Unveiling the Depths of The Epic of Gilgamesh: Friendship, Immortality, and the Quest for Meaning

 

The story explores the life of Gilgamesh. He is a king of Uruk which is a city in ancient Sumerian. Gilgamesh was created by the gods and he is a product of a man and a goddess. He is the strongest and the fairest looking man in the kingdom. He does great things for the cities such as the development of temple towers and other structures of beauty.  His might and fair looks go to his head, and this makes wear out the rest of the people in his kingdom. He engages the young men in athletic activities and contests that seem to have no end and is very exploitative of the young women in the city. He was cruel and forced the people to suffer.  His building projects in the city were carried out using forced labor, and this made his subjects exhausted with his oppression. The people then prayed to the gods to save them from Gilgamesh. The god Anu hears the plight of the people and commands Aruru who is a goddess to create another man strong enough to match the qualities of Gilgamesh. Aruru goes on and creates Enkidu, who is a strong and uncivilized man. Learning of the existence of Enkidu, Gilgamesh sends a trapper with a harlot by the name Shamhat. She entices Enkidu, and they engage in sexual intercourse. Soon after Enkidu’s mind is opened up and can no longer live in the woods with the animals. He goes and lives with Shamhat who introduces him to the human life and becomes a civilized man while living with Shamhat, she mentions of Gilgamesh and Enkidu realizes he has been in need of a friend for a long time (Abusch, 2001). This essay, therefore, explores the life of Gilgamesh and his quest for friendship, and immortality.

His desire for friendship is also met with desire for confrontation, and this is a great conscience since he was created by the gods to challenge Gilgamesh with the intentions of stopping his cruelty. Enkidu, therefore, takes on the journey and goes to Uruk to face Gilgamesh. He challenges him, and in the confrontation, Gilgamesh wins. However, they become great friends after this confrontation. They become friends for a very long time, and one day Gilgamesh decides to go on a quest.  He goes to the cedar forest which is at a distance to kill Humbaba, a monster that lived to guard the forest. The forest has forbidden fruits which mortals are not allowed to take. Gilgamesh wish to kill Humbaba is against the request of the elders of the city of Uruk and at some point, Enkidu persuades him not to. Gilgamesh goes to confront Humbaba with his friend Enkidu and. They finally reach the forest which is at a distance, and they confront the monster Humbaba. Gilgamesh is helped by the Shamash the sun god, and this allows him to overpower the monster. He is close to offering mercy to the monster but Enkidu gives him peer pressure, and he slays the monster. They cut the forbidden trees and create a gate using the tallest of the trees and the others they use to build a raft. They use the raft to float back to Uruk, and on the way, Ishtar who is the goddess of love falls in love with Gilgamesh and lusts for him. She pursues him, and he spurns her, and this angers the gods (Altes, 2007).

The gods try to punish Gilgamesh by sending a bull to kill him but together with Enkidu the two wrestle the bull and defeat it. The gods gather in council and express how one of the two friends has to be punished. The gods then decide that it is Enkidu who has to die. A great illness attacks Enkidu and makes hi suffer greatly. He soon succumbs to the illness and this heartbreak Gilgamesh who considered Gilgamesh, his greatest friend. Gilgamesh mourns the death of his friend and spends his time in great sorrow. His sorrow is too much that he fears that it would take his life and thus he decides to visit Utnapishtim who had eternal life. As Gilgamesh tries to find Utnapishtim, he is denied access to the entrance of the dwelling of Utnapishtim. He takes another route where he meets Siduri who warns him that his quest for immortality would be futile. However, Gilgamesh continues with his journey. Siduri directs Gilgamesh to Utnapishtim. Utnapishtim narrates to Gilgamesh the story of the floods and the motives the gods had for the humankind. He told him how the gods regretted using floods to destroy humankind. However, Utnapishtim was granted eternal life.  Humankind would, therefore, be eternal, but men would die. Gilgamesh, insist on having eternal life but Utnapishtim tests him first. He asks him not to sleep for a week, and he will grant him eternal life. Gilgamesh fails the test. Utnapishtim orders Gilgamesh back to Uruk. Gilgamesh returns to Uruk with a reconciled sense of mortality. He lives in peace with his people and maintains a diligent way of life (Christman, 2008).

The story of Gilgamesh explores the aspect of death. The epic of Gilgamesh explores a man’s quest to try and outsmart death to receive immortality. He is strong and mighty in thus he does not fear death. He is prestigious in his city of Uruk. He has the perception that dying while accomplishing great things will make people remember him forever. This was as close to immortality as he could get. However, the death of his friend Enkidu, gave him a moment of clarity especially when he saw a maggot come out of Enkidu’s nose. He fears for his death and embarks on a quest to find immortality. He embarks on the expedition to meet the Mesopotamian Noah Utanapishtim who was given immortality by the gods after the floods. However, Gilgamesh’s quest is futile because he does not receive the key to eternal life. He accepts his fate as mortal and goes back to Uruk to continue serving his people. At the end of the epic, the perception of Gilgamesh about death are completely changed. His lifetime has been a journey of learning and receiving enlightenment and his meeting with Utanapishtim, empowers him to become a better person and accept the nature of being mortal. He no longer fears death and goes back to Uruk to live the rest of his life serving the people he had once oppressed (Christman, 2008).

The epic of Gilgamesh also explores the aspect of friendship. The story depicts the strong friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Enkidu was created by the gods to help stop Gilgamesh, but instead of stopping him they forged a great friendship that lasted for a long period. At first, Gilgamesh appears possessed with the need oppress the people of his city but is later on viewed as a yearning for companionship which he gets from the friendship with Enkidu. Once Enkidu comes along the troublesome nature of Gilgamesh stops (EMMERICH, 2016).

The friendship between the two starts with enmity. Their first encounter is a fight for which Gilgamesh wins. At this point, it is highly unlikely that they would develop to be friends, but they do. Gilgamesh embarks on a journey to the cedar forest to get access to the forbidden fruits and has to kill the monster Umbaba. Enkidu is against it because he fears that it would be dangerous. This show that Enkidu cares about the safety of his friend. The death of Enkidu also plunges Gilgamesh into great sorrow (EMMERICH, 2016).

The aspects of life and existence are also well depicted in the epic. The development of friendship between Enkidu and Gilgamesh develops consciousness in him that come to terms with reality. Gilgamesh is then troubled with the question of existence and life which he dedicates the rest of his life to answering questions about them (Christman, 2008).

The epic of Gilgamesh is, therefore, a great story. It is based on an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. This is considered as their earliest surviving work or literature and has had great influence in the modern society. It is based on five Sumerian poems about the King of Uruk of the Ur dynasty that dates as far as 2000BC. It explores the life of Gilgamesh as he encounters aspects of friendship, death, and mortality. The epic has become very significant has been translated into many languages. The story bears various similarities to aspects found in the bible. A good example is aspects of Noah and the flood (Karahashi, 2006).

 

Works Cited

Abusch, Tzvi. "The Development and Meaning of the Epic of Gilgamesh: An Interpretive Essay." Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 121, no. 4, Oct-Dec2001, p. 614.

Altes, Liesbeth Korthals. "Gilgamesh and the Power of Narration." Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 127, no. 2, Apr-Jun2007, pp. 183-193.

Christman, Jared. "The Gilgamesh Complex: The Quest for Death Transcendence and the Killing of Animals." Society & Animals, vol. 16, no. 4, Oct. 2008, pp. 297-315.

EMMERICH, KAREN. "A Message from the Antediluvian Age": The Modern Construction of the Ancient Epic of Gilgamesh." Comparative Literature, vol. 68, no. 3, Sept. 2016, pp. 251-273.

Karahashi, Fumi and Caroline López-Ruiz. "Love Rejected: Some Notes on the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh and the Greek Myth of Hippolytus." Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 58, Mar. 2006, pp. 97-107.

"The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh." Publishers Weekly, vol. 253, no. 46, 20 Nov. 2006, pp. 47-48.