Gilgamesh
Jeff Barcham
Gilgamesh
Smashworks Edition
December 2011
The image on page one is the head of a Portal Guardian from Nimroud.
Jeff Barcham asserts the following moral rights: to be identified as the author of this work; not to have this work altered in a prejudicial way; and not to have authorship falsely attributed. All rights are reserved under Australian, International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Copyright Jeff Barcham 2011
ISBN 978-0-646-55776-2
A catalogue record for the print version of this book is held at the National Library of Australia
Smashworks Edition, License Notes
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Tablet 1 - Dedication to The Coming of Enkidu
Tablet 2 - At the Waterhole to Friends
Tablet 3 - The Council to Brothers
Tablet 5 - The Battle of the Trees to Rain Fell In the Mountains
Tablet 6 - The Charms of Ishtar to Dance of the Bull of Heaven
Tablet 7 - The Sentence to Curses
Tablet 8 - Enkidu in the Underworld to The River
Tablet 9 - Wanderings to Passage at Night
Tablet 10 - The Tavern by the Ocean to Before the Flood
Tablet 11 - Afloat to The Sammu
This book presents a new version (in verse) of the ancient Sumerian and Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. It tells the history of Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk (a city called Warka in modern Iraq) who is believed to have lived in the 28th century BC.
Gilgamesh starts the story as a brilliant but brash monarch, having inherited the throne from his father (Lugalbanda) at a young age, with no rivals. When an equally powerful rival emerges, in a wild man named Enkidu, Gilgamesh realises that he needs to perform heroic feats to make his name. In so doing, Gilgamesh and Enkidu offend the gods and the people of Uruk, and learns the value of diplomacy and subterfuge.
When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh is grief-stricken, renounces his throne, and embarks on a journey to discover the secret of immortality. There he finds Utanapishtim, the Sumerian equivalent of Noah, who survived the great flood and was granted immortality by the gods.
A list of the characters in the story is presented below, along with a short historical note at the end of the text.
Gil / Gilgamesh - King of Uruk
Enkidu - Gilgamesh’s friend and comrade
Ninsun - Gilgamesh’s mother
Shamhat - One of Ishtar’s sacred prostitutes
Humbaba - Guardian of the sacred cedar forest
Inanna - High Priestess of Ishtar
Shiduri - Barmaid at the end of the world
Urshanabi - Ferryman of Utanapishtim
Utanapishtim - Immortal survivor of the Great Flood
Ishtar - Principal goddess of Uruk
Enlil - One of the leading trinity of gods, war god (cult centre: Nippur)
Anu - Another of the leading trinity of gods, father of Ishtar
Ea - Wisest of the leading trinity of gods
Aruru - The mother goddess
Shamash - The Sun god, rising in influence (cult centre: Larsa)
Ereshkigal - Queen of the underworld (sister of Ishtar)
Dedication
Welcome, traveller.
Feast upon the sight of Uruk.
Climb atop its wall
That winds Uruk like a skein of flax.
Walk upon the girdle
Of the capital of the world!
Marvel at its masonry,
Double thickness, glazed in local kilns.
What architect could rival it?
Did not the Seven Sages themselves
Draw the plans?
Now can you finally see Uruk?
Sheepfold of its people.
Guardian of fruit groves,
Of great quarries.
God-bastion, birthplace of Ishtar.
Adoptive home of Shamash.
What other city is like it?
Once you are sated with all this,
Seek out the Cornerstone.
Within it a chest of Cedar.
Within the chest tablets that tell,
To those with eyes and understanding,
The journey of Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh it was who built the walls.
Who pieced back together
The temples and rites of the Gods,
Lost since the Flood.
He who cut roads from sheer rock,
Dug wells in the wilderness!
Gilgamesh who led armies to victory.
A battering ram to his enemies,
Strong shield-arm to his men.
The mightiest in the land.
The most beautiful that ever was.
The same Gilgamesh who travelled
Across the world, and over all seas.
Journeyed through pain and despair,
Loss and ignorance.
He alone who braved the deep,
Returned a King!
King Gil
Gil was born to be King,
His father dead before Gil
Could walk unaided, let alone rule.
At the funeral, the Widow/Queen Ninsun
Raised him up to all Uruk.
He wore the child-sized purple cloak
Of a child-sized monarch.
Gil squinted through the sun’s glare,
Stoic and dry eyed amidst the misery.
The people made up for his lack of tears.
How they cheered him!
How they grew to love him as he grew!
Always big for his age,
Faster, noisier, stronger than his playmates.
Stronger soon than the Palace men
Who raised him.
He was the child of the city.
Which door was ever barred to him?
Who would refuse him food or a bed?
Who upbraid him for broken pottery,
Or playmates’ arms,
When the wrestling went too far.
His face ever smiling.
The world a vast nursery.
Those his age were smitten with him:
He seemed born to lead,
They to follow him.
As a man he was like a bull with a huge herd.
No enemies attacked Uruk,
So his energy was all for games!
Wrestling on festival days.
Running, jumping, throwing weapons of war.
Games he always won.
On other days,
When he could not sit still,
The young men were rallied into war parties.
Which team could get the pukku ball
To their home gate in Uruk’s wall?
If legs or heads were smashed in the melee,
What matter?
They were never Gil’s.
If fathers’ shops were emptied to make up numbers,
Apprentices absent,
Delivery boys diverted,
Why should that cut short the contest?
Gil’s Treasury was full.
As far as he knew.
If the game lasted for days or weeks,
What worry to he who
Ran the walls shouting instructions,
Encouragement?
He was never tired.
And what city youth worth his testicles
Would rather work than play with his King?
And were the girls ever home?
The young men were busy with the pukku,
And Gil needed an audience.
Not the sour looks of the elders.
Women always swooned over Gil,
Mothers (and their mothers) at first.
Younger ones too, after he discovered
What they were good for
If not playing pukku.
Not that he handed around gifts.
Even compliments.
He had no need.
He had no rival.
Brothers were proud, fathers sullen,
Whenever his fist gripped female hair.
Uruk,
Once the centre of piety in the world,
Became notorious.
Gil’s only civic improvement
Was expanding the Temple of Ishtar.
There the priests and priestesses could be
Rented by the quarter hour.
There a young man of limitless energy,
With nothing better to do,
Lost himself for days.
So the people of Uruk
Began to murmur.
Softy at first.
Gil had hundreds of sharp young ears.
But more and more they said
To each other:
He is old enough
To take responsibility.
To rule,
Not just enjoy the labour of the past.
To stop playing in the rubble of the old wall,
And rebuild it longer and higher.
Gil was no longer a child.
And needed to know.
So they sought for a rival.
They prayed,
And their prayers were answered.
The Coming of Enkidu
Nature abhors imbalance.
The people of Uruk found the ear
Of Aruru, God-Mother to all.
What is one more creation to her?
A handful of clay.
A twist of her fingers.
She remembered Gilgamesh
As he was meant to be.
Anyone can be copied,
More or less.
So he came to be dropped
Man-sized into the wilderness.
With the shape of a human,
But at peace with the animals.
He thought himself one of them.
Ran with their herds,
Nuzzled them at night.
Foraged the same herbs.
Followed them to each season’s waterhole,
Ranged with them over the lands.
He was strong: there was nothing
To make him weak.
Humans were to him like lions, or wolves.
They all came to take from the herds,
Hidden in wait.
Humans set traps for young and weak.
But he could see into their covered pits,
Past baits set into jagged traps.
His status grew among the beasts,
Men grew to fear one who had no fear.
A Trapper was one of many in despair.
He saw his livelihood
Skipping away over ruined traps.
Too scared to get close enough
To use a sword,
His arrows had no better effect
On one who skipped like a gazelle.
The Trapper complained to his father,
Who was old enough to remember
The kings of Uruk.
To realise that this one’s strength
Might be of value to them,
Just as it was ruin to his family.
So the Trapper made his way
To Gil’s city, found him resting
After a day’s wrestling.
The town asleep or muscle-worn,
Gil lay back in Ishtar’s temple,
Sizing up the Priestesses who might
Share his bed that night.
The Trapper knelt before the King:
‘Sire, I come in desperation.
There is a man, if man he is,
Who terrorises the countryside.
He ranges with the wild herds,
Feeds on grass,
Drinks at the waterholes.
His strength is greater than any man.
Swifter he is than any with four feet.
Lions and other predators
Are like dogs to him.
My pits, my traps, he destroys,
So that I am destitute.’
Gil’s thoughts were with his penis,
But it still rankled to hear
Another described as the strongest.
Reports of a Wild Man
Had already reached Uruk,
So he was intrigued, and answered:
‘If he is not a man then grow some balls.
Treat him as you would a wolf
Too used to soft human prey.
But we will test if he is a man.
Take Shamhat here with you.
When you come to this prodigy,
She will open her thighs for him.
If the mood takes her, she can
Remind seventy year-olds of their youth.
If there is anything of mankind in him,
Shamhat will find it.
Afterwards, if he can still walk,
The herds will smell human upon him,
And spurn him.’
Gil found no rest that night.
In the morning
He stumbled back to the palace,
And the face of his mother.
He told her of the dream
That had kept him from sleep:
‘It was a boulder,
Or another time a giant’s axe.
Made of the metal of meteors,
Flung from the skies by some god.
I tried to lift them, but could find no grip.
The people gathered around,
Mocking my weakness.
They praised the metal idol,
Kissing it like a newborn child.
In the end I too
Embraced it like a woman.
Only then could I could roll it to you,
Set it at your feet.
You preferred it to me!’
Ninsun sighed, then unraveled the dream.
It revealed to her the same threads
Gil’s dreams usually did.
He, for once, listened:
‘My son, this idol is made
Of no metal from a god.
It is another human being.
One who is coming to you.
As mighty as you he will be, and unafraid.
He will be a friend to you,
A comrade in war.
You will embrace him like a wife.
He will love and protect you, all of his life.
His counsel will penetrate your ear!’
Gil heard all this.
Shuddered.
Servants padded outside the door.
Pigs squealing in the kitchen courtyard.
The feel of wind through an open window.
At the Waterhole
Three days the Trapper led on Shamhat.
It was two days before she deigned to speak.
Then only to bat away his advances, and ask
For a description of who she was to seduce:
‘If there is anyone, and not your brothers waiting
In a shack, with no fear of the Goddess!’
This just encouraged the Trapper
To retell his tales of the Wild Man’s strength.
Him tearing wolves limb-from-limb,
Snapping off tree boughs bent back
With nooses to fling a deer to death.
To Shamhat he sounded too reverent to lie.
The description reminded her of Gil,
Whose favourite she had recently been.
‘You heard the king.
When we find him, bare yourself.
Show him what a woman is,
So he will realise himself a man.
Spend himself upon you.’
They reached a waterhole that was
A favourite of the animals in Spring.
At dusk they came to drink.
Amongst them one
That seemed a mass of hair.
Shamhat could make out
Naked skin darkened by sun and dust.
Calloused feet kneeling over the edge,
As huge hands scooped up water.
More muscular than Gil, she thought.
Though a little shorter.
The Trapper tried to push her forward,
But Shamhat needed no encouragement.
She had seen this one’s thighs.
The ripple of his stomach.
He was a man all right,
And she knew her trade.
Shamhat showed herself slowly,
From the bushes.
No sudden movements.
Downwind he smelt heated perfume,
A woman’s sweat for the first time.
In the open she dropped her cloak.
He who had been suckled by wild cattle
Opened wide his eyes.
As he approached she lay back,
Spread-eagled, submissive as a cub.
When he stood above her, nostrils flaring,
Shamhat fingered open her vulva.
The man looked down at himself in amazement,
Watched her hand guide him into warmth.
Fucked until his foreskin bled.
Until Shamhat’s cervix ached.
Her fingernails locked into him,
Demanding more.
A week it seemed, probably just hours.
To know what a man is.
Afterwards,
He tried to rise.
Found his legs spent
As after a day tracking.
Felt the need for sleep
Although it was already light.
Shamhat was saying something.
Insistent, waving her hands and pointing.
But he did not have language yet.
That would come slowly.
He shuffled towards the waterhole,
Eyeing the herd.
They snuffed his scent, caught
Spoilt milk, animal flesh, fermented grain.
Stink of Man.
They fled from him.
He found he lacked the means to follow.
Lacked the will, too,
When he turned to see Shamhat still there.
Lord of the Pleasant Place
The Trapper took them no further
Than the first sight
Of a shepherds’ hut in the hills.
Shamhat’s pleas to take them back to Uruk
Only reminded him how little
She had done to accommodate him
On the journey out.
In any case,
He was itching with good fortune,
Impatient to tell his father.
The Wild Man he still feared.
Those arms still had muscles,
However much they ached.
Shamhat knew this journey
Could make her fortune.
A household of her own,
Complete with titled husband.
But only if she could get this man to Uruk
In a state that suited the Games.
Surely then Gil would reward her.
Here was a man second only to
Himself in physique.
At the sight of Shamhat,
The Shepherds needed little persuasion
To let the strange pair stay.
Needing little sleep,
This Wild Man was useful to them.
The stories turned out to be true:
Lions to him were like housecats.
Wolves smelt danger and fled.
Soon he was guarding their flocks by night,
Spending his days fucking Shamhat.
Listening to her words, too.
Forming them himself,
As she named the world for him.
At first he just sniffed at the bread
They offered him.
Found his way to sacks of grain.
Gagged at their stewed mutton.
Then Shamhat tried him on beer.
After seven cups, the food
Seemed palatable.
He was using salt next.
All the time
Shamhat whispered words in his ear.
Words for ‘bread’ and ‘meat’,
‘Penis’ and ‘vagina’.
‘Head’ and ‘wolf’ at the trophy
Left outside the hut one morning.
He learnt, and
At the same time forgot.
One day he found he understood
The speech Shamhat kept repeating:
‘You are stronger than any in the land,
Save the King.
Why then do you live like an animal?
Why run with Antelopes,
Drink from ponds like a gazelle?
Huddle at night with wild cattle?
There is a place called Uruk,
My home and home to the King.
Every day is a festival.
There are games, tests of strength.
The ale is better than here.
At the temple of Ishtar there are many like me
To please a man like you.
Become a civilised man,
Go there with me!’
He cupped her breast, which meant
Between them a desire for silence, said:
‘I am stronger than any in the land.
Why then should I live like an animal?
Why run with Antelopes,
Drink from ponds like a gazelle?
Huddle at night with wild cattle?
There is a place called Uruk,
Your home and home to the King.
Every day is a festival!
There are games, tests of strength.
The ale is better than here.
At the temple of Ishtar there are many like you
To please a man like me.
I have become a civilised man,
I will go there!’
Then they cut his hair.
Soaked the dirt from his skin,
Oiled it so his muscles gleamed like a god’s.
Shamhat cut him a tunic from her cloak.
The shepherds made him
Soft sandals for the journey.
He learned to boast of his strength,
Having only puny men to compare with.
Learnt the word ‘Lord’,
Pointing to himself.
Shamhat marveled at the change.
Saw a counterweight to the Bull
Gil had become.
Sensed also the danger of youth
In its flower.
For once she pushed his
Greedy mouth from hers:
‘At Uruk, you will meet King Gil.
He seems about your age,
But he is stronger.
He is the lord of Uruk, and can be
A powerful friend to you.
But be wary of him!
He brooks no rivals.
Has none.’
At his black look she continued:
‘You can be a lord too.
You already
Lord it over your birthplace,
Just as Gil does his.
This is a paradise to those
Used to the bustle of a city.
As beautiful as any I have seen.
I will introduce you
In Uruk as Lord of the Pleasant Place.
In our language that is ‘Enkidu’.
A Champion in Uruk
Enkidu’s eyes were as wide
As the East gate of Uruk.
Onlookers gaped at his bulk,
The women at the too-small tunic
Shamhat had made for him.
They arrived on the first day
Of the Midsummer festival.
By tradition a lucky time for marriages.
Divorces too.
It was the season of wrestling contests,
When last year’s champion
Could be challenged by the people’s favourite.
The champion was Gil.
Rivals had been scarce for some time.
On their way to the temple, Enkidu saw
A man leading a high-laden donkey,
Dressed in festival finery.
Tears streamed down his face.
He sent Shamhat to fetch the man,
Whose story was the same as many:
‘I am uncle to a bride,
Of the finest family in Uruk.
She will be married this afternoon.
I must stock the wedding table
With all our farms give forth.
I should be happy, no?
No.’
‘Ask any here what happens
After a wedding in Uruk these days.
King Gil claims his birthright,
To be father of all children in the city.
By tradition, so he is - father-protector.
But Gil claims first use of the bride!
You are a stranger here.
So, know that all noble weddings
Are consummated at Ishtar’s temple,
In the sight of the Goddess.
It has become Gil’s bedroom.
He makes whores of our daughters,
Then opens the temple door
For their new husband with a grin.’
‘Who would deny this King his rights?
Who would dare touch their wife before him?
Better blood on his pole than on his fists.
So,
This is why a wedding
Is a thing to be dreaded In Uruk.’
Enkidu’s blood seethed at this.
He raged through the streets.
Forced Shamhat to show him
The temple’s Wedding Room,
With its bronze door and lewd frescoes.
He settled by the doorposts to wait.
That evening, the first wedding party arrived.
A sour-faced groom led his trembling bride,
Little more than a child,
Clutching the traditional lamb’s fleece.
Enkidu let the girl in,
Then barred the doorway with his bulk.
Gil arrived soon after, barely glancing
At the ill-clad man at the doorway:
‘Out of the way – sirqu rent-boys
Are only allowed in the Northern courtyard.’
Enkidu held firm, and Gil’s fist found
Chest muscle beyond what he expected.
He grasped Enkidu around the shoulder,
A wrestling hold new to Enkidu.
He was used to grappling with bears.
The two joined in the doorway.
First afoot and glaring,
Then sinking slowly to the ground.
The door collapsed off ornamental hinges,
Used to physical sights, but not contact.
Screams filled the temple compound
As the people of Uruk massed to see
What had never been seen before:
King Gil matched with an equal.
Screams that faded to murmured admiration.
Seven hours they grappled,
Gil feinting, trying choke holds,
Muscle stretchers.
Enkidu used his bulk for top position,
Mad to tear limb from joint.
Not a word did they exchange.
Just deep glances,
Mutual groans,
Their eyes inches away.
Finally Gil dropped his
Knee behind Enkidu’s,
Forcing his leg to kneel.
Then loosed his grip and turned away.
The two came together again,
This time in affection,
Grinning like infants.
They whispered in each other’s ears,
Kissed bruised cheeks.
Their smiles were as much
A shock to the crowd
As the lack of a clear result.
Those who had placed bets squabbled:
Gil had bent Enkidu’s leg, but not
Immobilised him.
Yet it was Gil who disengaged first,
As if beaten.
It was the unthinkable.
A draw.
The people paused,
Then cheered.
Friends
Enkidu spoke to Gilgamesh,
When they were finally away
From feasters and women:
‘Why do you do this thing?
Why impose yourself upon the people?
I have been here only a day
And all they do is complain.
You are stronger than any man.
Far stronger than me.
Why use your might to make
Your name a tyrant’s?’