Death in Gilgamesh

Death in Gilgamesh (by Hady Ghaouch)

The epic of Gilgamesh, the outstanding literary work of ancient Mesopotamia, incorporates, with its closely knit, climatic and tragic plot structure, elements of myth and striking folklore. The profoundly poignant heroic poem revolves around Gilgamesh, the mighty tyrant of the city of Uruk. As well as friendship and loyalty, adventure and renown, hope and despair, the epic deals with death and the quest for life everlasting. However, when one questions the meaning of death he is inevitably and unintentionally questioning the meaning of life because those two concepts are inseparable. What is the meaning of death and how does it evolve through the different stages of the epic? How does Gilgamesh awake this significance?

The meaning of death witnesses some drastic alterations throughout the epic along with the numerous twists in the tale.

The story opens on Gilgamesh, a two-third god and one-third man, a hero, more beautiful and courageous than any ever known, and whose undertakings embody our own. Still, he held no compassion for his people: Ð'ÐŽÐ'§Ð'ÐŽKhis arrogance has no bounds by day or night. No son is left with his fatherÐ'ÐŽK His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warriorÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦s daughter nor the wife of the nobleÐ'ÐŽÐ'Ё. He was their sovereign but never their shepherd. Gilgamesh held no esteem whatsoever for life itself because he had never tasted the bitterness of a friend or relativeÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦s death. He was unaware of the implications of his mortality. In the early pages of the epic, GilgameshÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦s representation was dominated by godly attributes (undefeated, courageous, terrifying, beautifulÐ'ÐŽK) which directs us to believe that he was probably immortal.

The surfacing of Enkidu, the counterpart of Gilgamesh, roused a major twist in the epic. When Gilgamesh out-bested Enkidu in a fight, they embraced each other and became brothers in arms: they fought numerous battles side by side, and embarked on a journey to slay the evil fiend Humbaba, keeper of the Cedar forest. As the path ahead became thorny and perilous, they supported each other to confront death victoriously: "All living creatures born of flesh shall sit at last in the boat of the West, and when it sinks, when the boat of Magilum sinks, they are gone; but we shall go forward and fix our eyes on this monster." (81). In this excerpt, we can easily recognize the moral values of the Mesopotamian society where the warriorÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦s death (the death on the battlefield) is honored and valued above all. One interesting thought worth mentioning, is that we are instinctively led to believe that the union of those two complements, those two unbreakable giants will be indestructible.

However, fate, as ironic as it can be, took Enkidu's life away. The brotherhood of the titans came to an end. During his final struggle against the grasp of death, Enkidu cursed the trapper and the harlot who stole his innocence, as if innocence was the undeniable cause of the unawareness of death and mortality: Without consciousness, knowledge or wisdom, death would not exist. But then Shamash awakens him to the idea that the end of innocence, and his coming to Uruk, conveyed with it recompense: "Enkidu, why are you cursing the woman, the mistress who taught you to eat bread fit for gods, and drink wine of kings? She who put upon you a magnificent garment, did she not give you glorious Gilgamesh for your companion, and has not Gilgamesh, you own brother, made you rest on a royal bed and recline on a couch at his left hand?"

Sour as his death is to him, and to Gilgamesh, it gave a meaning to his life, for it made companionship an inevitable consequence. Enkidu's death is unavoidable, and Gilgamesh must endure it with all the rage and despair, knowing that "what my brother is now, I shall be" (97). And so we begin to realize that GilgameshÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦s description at the opening of the epic (with godly attributes and nearly immortal), begins to fade away, replaced by the image of a king, a two-third god, but identical to humans in the face of death.

Haunted by this new knowledge, the certainty of his own death,