Gilgamesh (21 page)

pp. 78-79,
She stripped off her robe and lay there naked, / with her legs apart, touching herself. / Enkidu saw her and warily approached. / He sniffed the air. He gazed at her body. / He drew close, Shamhat touched him on the thigh, / touched his penis, and put him inside her. / She used her love-arts, she took his breath / with her kisses, held nothing back, and showed him / what a woman is. For seven days / he stayed erect and made love with her, / until he had had enough:
Literally, “She took off her robe, she exposed her vagina, and he took in her voluptuousness. She didn't hold back, she took his vital force. She spread out her robe and let him lie upon her, she stirred up his lust, the work of a woman. With passion he embraced and caressed her, for six days and seven nights Enkidu
remained erect, he made love with her until he had had enough of her delights.”

p. 80,
“Now, Enkidu, you know what it is / to be with a woman, to unite with her. / You are beautiful, you are like a god:
Literally, “You are handsome, Enkidu, you are like a god.” The context seems to indicate understanding rather than beauty. One can't help comparing the words of the serpent in the Garden of Eden: “as soon as you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).

p. 80,
She finished, and Enkidu nodded his head. / Deep in his heart he felt something stir, / a longing he had never known before, / the longing for a true friend:
Literally, “She spoke, and her words found favor. He became aware that he was longing for a friend.”

p. 81,
“Come,” said Shamhat, “let us go to Uruk, / I will lead you to Gilgamesh the
mighty king. / You will see the great city with its massive wall, / you will see the young
men dressed in their splendor, / in the finest linen and embroidered wool, / brilliantly colored,
with fringed shawls and wide belts:
Literally, “Let [him] see your face, [I will lead you to Gilgamesh,] I know where he will be. Come, Enkidu, to Uruk-the-Sheepfold, where the young men are girt with waistbands.” I have taken the details of the young men's clothing from R. Turner Wilcox,
The Mode in Costume,
Macmillan, 2nd edition, 1983; see http://www.geocities.com/FashionAvenue/3105/costume1.html and http:// handsofchange.org/costume.html. “The costumes of the Babylonians and the Assyrians consisted of two garments, a straight tunic edged with fringe, either long or short, called the candys, and a fringed shawl of varying dimensions…. The addition of a wide belt worn about the waist
was common…. Linen was used, but the principal fabric seems to have been wool, elaborately embroidered with separate motifs founded upon the design of the rosette…. Garments were always trimmed with fringe and tassels. [The Babylonians] were fond of brilliant colors in reds, greens, blues, and purples.”

p. 81,
Every day is a festival in Uruk, / with people singing and dancing in the streets, / musicians playing their lyres and drums, / the lovely priestesses standing before / the temple of Ishtar, chatting and laughing, / flushed with sexual joy, and ready / to serve men's pleasure, in honor of the goddess:
Literally, “Every day [ … ] a festival is held, the lyre and drum are played, the
£arimäti
stand around, lovely, laughing, filled with sexual joy.” Gardner translates this last line “radiating sexual prowess, filled with sex-joy,” and his coauthor John Maier explains, “The sexual prowess is
kuzbu;
sex-joy is
rißatum.
‘Beauty' and
kuzbu
are not restricted at all to women; both are attributes of Gilgamesh and of gods as well as goddesses” (Maier, in Gardner and Maier, pp. 81 ff.).

p. 82,
Shamash, the sun god:
“§amaß was said to have surrounded with his particular protection not only Gilgameß but his whole dynasty, the founder of which, Meskiaggaßer, was Ԥamaß's son,' according to the Sumerian List of Kings. We find in this passage, as very often throughout the poem, the great triad of supreme gods who in Mesopotamia presided over the pantheon and the universe: An or Anu, god of the sky and father and founder of the reigning divine dynasty; Enlil, god of the earth, sovereign of the gods and of men; and Ea or Enki, the most intelligent of the gods, creator of men and of civilization” (Bottéro, p. 78).

p. 82,
you had come to Gilgamesh in a dream.” / And she told Enkidu what she had heard. / “He went to his mother, the goddess Ninsun:
Literally, “‘Gilgamesh in Uruk dreamed about you.' Gilgamesh went to reveal the dream, saying to his mother.” Following Ferry, I have omitted a second dream and interpretation, which is almost exactly like the first one.

pp. 83-84,
it stands for a dear friend, a mighty hero. / You will take him in your arms, embrace and caress him / the way a man caresses his wife. / He will be your double, your second self, / a man who is loyal, who will stand at your side / through the greatest dangers. Soon you will meet him, / the companion of your heart. Your dream has said so:
Literally, “This means that a strong man will come to you, someone who will rescue his friend. He is the mightiest in the land, he has strength, his strength is as powerful as a meteorite from the sky. You will love him like a wife, caressing and embracing him. He will be strong and will rescue you again and again. Your dream is excellent and favorable.”

B
OOK
II

p. 85,
Then Shamhat gave Enkidu one of her robes / and he put it on:
From
OB
II, ll. 69-70.

p. 85,
she led him like a child:
Literally, “she led him as a god [leads a supplicant].” “This refers to so-called ‘presentation scenes' depicted on cylinder-seals, which show a god leading the owner of the seal by the hand into the presence of a more powerful god” (Bottéro, p. 83). George has a different interpretation; see
BGE
I, p. 167.

pp. 85-86,
He had never seen human food through Enkidu went out with sword and spear:
From
OB
II, ll. 90 ff.

pp. 85-86,
“Go ahead, Enkidu. This is food, / we humans eat and drink this.” Warily / he tasted the bread. Then he ate a piece, / he ate a whole loaf, then ate another, / he ate until he was full:
Literally, “‘Eat the bread, Enkidu, the staff of life, drink the beer, the custom of the land.' Enkidu ate the bread until he was full.”

pp. 86-88,
One day, while he was making love through the guests were eating, singing and laughing:
From
OB
II, ll. 135 ff. (except for “like a little baby they kissed his feet,” which is from the Standard Version).

p. 87,
The priest will bless the young couple, the guests / will rejoice, the bridegroom will step aside, / and the virgin will wait in the marriage bed / for Gilgamesh, king of great-walled Uruk:
Literally, “For the king of Uruk of the Great Square, the (fence: Tournay and Shaffer; veil: George) will open for (the people to choose [a bride]: Tournay and Shaffer; the one who has first pick: George)”; the two verses are repeated with a slight variation.

pp. 87-88,
“I will go to Uruk now, / to the palace of Gilgamesh the mighty king. / I will challenge him. I will shout to his face: / ‘I am the mightiest! I am the man / who can make the world tremble! I am supreme!'” // Together they went to great-walled Uruk:
There is a gap in the text here, and I have filled it in by repeating Enkidu's earlier speech.

p. 88,
Gilgamesh truly has met his match. / This wild man can rival the mightiest of kings:
I have added these lines.

pp. 88-90,
The wedding ritual had taken place
through
you are destined to rule over men:
From
OB
II, ll. 190 ff. The phrases “With his feet Enkidu blocked the door (to the wedding house) and didn't allow Gilgamesh to enter,” “they seized each other (in the doorway of the wedding house),” and “the doorposts trembled, the walls shook” also appear in the equivalent, abbreviated passage from the Standard Version.

pp. 88-89,
The wedding ritual had taken place, / the musicians were playing their
drums and lyres, / the guests were eating, singing and laughing, / the bride was ready for Gilgamesh / as though for a god, she was waiting in her bed / to open to him, in honor of Ishtar, / to forget her husband and open to the king:
Literally, “In Uruk the sacrifice was being performed, the young men were celebrating for the hero [?]. For the handsome young man, for Gilgamesh, the partner was made ready as for a god, the bed was made for the goddess Ishara (=Ishtar), so that Gilgamesh could join with the bride that night.” George interprets the passage differently;
see
BGE,
I, pp. 169-70, 190, 455-56.

p. 89,
When Gilgamesh reached the marriage house, / Enkidu was there. He stood like a boulder, / blocking the door. Gilgamesh, raging, / stepped up and seized him, huge arms gripped / huge arms, foreheads crashed like wild bulls, / the two men staggered, they pitched against houses, / the doorposts trembled, the outer walls shook, / they careened through the streets, they grappled each other, / limbs intertwined, each huge body / straining to break free from the other's embrace:
Literally, “He came forward and stood in the street, he blocked Gilgamesh's path. [
gap
] [ … ] In front of him [ … ] he was getting angry [ … ] Enkidu moved toward him, they faced each other in the great square. With his feet Enkidu blocked the door, he didn't allow Gilgamesh to enter. They seized each other, bending their backs like bulls, they shattered the doorposts, the walls shook. Gilgamesh
and Enkidu seized each other, bending their backs like bulls, they shattered the doorposts, the walls shook.”

p. 89,
Finally, Gilgamesh threw the wild man / and with his right knee pinned him to the ground:
Literally, “Gilgamesh knelt, his foot on the ground.”

p. 90,
They embraced and kissed. They held hands like brothers. / They walked side by side. They became true friends:
From
OB
III, l. 18. Literally, “They kissed each other and formed a friendship.” The Standard Version continues with a fragmentary dialogue between Ninsun and Gilgamesh, which I have omitted.

B
OOK
III

p. 91,
Time passed quickly:
I have added this phrase and have begun Book III with the following passage from the Yale tablet (
OB
III) because there is a natural break in the story at this point. Tablet III begins with the following lines: “Come back safely to the haven of Uruk; do not trust in your strength alone.”

p. 91,
Gilgamesh said, / “Now we must travel to the Cedar Forest, / where the fierce monster Humbaba lives. / We must kill him and drive out evil from the world.”:
This fragmentary passage is from
OB
III, ll. 89-90, 97 ff. Literally, “Gilgamesh opened his mouth, saying to Enkidu, [
gap
] ‘fierce Huwawa (=Humbaba). [ … ] kill him, destroy [ … ].'” I have adopted Schott's conjecture: “[You and I will] kill [him] / [so that we can] destroy [all the evil in the land].”

p. 91,
Cedar Forest:
As opposed to the Sumerian poem “Gilgamesh and Huwawa,” in which the Cedar Forest lies to the east, in southwestern Iran, the Standard Version locates it to the west, in what is now Syria.

p. 91,
Enkidu sighed. His eyes filled with tears through sticks in my throat, my arms are limp:
I have taken these lines from a fragmentary passage omitted here, in which Gilgamesh introduces Enkidu to his mother, the goddess Ninsun.

pp. 91-92,
I knew that country when I roamed the hills through I have to enter it, climb its slopes:
From
OB
III, ll. 106 ff. I have left out a few lines that are repeated in the Standard Version.

p. 91,
it spreads far and wide for a thousand miles:
Literally, “The forest extends for 60 bër in every direction.” Sixty bër or double leagues = 648 kilometers or about 400 miles. The expression really means “a large (indeterminate) number of miles,” which in a base-10 number system like ours (the Mesopotamians' system was based on 60) would be 100 or 1,000 miles.

p. 92,
cut down a cedar that is tall enough / to make a whirlwind as it falls to earth:
Following Foster's restoration.

p. 92,
cut down a cedar:
“The cedar was the luxury wood par excellence—fragrant, solid, tall, and fine-grained—for the richest public buildings, palaces, and temples” (Bottéro, p. 123).

pp. 93-94,
We are not gods, we cannot ascend
through
I will stamp my fame on men's minds forever:
From
OB
III, ll. 140 ff., except for “You are brave, your heart has been tested in combat,” which is from the Standard Version.

p. 93,
If I die in the forest on this great adventure, / won't you be ashamed when people say, / ‘Gilgamesh met a hero's death / battling the monster Humbaba. And where / was Enkidu? He was safe at home!':
Literally, “I will go in front of you, and you can call out, ‘Go on, don't be afraid!' If I die, I will have established my fame. [People will say,] ‘Gilgamesh battled with the fierce Humbaba.'”

p. 94,
But whether you come along or not, / I will cut down the tree, I will kill Humbaba, / I will make a lasting name for myself, / I will stamp my fame on men's minds forever”:
Literally, “I must start work and cut down the cedar, I must establish my everlasting fame.”

pp. 94-95,
Gilgamesh bolted the seven gates
through
I will stamp my fame on men's minds forever:
From
OB
III, ll. 172 ff. I have moved the episode with the smiths to later in Book III.

p. 95,
celebrate the New Year:
“One of the greatest festivals of the annual liturgy: the
akïtu,
for the ceremonies of which a particular sanctuary outside the city walls was reserved, to which the people walked in procession from the city” (Bottéro, p. 90).