The Epic of Gilgamesh Read Online Free
Author: Anonymous
set in the Book of Judges.
5. The Hero of the Epic
Our enjoyment of the story is not seriously affected by whether or not there was a historical Gilgamesh; but scholars have in fact been able recently to establish beyond doubt that a man, a king, named Gilgamesh lived and reigned in Uruk at some time during the first half of the third millennium. Controversy is limited now to whether he lived around 2700 or some hundred or so years later. Names of the forerunners and contemporaries of Gilgamesh have been found written on bricks and vases; while two semi-historical documents, the âSumerian King-Listâ already referred to, and the so-called âHistory of Tummulâ give conflicting historical and genealogical evidence. According to the first, Gilgamesh is fifth in line from the founding of the first dynasty of Uruk (after the flood) and reigned 126 years, but his son reigned a mere thirty years, and thereafter kings lived and reigned an ordinary human term. The Tummul document, also dating from the beginning of the second millennium, tells that Gilgamesh rebuilt the shrine of the goddess Ninlil in Nippur, following an earlier restoration by kings of Kish.
The various chronological ambiguities are of minor importance compared to the establishment of Gilgamesh as an historical person: a king who probably led a successful expedition to bring back timber from the forests of the north and who was certainly a great builder. The walls of Uruk were a by-word, but they were not yet of burnt brick; this is an anachronism possibly due to misunderstanding of an earlier text by later redactors.
Remembered was the superior quality of the âplano-convexâ bricks used in the construction of the fortifications. Excavations at Warka have shown the magnificence of the temple buildings even in the proto-literate period; but Gilgamesh was also remembered as a just judge, and later report made him, like Minos of Crete, a judge in the Underworld, one to whom prayers were addressed and who was invoked by incantation and ritual. One prayer begins, âGilgamesh, supreme king, judge of the Anunnakiâ.
At the beginning of the poem the hero is described. He is two parts god and one part man, for his mother was a goddess like the mother of Achilles. From her he inherited great beauty, strength, and restlessness. From his father he inherited mortality. There are many strands in the story, but this is the tragedy: the conflict between the desires of the god and the destiny of the man. The mother of Gilgamesh was a comparatively obscure goddess who had a palace-temple in Uruk. His father in the King-List is rather mysteriously described as âlilluâ, which may mean a âfoolâ or a demon of the vampire kind, as well as being high-priest. Gilgamesh in the Sumerian version is âthe priest of Kullabâ, a part of Uruk, but in moments of stress he calls on Lugulbanda as âfatherâ. Lugulbanda reigned in Uruk second before Gilgamesh and third after the flood. He was a guardian and protector of the city, and is called a god; he reigned 1200 years.
In a work which has existed for so long and been subjected to such frequent copying and reshaping, it is no use looking for precise historical events. I have suggested that the political situation in the third millennium provides the most likely setting for the action. More striking is the degree of spiritual unity found throughout the cycle, Sumerian, Old Babylonian and Assyrian alike, which derives from the character of the hero, and from a profoundly pessimistic attitude to human life and the world. This attitude is, at least in part, a consequence of the insecurity of life in Mesopotamia, and of those âovertones of anxietyâ which Henri Frankfort described as being due to âa haunting fear that the unaccountable and turbulent powers may at any time bring disaster to human societyâ. In the character of Gilgamesh, from the beginning, we are
5. The Hero of the Epic
Our enjoyment of the story is not seriously affected by whether or not there was a historical Gilgamesh; but scholars have in fact been able recently to establish beyond doubt that a man, a king, named Gilgamesh lived and reigned in Uruk at some time during the first half of the third millennium. Controversy is limited now to whether he lived around 2700 or some hundred or so years later. Names of the forerunners and contemporaries of Gilgamesh have been found written on bricks and vases; while two semi-historical documents, the âSumerian King-Listâ already referred to, and the so-called âHistory of Tummulâ give conflicting historical and genealogical evidence. According to the first, Gilgamesh is fifth in line from the founding of the first dynasty of Uruk (after the flood) and reigned 126 years, but his son reigned a mere thirty years, and thereafter kings lived and reigned an ordinary human term. The Tummul document, also dating from the beginning of the second millennium, tells that Gilgamesh rebuilt the shrine of the goddess Ninlil in Nippur, following an earlier restoration by kings of Kish.
The various chronological ambiguities are of minor importance compared to the establishment of Gilgamesh as an historical person: a king who probably led a successful expedition to bring back timber from the forests of the north and who was certainly a great builder. The walls of Uruk were a by-word, but they were not yet of burnt brick; this is an anachronism possibly due to misunderstanding of an earlier text by later redactors.
Remembered was the superior quality of the âplano-convexâ bricks used in the construction of the fortifications. Excavations at Warka have shown the magnificence of the temple buildings even in the proto-literate period; but Gilgamesh was also remembered as a just judge, and later report made him, like Minos of Crete, a judge in the Underworld, one to whom prayers were addressed and who was invoked by incantation and ritual. One prayer begins, âGilgamesh, supreme king, judge of the Anunnakiâ.
At the beginning of the poem the hero is described. He is two parts god and one part man, for his mother was a goddess like the mother of Achilles. From her he inherited great beauty, strength, and restlessness. From his father he inherited mortality. There are many strands in the story, but this is the tragedy: the conflict between the desires of the god and the destiny of the man. The mother of Gilgamesh was a comparatively obscure goddess who had a palace-temple in Uruk. His father in the King-List is rather mysteriously described as âlilluâ, which may mean a âfoolâ or a demon of the vampire kind, as well as being high-priest. Gilgamesh in the Sumerian version is âthe priest of Kullabâ, a part of Uruk, but in moments of stress he calls on Lugulbanda as âfatherâ. Lugulbanda reigned in Uruk second before Gilgamesh and third after the flood. He was a guardian and protector of the city, and is called a god; he reigned 1200 years.
In a work which has existed for so long and been subjected to such frequent copying and reshaping, it is no use looking for precise historical events. I have suggested that the political situation in the third millennium provides the most likely setting for the action. More striking is the degree of spiritual unity found throughout the cycle, Sumerian, Old Babylonian and Assyrian alike, which derives from the character of the hero, and from a profoundly pessimistic attitude to human life and the world. This attitude is, at least in part, a consequence of the insecurity of life in Mesopotamia, and of those âovertones of anxietyâ which Henri Frankfort described as being due to âa haunting fear that the unaccountable and turbulent powers may at any time bring disaster to human societyâ. In the character of Gilgamesh, from the beginning, we are
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