Utnapishtim’s Words: Mason vs. Mitchell

1. Utnapishtim’s Words: Mason vs. Mitchell Feraco Myth to Science Fiction 17 October 2011

2. Many years ago through loss I learned that love is wrung from our innermost heart until only the loved one is, and we are not… I think love kills the heart of flesh. It is the only way to eternal life, which should be unbearable if lived among the dying flowers and the shrieking farewells of the overstretched arms of our spoiled hopes. I think compassion is our God’s pure act which burns forever…

3. Mitchell, too, has a wonderful depiction of Utnapishtim’s words. Gilgamesh, why prolong your grief? Have you ever paused to compare your own blessed lot with a fool’s? You were made from the flesh of both gods and humans; the gods have lavished you with their gifts as though they were your father and mothers.

4. From your birth they assigned you a throne and told you, “Rule over men!” To the fool they gave beer dregs instead of butter, stale crusts instead of bread that is fit for gods, rags instead of magnificent garments, instead of a wide fringed belt an old rope, and a frantic, senseless, dissatisfied mind.

5. Can’t you see how fortunate you are? You have worn yourself out through ceaseless striving, you have filled your muscles with pain and anguish. And what have you achieved but to bring yourself one day nearer to the end of your days? At night the moon travels across the sky, the gods of heaven stay awake and watch us, unsleeping, undying. This is the way the world is established, from ancient times.

6. Yes: the gods took Enkidu’s life. But man’s life is short, at any moment it can be snapped, like a reed in a canebrake. The handsome young man, the lovely young woman – in their prime, death comes and drags them away. Though no one has seen death’s face or heard death’s voice, suddenly, savagely, death destroys us, all of us, old or young.

7. And yet we build houses, make contracts, brothers divide their inheritance, conflicts occur – as though this human life lasted forever. The river rises, flows over its banks and carries us all away, like mayflies floating downstream: they stare at the sun, then all at once there is nothing.

8. The sleeper and the dead, how alike they are! Yet the sleeper wakes up and opens his eyes, while no one returns from death. And who can know when the last of his days will come? When the gods assemble, they decide your fate, they establish both life and death for you, but the time of death they do not reveal.