Gilgamesh: Bruises and Blessings

1. Gilgamesh:Bruises and Blessings Feraco Myth to Science Fiction 13 September 2012

2. It’s interesting that The Epic of Gilgamesh grows so fixated with death – with its defeat, more specifically, and with the perpetuation of life. Before he goes on the journey to the Cedar Forest, Gilgamesh doesn’t seem to value the life he eventually becomes terrified of losing. Think about how he spends his time! He’s overwhelmed by the shallowness of his existence, acts on base desires without heed for their impact on others, and does nothing to change his ways even though they’re contributing to his misery. He’s selfish, inconsistent, and crude; his mother, Ninsun, believes Shamash cursed her son with a “restless heart.”

3. What Gilgamesh needs is a counterpart, an equal, someone to serve as an outlet for whatever uncontrollable urges seize him at any given moment. He has none. Gilgamesh is isolated – from his people, from his gods, from himself. The only companion he has (save the women he takes advantage of) is Ninsun; he doesn’t naturally reach out to others. We see this more strongly reflected in his behavior towards the individuals he encounters during his search for Utnapishtim in the epic’s second half, but that element of his personality is there from the beginning.

4. This isn’t a mere character observation: once one notices this part of Gilgamesh, one also notices that the story equates loneliness with weakness, isolation with instability – and togetherness with peace. The lonely king essentially tears at, and tears down, his world, when he should be doing what all kings should do: tending to the foundations of the worlds they’re meant to hold aloft. Gilgamesh repeats the binge-purge-suffer cycle, never demonstrating any sort of growth nor knowing any peace. And while hungers for more, a desire that manifests itself violently in his actions, he doesn’t seem to know how to break free of the cycle or to reach out to others.

5. There’s a concept in Buddhism called samsara, which in turn is tied to the concept of rebirth and reincarnation. Basically, you enter, leave, and re-enter the material world, a reality defined by our desires and subsequent suffering when those desires are not fulfilled. If you die without learning how to overcome desire, you are reborn, live again, and die; if you still haven’t learned, the cycle repeats.

6. By overcoming desire, the thinking goes, you can eliminate suffering – and since suffering and desire are all that separate us from truth and understanding, from recognizing the ways in which everything connects and unifies with everything else, you will reach enlightenment once they’re eliminated. Once you reach that enlightened state – nirvana – your cycle of suffering ends, and you can pass on after death. It’s interesting to juxtapose the infinite cycles of suffering with the Akkadians’ anger towards the very concept of a single mortal existence – and to take this Buddhist concept and apply it to Gilgamesh’s very specific, ancient tale.

7. Meanwhile, it’s easy to miss, but the beginning of the story features a loss for Enkidu – and while it’s different from the one Gilgamesh eventually suffers, it’s just as profound. After the wild man’s encounter with the prostitute, Shamhat – whose surprisingly complicated role in the epic will be explored later – the animals shun him, and he loses his ability to communicate with the only beings he’s ever known. Thus Enkidu is essentially cast out of Eden, provided the Steppe counts as Paradise: his new knowledge of Man (specifically, Man from the Walled City) pollutes him in the eyes of his former friends.

8. Resigning himself to his new life, Enkidu then sides with the humans against the animals, helping the shepherds by driving the lions away and capturing the wolves. This betrayal forever isolates him from them; there is no going back. While this transformation reflects ancient attitudes regarding man’s relationship with the natural world – Enkidu was seen as automatically better off now that he’s encountered civilizing influences – it’s worth noting that he’s now suddenly and fundamentally alone.

9. The gift Gilgamesh and Enkidu give each other, then, is one of connection – the thing that breaks the former’s cycle of suffering while relieving the latter’s newfound pain. When they first meet, both men are a bit unbalanced, needing to reconcile their wildness with their humanity. Enkidu becomes the archetypal Young Man from the Provinces, coming in from the outside to revitalize Uruk by “curing” the king of his melancholy. He removes the king’s isolation and stands steadfastly by his side – a marked contrast from the citizens of Uruk, who only defend Gilgamesh because they must. And just as Enkidu relieves Gilgamesh of his loneliness, the king confers a new purpose upon his friend: Each gives the other his missing piece of humanity.

10. One could argue that each brings out the best in his counterpart, for they aren’t wild in the same way. In some ways, Gilgamesh proves more “savage” than his new friend; while the king seemingly lives to ravage and consume, Enkidu lives to preserve and support. Everything we know about him, save his wildness, reflects a quality we wish we could see in ourselves – whereas very little of what Gilgamesh does seems worth doing. Enkidu understands compassion and brotherhood, shows both courage and caution, and ultimately pays the price – unwillingly, but still – that spares his friend’s life. Gilgamesh only rediscovers his human values through Enkidu, and the story lionizes him in turn.

11. When we first meet him, Gilgamesh won’t engage with the world, refusing to acknowledge the unity of things and living out a pale shadow of life behind his towering walls. So the world goes to him in the form of Enkidu, breaching the old defenses, leaving Gilgamesh both more alive and more vulnerable than ever before. With his new friend, the king comes to know triumph, but also learns of despair.

12. If Gilgamesh never meets Enkidu, never makes a friend, he’ll never feel the pain of loss…but he’ll never know the happiness he finds once his loneliness shatters. So we come back to our big questions from Shattering Loneliness: Is it a worthwhile trade? Is it really better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all…in Gilgamesh’s case? Moreover, is Gilgamesh’s grief selfish – does he mourn Enkidu’s loss simply because he feels reduced without him?

13. At first blush, it seems odd that a man who lived as brutally as Gilgamesh did would grieve a lost life so heavily. Perhaps it’s a matter of meaning; his life was meaningless before Enkidu arrived, and Gilgamesh has no desire to return to the way things were. Or perhaps it’s a larger metaphysical / thematic concern: Thorkild Jacobsen says that Gilgamesh is a “revolt against death,” that the story essentially posits that a just and good universe would allow man’s glories to continue uninterrupted (whereas death merely prevents us from reaching our potential and discovering our true meaning).

14. Thus we ask ourselves questions about the nature of death. Is it simply a termination? A snuffing out of possibility and potential? A gateway to something greater? Is there meaning in death, or is death meaningless? Does some of life’s urgency come from that final consequence – the knowledge, however acknowledged, that life ends no matter what we do? And can one find meaning in life without enduring terrible pain? Can one find meaning without risk? You need bruises to know blessings, and I have known both. Frances Shand Kydd