quest for worldly renown still strike chords with us even in the twenty-first century.

==Characters==

== Historical Context ==

== Gilgamesh as Epic ==

=== Quest for Worldly Renown ===

Now that we are friends, we have to party. Enkidu soon gets bored in Uruk — “I am oppressed by idleness” (23) — and Gilgamesh suggests they go get medieval of some evil: Humbaba. This feat will also prove Gilgamesh a real hero by allowing stories to be told about his great feats of manhood:

=== Humbaba ===

"Humbaba whose name is 'Hugeness,' a ferocious giant.  Enlil has appointed Humbaba to guard the forest and has armed him in sevenfold terrors, terrible to all flesh is Humbaba.  When he roars it is like the torrent of the storm, his breath is like fire, and his jaws are death itself.  He guards the cedars so well that when the wild heifer stirs in the forest, though she is sixty leagues distant, he hears her.  Humbaba is a great warrior, a battering ram.  Humbaba, the watchman of the forest never sleeps."  (The Norton Anthology, 23)

=== Escape from Death ===

After Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh rips his clothes from his body and dons animal skins, symbolic of his repudiation of civilization and renown — that which caused the death of his friend. Gilgamesh’s subsequent journey is a psychological descent into his own psyche to discover his own meaning in a life that must end in death. His epic journey is pretty pathetic as far as epic journeys go: full of tantrums and failed tasks, Gilgamesh seems to return to Uruk empty-handed. Yet, he brings the story of his travel and carves it on the bricks that make up the foundation of Uruk, suggesting that civilization is ultimately built on stories: the written text is the key to progress, friendship, and immortality. Gilgamesh, then, becomes a scapegoat: he journeyed to meet Utnapishtim so his people did not have to. Though his journeys proved ostensibly unsuccessful, he returned humanized, ready to accept his place in the world and finally death when it would come.

''Gilgamesh'' leaves us with its moral: Do not abuse power, “deal justly with your servants in the palace, deal justly before the face of the Sun” (46). ''Gilgamesh'' is both “the darkness and the light of mankind” in that he brought suffering, but ultimately brought life to his people in the form of the story. What directions for life are contained within the epic? How many of these myths do we still live with today? These stories represent the good and the bad of humanity. What do we ultimately think of the stories, myths, codes for life that ''Gilgamesh'' ultimately passes on?

When we are first introduced to Enkindu, it is when “he was innocent of mankind, he knew nothing of the cultivated land” (19).  He also “ate grass in the hills with the gazelle and lurked with wild beasts at the water-holes” (19).  Though he is biologically human, he lives like a wild animal.  One aspect of his animalism is his eating habits.  The food we eat, the ways it is prepared and consumed, and the rituals of hospitality are all forms of culture and civilization.  In order for Enkindu to learn to be human, he must learn to eat as one.  When the shepherds originally present food to him the text states that, “Enkindu could only suck the milk of wild animals.  He fumbled and gaped, at a loss what to do or how he should eat the bread and drink the strong wine” (22).  Because he only knows how to eat as an animal, he is an animal.   

== Attitudes Toward Women ==

Gilgamesh's view of women is that of a male chauvinist (according to today’s standards). Not only is he a male chauvinist, but he "is the epitome of a bad ruler: arrogant, oppressive, and brutal." (The Norton Anthology, 17)"His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior's daughter nor the wife of the noble; yet this is the shepherd of the city, wise, comely, and resolute." (The Norton Anthology, 19) The men of Uruk were not happy with his behavior. Even noble Enkidu is upset at the news that Gilgamesh was to take a bride’s virginity before her marriage to her groom.

When Ishtar see Gilgamesh's great beauty she exclaims in glory, "Come to me ''Gilgamesh'', and be my bridegroom; grant me seed of you body, let me be your bride and you shall be my husband."(The Norton Anthology, 30) “She tried to make Gilgamesh her husband, but he refused her and reminded her of her former lovers, whom she mercilessly killed or left injured.”  (Lindemans, Micha F. \ “Ishtar” \ www.pantheon.org \ July 25, 2004) He states that he doesn’t just want to be another piece of meat in her escapades of having sex with many men and leaving them.  So he declines.   

As we look at attitudes toward women, we cannot just look at Gilgamesh as an individual but at the whole story.  The trapper's son was scared of Enkidu at first.  The trapper's son went to Gilgamesh and got a harlot, (loose woman), to take to the watering hole to seduce Enkidu so his peers, the animals, would repel against him.   

The military’s 21-gun salute is centered on the number seven.  The use of this symbol is traced to early warriors demonstrating peaceful intentions and was used universally.  The act varied with time, place, and the weapon being used.  Originally warships fired a seven-gun salute.  The number seven was probably used because of astrological and Biblical importance.  There were seven planets identified and the moon changed phases every seven days. ''The Bible'' states that God rested on the seventh day after Creation, every seventh year was sabbatical and that the seven times seventh year ushered in the Jubilee year.  (Headquarters, Military District of Washington)

== Works Cited ==

* Blavatsky, H. P. “The Number Seven.” ''Theosophist'', (June, 1880.) 12 Feb. 2005 <http://theosophy.org/tlodocs/hpb/NumberSeven.htm>.  

* ''The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces''. 7th ed., New York:  W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.