Secrets and Forbidden Places

S. B. Darrell, Ph.D. University of Southern Indiana 23 September 2005

The Epic of is the earliest complex story about us.

Although it concerns various characters, mortal and immortal, wild and civilized, male and female, like all great literature, this epic addresses our behaviors and ambitions and sorrows. The proem introduces extraordinary king:

Gilgamesh

was a hero who knew secrets and saw forbidden places,

who could even speak of time before the

Flood because he lived long, learned much,

and spoke his life to those who first

cut into clay his bird-like words.

He commanded walls for and for Eanna,

walls that you can see still . . .

Go to them and touch their immovable presence

with gentle fingers to find yourself.

No one else ever built such walls.

Climb Uruk’s Tower and walk about on a

Windy night. Look. Touch. Taste. Sense.

What force creates such mass?

Open up the special box that’s hidden in the wall 2

And read aloud the story of Gilgamesh’s life. (I.i. 4-22)

These opening lines stress Gilgamesh’s achievement and wisdom, both hard-bought. His experiences and travels led him to forbidden places where he learned many secrets. Such knowledge remained inaccessible to human beings till Gilgamesh, and especially till Gilgamesh told his story to scribes. They wrote it in on clay tablets, those hidden in Uruk’s walls; and that writing allows us, and all the generations in between for five millennia, to profit from Gilgamesh’s knowledge of the great world and human sorrow and joy.

Let us begin by looking briefly at some cuneiform: Pictograph, pictograph turned 90 degrees; Old Babylonian cuneiform; Assyrian cuneiform (Mallowan chart).

Scholars presume a variety of episodes about Gilgamesh circulated orally until, eventually, poets and scribe recorded them, choosing episodes according to their own interests and motives. Gilgamesh himself ruled Uruk in sometime between 2900 and 2700 BCE.

Scribes first wrote his story 2500 BCE, during the Sumerian Classical period. But we have only three versions. The Old Babylonian version, written about 1700 BCE; the Middle Akkadian version, from around

1350 BCE; and Standard Version, in Middle Assyrian cuneiform about

1100 BCE. All of the Gilgamesh stories together require only about 3000 lines total, lines carefully gathered and preserved from whole and broken 3

clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform. Some tablets with parts of

Gilgamesh’s story come from , Sippar, Ischali, —these all date

from early 2nd millennium BCE. But other cuneiform tablets have come

from Bogazkoy, Megiddo, Ugarit, and Emar; and we have late-2nd-

millennium translations into Hittite, Hurrian, and Elamite (McCall 18-

19).

On this first map, we see Uruk, Gilgamesh’s city in Sumer, north

of the marshlands where and Tigris empty into the Persian

Gulf; east of the great Arabian Desert, which Gilgamesh and

cross to fight in the of Lebanon; and west of the

Zagros Mountains with Mount Mashu, which Gilgamesh travels through

on his quest to visit . Here, too, we see some of the sites I

just mentioned, whence Gilgamesh tablets come: Nineveh, Suppar, , the Hittites’ Anatolia; and, of course, we see cities of modern Iraq—

Mosul, Baghdad--horrifically familiar to us from the news.

Next, on Mallowan’s map, we see a larger area, including and

Lebanon to the west and Turkestan, Badakhshan, and Baluchistan to the east, countries with which the ancient Sumerians traded regularly, the Sumerians offering textiles and pottery in return for such things as precious , the blue gemstone referred to a half dozen times in the epic, brought by traders from Baluchistan.

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Earlier I remarked that The tells our story. By that, I mean that the poet—named call him Sin-leqqi-unninni—explores the experiences and meanings of human life. Let’s begin with Enkidu.

At the request of Uruk’s citizens, Aruru creates Enkidu from her spit and a stone she dropped into the forest; Enkidu grows up in the forest with flocks and herds and other animals, eating with them from grasses , drinking with them at the watery hole, wearing no clothes—a Wild Man.

Moreover, Enkidu threatens civilized life by freeing all the animals caught in hunters’ snares and nets. Some of us have been an Enkidu; others of us have called him a friend, this half-civilized companion who flouts the rules, who lives by instinct and urge, who engages in adventures and perils we’d never choose on our own. Even after , the priestess from Ishtar’s temple in Uruk, teaches Enkidu enough human behavior to enter Uruk--showing him how human beings engage in sexual intercourse--for six days and seven nights without pause, how we eat and drink and wear clothes in imitation of the gods--Enkidu remains, in some ways, closer to beasts than to gods.

As soon as Enkidu and Gilgamesh meet, wrestle, and bond,

Enkidu the Wild Man, challenges Gilgamesh to venture forth, to win fame: no more lying around Uruk, bedding every man’s wife. Though often calling Enkidu Gilgamesh’s brother, his other self, Sin-leqqi- unninni names him Gilgamesh’s axe, his bow, his sword, thus identifying 5

Enkidu with weapons, violence, danger. The part of Gilgamesh’s life associated with Enkidu involves daring, warrior prowess, the individual man seeking to prove himself and win fame—as witnessed by his equally or more daring friend--so the poets will sing songs about him.

Early in our lives, each of us risks behavior with a friend or friends that we wouldn’t dare alone—we smoke or drink or drag race on public highways or capture tarantulas. Then maturity or disaster moves us beyond such behavior. Once these two relatively young, certainly immature heroes capture Humbaba, Gilgamesh’s human reason and mercy lead him to think of sparing Humbaba; but Enkidu the Wild Man says simply, “Kill him . . . whow no weak and silly mercy” (V.vi. 75-6).

Later, when, at Enkidu’s instigation (VI. 145-148), they have slain the sacred Bull of , simultaneously grieving and infuriating Ishtar,

Enkidu insults the goddess further by throwing at her a hunk of the bull’s thigh meat (VI. 169-170) and then threatens to chop her into messes as they did the bull. These adventures and behaviors, admirable and not so, reflect the influence of the wild, daring forest man on the citified Gilgamesh; Gilgamesh lets Enkidu take the initiative.

Gilgamesh resembles most of us more closely than does Enkidu.

For a king, he lives an ordinary life, ruling Uruk, overseeing palace and temple, leading citizens in their sacrifices to and Ishtar. Unlike

Enkidu, the urban man Gilgamesh is accustomed to the good life: palace 6 and temple, good food and good beer, beautiful robes and jewels and weapons and women—life’s amenities. Citified but immature and self- centered when we meet him, Gilgamesh must grow significantly both as ruler and as human being before we consider him fully civilized. For instance, immediately after the proem, the citizens of Uruk pray for respite from their king (I.ii. 50-77). He over-busies and endangers Uruk’s men with war games; he beds the wives and daughters of Uruk’s citizens.

Obviously he needs a companion to transform his remarkable energies

(Gilgamesh’s sexual energy parallels Enkidu and Shamhat’s six days and seven nights) into worthwhile adventures, thereby freeing Uruk’s citizens, who will no longer ask sarcastically, “Is this the shepherd of Uruk’s flocks?” (I.ii. 50-77).

Enkidu becomes fit for Uruk through Shamhat, the temple priestess; Gilgamesh becomes fit for Uruk through the adventures and miseries that mature him. For example, since Uruk lacks forests,

Gilgamesh and Enkidu want to capture Lebanon’s great Cedar Forests.

Once they do so, Uruk will possess wood—wood for framing and building and, more important, wood for fuel to bake clay into pots, tablets, bricks, irrigation tiles. Although we may say Gilgamesh ought not attack

Humbaba, this monster set by to guard the Cedar Forests,

Shamash, god of justice, and , Gilgamesh’s mother-goddess, bless the adventure and promise success. Thus, Gilgamesh acquires wood for 7

Uruk. This journey into an unknown, perilous place ends happily, except for Enkidu’s wound, which presages disaster.

As Gilgamesh and Enkidu and all of Uruk celebrate this success with feasts and drinks and music and clean, beautiful, sweetly scented robes, this very celebration attracts Ishtar, who sees a handsome human king she desires. Gilgamesh’s first conquest and success, therefore, lead directly to his great sorrow. Of course, Gilgamesh rejects union with

Ishtar, all of whose previous lovers ended deformed or dead, because his hubris lets him imagine he can insult a goddess and still live forever.

He compounds the insult by ignoring Ishtar’s threats so that she sends the Bull of Heaven. Thus, after Gilgamesh aids Uruk’s citizens by winning the Cedar Forests, he harms them by drawing the Bull of

Heaven, which causes earthquakes and chasms into which dozens and dozens of Uruk’s citizens fall—and into which Enkidu falls.

I think the gods finally destroy Enkidu for two reasons. First, hubris, especially that of Gilgamesh, demands punishment, and the gods know Gilgamesh will suffer much more through guilt and grief than through a quick death for himself. Second, Gilgamesh is capable of change, of learning and maturing. Enkidu isn’t. He remains a Wild Man to the end, finally, briefly heeding Shamash’s advice to quit blaming everyone else and to accept death peacefully.

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After Enkidu dies, men and women of Uruk, rivers and grottoes, birds and beasts, all mourn with Gilgamesh. Through this heightened mourning, we recognize our own terrors about death, loss because, like

Gilgamesh, we can’t identify that “somewhere” the dead depart to.

Gilgamesh says to Enkidu’s corpse, “I hear the voice of grief and I know that you have been taken/ somewhere by death” (VIII.ii. 94-95). Then

Gilgamesh surrenders wholly to guilt and grief, entering death-in-life during his mourning and quest for immortality. Sorrow, suffering, and failure hasten Gilgamesh’s maturity and civilization. Sin-leqqi-unnini stresses this death-in-life when the formerly daring hero can’t look on the Poison Scorpions directly and when Gilgamesh travels up and through dark, frozen mountains and across the dark, frozen steppe:

Oh, dark, dark, dark, dark. / Oh the night, unholy and blind, / That wrapped him . . . “ (IX. Iv. 91-93). He continues the description of

Gilgamesh crossing the steppe:

Darkness

Beneath a moonless, starless sky,

Gilgamesh was frozen and unseeing . . .

He was unseen and frozen . . .

Blinded and frozen . . .

Blinded and frozen. . . . (IX. . 95-108)

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This Dark Night of the Soul which so many of us experience after a loss or a death illusrates Gilgamesh’s state of numbness spiritually, physically, emotionally.

So great are Gilgamesh’s guilt and grief and need that he wins the

Poison Scorpions’ sympathy and permission to pass over and through the tunnel at Mount Mashu. So great are his guilt and grief and need that he proceeds across the steppe, living like an animal, surviving on meat from kills, wearing rags, desperate to achieve immortality so that he need not end as Enkidu did “stone-cold and dead for all the days to come” (X.iii. 154). So great are Gilgamesh’s guilt and grief and need that he persuades that, despite the dangers, he must meet Urshanabi at the edge of the Sea of Death. So great are his guilt and grief and need that, like a slave, he cuts hundreds of trees to craft hundreds of oars so he can row, like a slave, across the Sea of Death. Finally, so great are

Gilgamesh’s guilt and grief and need that the Utnapishtims offer him the consolation of directions to the plant of eternal youth.

But even with Siduri’s life-saving drinks, even with energy and youth, Gilgamesh cannot stave off exhaustion and sleep to pass the

Wakefulness test. He sleeps immediately, displaying his human frailty instead of qualifying for ever-watchful immortal life. And then, still believing he has suffered more than any other being, Gilgamesh hears

Utnapishtim’s story of the Flood, hears how Utnapishtim saw all of 10 humankind drowned and wept for them—and how even the gods, who make mankind mortal, wept for the innocents the Flood destroyed. So

Gilgamesh has suffered, but his suffering does not measure

Utnapishtim’s; and his suffering does not win him immortality. And without immortality, human beings must discover something in this life to value. By the time Gilgamesh and Urshanabi return across the Sea of

Death, Gilgamesh surely recognizes the wisdom in Siduri’s advice:

Remember always, mighty king,

That gods decreed the fates of all

Many years ago. They alone are let

To be eternal, while we frail humans die

As you yourself must someday do.

What is best for us to do

Is now to sing and dance.

Relish warm food and cool drinks.

Cherish children to whom your live gives life.

Bathe easily in sweet refreshing waters.

Play joyfully with your chosen wife.

It is the will of the gods for you to smile

On simple pleasure in the leisure time of your short days.

(X.iii. 87-99)

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Advised by experience and Siduri and Utnapishtim, Gilgamesh returns, with his new friend Urshanabi, to Uruk. Although he once cried that all his work came to nothing, finally Gilgamesh sees, upon his return, his monumental achievement—and he urges Urshanabi to

Examine

Uruk’s wall. Study the base, the brick,

The old design. Is it permanent as can be?

Does it look like wisdom designed it?

The house of Ishtar in

Uruk is divided into three parts:

The town itself, the palm grove, and the prairie.

As in the proem, emphasis falls here on human senses: we look and touch and taste and sense the magnificent walls, seven miles around

Uruk, built with clay bricks. Gilgamesh thus matures into civilization with this recognition; these last lines celebrate his peace with Ishtar: these walls provide safety to her temple. His walls, too, signify the protection he gives Uruk so that all the citizens can enjoy this life with music, dancing, food, drink, children, warm baths, love.

Recognizing that we will venture and we will suffer, If we want to learn much and to live well, we read and use what Gilgamesh left us: those cuneiform tablets in the box, in the walls—all that Gilgamesh passes on to us about secrets and forbidden places.