Tablet I: Introduction of the Rivals Gilgamesh and Enkidu
In the great city of Uruk there is the king Gilgamesh, born of the Gods and the woman Rimat-Ninsun, who though valiant and strong is oppressive to his people. The people grow tired of their overlord's propensity for virgins (whether rightfully his or no) and cry out to the Gods to help. Hearing them, the Goddess Aruru, who herself crafted Gilgamesh, creates a rival for him. Enkidu is his match in strength and bravery but, unlike his beautiful counterpart, he is a wild beast covered in hair living among animals in the wilderness. A trapper meets him there and discovers that all of his traps have been destroyed but he is too terrified to confront the wild man. His father advises him to appeal to Gilgamesh, who sends him back to the wilderness with the whore Shamhat. After enjoying Shamhat's charms (for nearly a week) Enkidu discovers a new sense of self awareness as well as the ability to speak. His animals sense this change and abandon him. He talks with Shamhat and decides to go to Uruk to meet Gilgamesh, first to challenge him then to befriend him. Meanwhile Gilgamesh has two dreams, one of a meteorite and one of an axe. His mother interprets these dreams to mean that a great rival who will later become a friend is approaching.
Tablet II: Meeting of the Rivals and the Idea for an Adventure
Enkidu and Shamhat travel to the home of shepherds where he ate bread and drank beer for the first time. He bathes and rubs himself with oil and transforms into a handsome youth. While there he sees a man running as though in a great hurry. The man explains that he is on his way to Uruk for a wedding feast, during which, as is his custom, the King will take the bride's virginity before passing her on to her new husband. Enkidu is enraged and races to the city, Shamhat follows behind. Once there he bars Gilgamesh's passage to the marital chamber; they grapple then Gilgamesh gives up. He kisses him and they become friends. Ninsun makes a supplication for the wild man and her tenderness brings him to tears. Later Enkidu tells the king of the great Humbaba who was set to guard the Cedar Forest and Gilgamesh decides that they will go and kill the giant and cut down the trees. Enkidu tries to dissuade him and appeals to the Elders for intersession.
Tablet III: Preparation for the Adventure and a Mother's Blessing
Gilgamesh convinces the Elders to support him in his plans, and they advise him to stay behind Enkidu both for protection and because Enkidu knows the way. They commission simply massive weapons in proportion to their might and the battle at hand. The friends take leave of the Queen Mother in her temple and she makes supplication for their safe return. She calls back Enkidu and asks him to protect her son, giving him a pendant and perhaps adopting him. Again Enkidu begs his friend to abandon the quest but to no avail.
Tablet IV: Journey to the Cedar Forest
They set out traveling 50 leagues in one day which is said to be the march of a month and a half. After digging a well to honor the god Shamash, Gilgamesh offers flour to the mountain in return for a dream from Shamash. Enkidu builds them a sort of shelter and Gilgamesh sleeps, waking from a dream of a mountain falling over him. Enkidu interprets the dream, saying that it meant they would defeat Humbaba and throw his corpse into a wasteland. Four more days pass in exactly the same fashion, each night Gilgamesh having a favorable dream and each day traveling 50 leagues until they reach the threshold to the Cedar Forest. They hear a warning from the sky, and determine to fight Humbaba before he can retreat to the forest to put on his other six coats of armour, thereby becoming invincible. Enkidu is afraid but Gilgamesh buoys him on to battle and they enter the forest.
Tablet V: The Battle with Humbaba
They enter the forest along a path Humbaba has made for himself and then are confronted by the monstre, perhaps by surprise. He asks why Gilgamesh has come, then mocks Enkidu's lineage and says he should have killed him when first he saw him in the land. Shamash sends to them thirteen winds to disable Humbaba, who pleas with Gilgamesh for his life. Enkidu warns him against believing the giant, so Humbaba turns his attentions to Enkidu. Enkidu refuses but again Humbaba begs, and when again it proves futile he curses Enkidu that he will die before Gilgamesh and will not have any share more than his friend (spoils, honor, fame???). They then kill Humbaba, apparently ripping out his innards right down to the tongue. They chuck the body and proceed to clear cut the forest, taking with them a gargantuan door cut from the highest tree. Then they sail homeward on a raft, Humbaba's head perched cozily on Gilgamesh's knee.
Tablet VI: Offending the Lady Ishtar
After he's had a good bath and a change of clothes, the Princess Ishtar (daughter of the God Anu) takes a fancy for Gilgamesh and offers to marry him. At first he seems keen, but it becomes apparent that he's mocking her when he tells her the street may be her home and "any lusting man" her spouse. He goes on to insult her and to bring up a list of her past indiscretions which results in her fleeing up to the heavens in a snit demanding that daddy-dearest do something about the rogue. Anu refuses, reminding her that she was the one who started it, after all, and so what? He hadn't said anything that wasn't true. With no other recourse she resorts to blackmail. If Anu will not give her the bull of heaven to set onto Gilgamesh she will destroy the gates of Hell and unleash a zombie apocalypse. He inquires whether she's made provisions for the humans (as unleashing the bull will produce a famine to last seven years) and after an impatient affirmative he lets her have at, wisely leaving her to her own business; Hell hath no fury, and all that. She sics the bull on Uruk, killing 300 young men and nearly getting Enkidu before the gruesome twosome do their thing and make short work of the bovine menace offering its heart to Shamash in thanks. Ishtar is a bit put out by this and turns to wailing about the unfairness of it all atop the city wall. Enkidu unceremoniously chucks part of the corpse into her face and that's that. Gilgamesh keeps the horns of the beast (magnificent works of lapis) and hangs them in the room of the patriarch while giving the oil found therein to his personal god.
Tablet VII: Enkidu's Dream
Enkidu dreams that there is a council of the Great Gods Anu, Enlil, Shamash. They argue among themselves, saying that for their deeds at least one of the two warriors must die, and, despite Shamash's protestations, they settle on unlucky Enkidu. Gilgamesh has grown to love him as a brother and is really devastated. Enkidu becomes enraged and rails at the great cedar door, bitterly complaining that if he'd known this would have been his reward for going through the trouble of cutting him down to make a lovely door from his corpse he would have just chopped him to bits and had done with it. The text fragments here but it appears as though he rips the door from its hinges and throws it to the ground, despite being ill. Gilgamesh begs him to stop talking nonsense and goes into denial, thinking that if he can appeal to the Gods they will change their minds and allow him to live. Enkidu, knowing that he is about to die, curses both the trapper and Shamhat who lured him from his wild life in the mountains. Shamash calls to him, asking why he wants to curse Shamhat who had never been anything but kind to him, bringing him to Uruk to befriend Gilgamesh. (And it wouldn't do to forget that week of special kindness.) He changes his mind, calling to her again but this time to bless her. He then dreams that a great beast attacks him while Gilgamesh looks on, then turns him to a dove and takes him to the underworld. He lays there for ten days, afraid that Gilgamesh has abandoned him in scorn for his fear when they fought Humbaba. Gilgamesh hears him calling and takes his place at his side for the death watch.
Tablet VIII: The Death of a Friend
This tablet opens to Gilgamesh praising Enkidu, recounting his life in the wilderness and giving him a parentage in the animals that had been his companions. He goes on to promise him that the entire nation will go into mourning, even the land keening for him as for a lost child. Gilgamesh thinks that his friend has fallen asleep but then realizes that in fact he is dead. Distraught, he cuts off his hair and goes into mourning. He seeks out the jewel and metal smiths and commissions a statue of his friend made of precious metals and stones.
Tablet IX: Gilgamesh Falls into Despair and Rises to His Quest
Gilgamesh then abandons his kingdom, roaming the wilderness in deep mourning. He realizes that he, too, will one day die and that his life is essentially pointless. Inspiration strikes and he sets out to seek Utanapishtim who is immortal in order to find his secret. The beginning of his quest is lost, but we rejoin him at Mount Mashu in conversation with two scorpion beings, a male and his mate. He is terrified by the sight of them but overcomes it, expressing a desire to travel on through the mountains to ask of his ancestor the secret to immortality. They warn him that the passage is perilous, twelve leagues of total darkness steeped in great sadness and pain, and no mortal man has ever been able to make it through. Gilgamesh is unswerved and somehow (the text again cuts out at this) convinces them to let him through. With a last warning they bless him and apparently tell him the best way through the mountains, for heeding their advice he finds himself in a garden made of precious stones of which the modern reader catches only a tantalizing glimpse, the full description lost to time.
Tablet X: Journey Through the Waters of Death
Siduri the tavern-keeper sees Gilgamesh approaching from the wastelands and mistakes him for a murderer. Hastily she bolts her house but Gilgamesh hears her and demands that she tell him a way to Utanapishtim. He tells her who he is but she doesn't believe that he is a king, he is so emaciated and travel-worn. He explains that his appearance is due to the death of his dear friend and asks again how to get to Utanapishtim. She says that no human can go to him, but he can ask his ferryman Urshanabi if he will take him back across. Urshanabi asks the same questions as Siduri and receives the same answer. He then explains to Gilgamesh that having destroyed 'the stone things' (there isn't an explanation as to what exactly those are) he'll have to build 300 punting poles to get them across the water. Eventually even these fail and Gilgamesh must use his shirt for a sail. Meanwhile Utanapishtim looks on, wondering what this change of events is that has prevented the boat from being sailed by 'the stone things', and why a man he does not recognize is doing the sailing. Once ashore, Gilgamesh and Utanapishtim go through the whole song and dance of why he looks so disheveled. Utanapishtim goes on to explain that death is inevitable, and by fagging about the countryside in this manner he is only hastening what must be.
Tablet XI: A Quest Both Won and Lost
Utanapishtim goes on to relate a version of the story of the Great Flood, with himself as the captain of the boat. After arguing among themselves for a bit Enlil went down to Utanapishtim and his wife and brought them up to the seat of the Gods where he granted them immortality. At the end of the story he warns Gilgamesh not to sleep for six days and nights which of course inspires him to do exactly that. Each day he is asleep the lady of the house bakes for him a loaf of bread which they set before him, getting up to seven loaves by the time he wakes. Upon waking he swears that he had been awakened just as soon as sleep began to cover him, but the various stages of decomposition of the loaves of bread around him convince him otherwise. Utanapishtim then curses his ferryman (???) before ordering him to wash and clothe Gilgamesh afresh. As they are leaving Utanapishtim's wife urges him to offer Gilgamesh something so he doesn't have to return to his kingdom empty handed. Gilgamesh turns the boat around and learns of a thorned plant growing underwater that will restore his youth. He dives down to it, retrieves it and decides to wait to consume it until he reaches Uruk so that he can test it on another. On the journey home he stops to bathe in a spring and a snake makes off with his hard earned prize. They return to Uruk and Gilgamesh bids Urshanabi to admire his fair city, using the same words to describe it as were used in the first tablet.
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