‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’: The First Great Work of Literature

A review of ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’, by anonymous; c. 2100 BC.

Samuel Noah Kramer called Gilgamesh ‘the hero par excellence of the ancient world’. He is an ‘adventurous, brave, but tragic figure, symbolising man’s vain but endless drive for fame, glory, and immortality.’ He might have been a historical king who ruled in Sumeria 3,000 years before Christ. He is, at any rate, immortalised in myth. He is the central character of The Epic of Gilgamesh, perhaps the world’s first great work of literature.

Written on clay tablets in cuneiform, the Epic tells the story of the eponymous king of Uruk, a demigod with huge ambition. He is proud, reckless and oppresses his people. He claims the droit du seigneur, spending the wedding night with each new bride. The gods, keen to knock him down a peg or two, create a wild man, Enkidu, to challenge him. But their fight to the death ends in stalemate, and they become firm friends.

Together, they are unstoppable. They slay the monster Humbaba. Then they kill the Bull of Heaven. The gods, enraged at this defiance, decide at a council meeting that of the pair should die. Enkidu, being mortal, is chosen. He falls ill, suffers for twelve days, and dies. ‘My friend, whom I loved, has turned to clay,’ wails Gilgamesh. ‘My friend Enkidu, whom I loved has turned to clay.’

Together, they are unstoppable. They slay the monster Humbaba. Then they kill the Bull of Heaven.

And this is the turning point. Only now does it strike Gilgamesh that he could die. Grief-stricken but moved to avoid a fate like his friend’s, he embarks on a quest for immortality. He seeks out Utnapishtim, a proto-Noah, the only mortal to survive a great flood. Utnapishtim, in place of eternal life, offers harsh truths: life is fleeting: do not chase eternal life, but live now. Gilgamesh sees that his only hope of immortality is to reign wisely, and be remembered through the ages as a just ruler.

At its heart, then, the Epic of Gilgamesh is about coming to terms with mortality. It is a memento mori in poetic form. Remember: you will die. Gilgamesh’s fear of dying drives the story; but its message is that wisdom lies in accepting limits. We leave behind only memories, and our lives are marked by the loss of what we love. It is archetypal: we chase money, power, popularity, possessions. And so we take part in a race with no finish line but the grave. In realising this, we find happiness. As the goddess Siduri tells Gilgamesh: ‘Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to? You will never find that life for which you are looking … fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice … for this is the lot of man.’

The style is direct, vivid. It blends mythic grandeur with emotion. As in Homer, on whom the authors of Gilgamesh were an influence, certain lines or phrases repeat themselves. ‘He who saw the deep’ is how the story starts, hinting at a wisdom gained through pain and chaos, a chaos on the face of which was the darkness in Genesis 1:2. Throughout the poem there is stark imagery of this kind: vast deserts, towering forests, deadly waters. It paints a world that is rich and real and mythical.

‘He who saw the deep’ is how the story starts, hinting at a wisdom gained through pain and chaos.

Being mythical, in the sense of being archetypally or symbolically true, it has a timeless quality. The heroes are flawed, the gods capricious, the lessons hard-won. Gilgamesh undertakes a hero’s journey, leaving the ordinary world for the unknown world and returning with wisdom: evolving from arrogant king to just ruler. The price he pays for this is the lost of his best and only friend, the wild man Enkidu. For we must allow part of ourselves to die if we are to grow.

I ache to know what was on the broken tablets, the reasons for gaps in the story. Gilgamesh is disjointed; translators have tried to piece together missing sections, sometimes guessing at the meaning. These guesses differ violently. Humbaba, the monster Gilgamesh and Enkidu slay is, in some versions, ‘no ordinary monster,’ writes Joan Acocella. ‘He is like a miasma, or a nightmare. He has seven auras in which he can wrap himself, and which he can send out, as a means of defencee.’ In certain versions of the poem, these auras are translated as ‘sons’.

Gilgamesh has endured for 3,000 years because the questions it asks are questions we moderns ask ourselves. How do we make peace with our mortality? How should we respond to loss? What does it mean to live well? Kings and commoners alike reflect on such questions. The profound thing about this story, I think, is that the evolution of Gilgamesh is not from man to god — but from god to man.