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Bloom's Literature

Gilgamesh and the Hero's Journey

One definition of a hero is a person who, through genius or courage or might, can accomplish what a normal person cannot. By this standard, the journey of Gilgamesh, the ancient Mesopotamian figure at the heart of The Epic of Gilgamesh, is splendidly heroic. He actually undertakes two daunting journeys; in the first, accompanied by his friend Enkidu, he walks from his kingdom Uruk, in what is now southern Iraq, to northern Lebanon in six days. The poem specifies that the two heroes cover 50 leagues a day, "a walk of a month and a half" (Kovacs 31), an accomplishment that (even before they kill a watchful divinity) can only be called heroic. And later, bereaved by the death of his beloved Enkidu, Gilgamesh does something even more astonishing: He travels to the ends of the earth, braving all sorts of threats, in an effort to discover the secret of life.

The hero, as a literary figure, is associated with the genre of epic. Despite the modern titling of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the term is anachronistic, originating with the Greek epics written long after Gilgamesh. Nevertheless, the usual understanding of an epic poem is something like "a long narrative poem describing heroic events that happen over a period of time," and under these terms it is indeed the epic of Gilgamesh (George 3). There are two kinds of epic: the traditional epic told over a long period by anonymous tellers before being written down, like The Iliad or Beowulf; and the literary epic, written as a self-consciously artistic composition by a single author. The Epic of Gilgamesh is of the former definition; it may have been under construction for over a thousand years before reaching the state in which it was rediscovered. But epics of both kinds share several conventions with Gilgamesh: the large spatial scope of the action; the inclusion of mighty battles, perhaps against superhuman or semi-divine opponents; an arduous journey; the participation of the divine realm in the action, as the epic hero's undertakings are important enough to engage the attention of gods; and a hero who is the greatest of men and sometimes even more than human. Homer's hero Achilles is the son of a goddess. Gilgamesh is even more divine: He is two-thirds god, only one-third man. Importantly, though, he like Achilles is still mortal. As a tavern-keeper reminds Gilgamesh in the Old Babylonian version, "When the gods created mankind, / they fixed Death for mankind, / and held back Life in their own hands" (Kovacs 85).

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the world's oldest known story, though it became available to the world at large only in 1872, when George Smith published the part of the story related to the flood, of interest to him because of its linkages with the Hebrew Bible. He had translated it from clay tablets found in the library of Ashurbanipal, an Assyrian king (668–627 BCE), whose capital was Nineveh. Since that time many other fragments have been found in many parts of southwestern Asia, translated, and published. Ancient Mesopotamian texts were inscribed in cuneiform, normally on clay tablets (or as is the case with

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Gilgamesh, in cylinder seals). It is remarkable that so much textual evidence of Gilgamesh has survived. The story of Gilgamesh goes back thousands of years before the Common Era (BCE). Gilgamesh himself may have been a real person. One document, the Sumerian King List, says that he was "the fifth king in the first dynasty of Uruk, which historians place in the Second Early Dynastic Period of Sumer (ca. 2700–2500)" (Tigay 13). If Gilgamesh was indeed a real figure, little is known of him other than that he ruled over Uruk, built the city wall, and rebuilt a shrine to a god, all deeds which are attributed to him in the poem itself.

Scholars do know the name of one of the authors of one version of the epic, an exorcist-priest named Sîn- leqi-unninni, who may have lived in Uruk sometime after 1600 BCE (12). The three main versions of the epic are the one attributed to Sîn-leqi-unninni, (known as the Old Babylonian version) and two later ones called the eleven-tablet and the twelve-tablet forms of the Standard Babylonian version. The twelfth tablet is a piece of narrative only loosely connected to the earlier part, relating a descent into the underworld, and some editors omit it. But other parts of even the eleven-tablet version are probably later additions, episodes co-opted from other tales (Abusch 615). After all, a great deal of change takes place during a thousand years or more of epic fermentation. The story of Utnapishtim and the flood—the part of Gilgamesh that originally excited Western scholars most—seems to have been carried over from another Babylonian story, the Myth of Atrahasis. It is not included in the Old Babylonian version (617).

There are a number of modern translations. Some are very scholarly and include references to the history and language of the Sumerian culture. Others offer a continuous poetic narrative, more readable but less reliable as a representation of the original ancient texts. Still others omit absent lines (due to the breakage of the tablets) and offer cautious hypotheses about missing or unexplained information. Some modern readers find this last approach confusing or troubling. One reason for their dissatisfaction is the imperfect state of the text. Important explanations seem to be missing; chunks of the plot are gone and must be inferred. But this should not deter a serious reader for long.

More troubling for some readers is the question of motivation: Why do the characters do the things they do? For instance, when Gilgamesh and Enkidu decide to go to the Cedar Forest and kill Humbaba, its divine protector, the text (which is also imperfect at this point) gives only a sketchy idea of their aims. It is true that Gilgamesh says to his mother, Ninsun,

I must travel a long way to where Humbaba is, I must face fighting such as I have not known, and I must travel on a road that I do not know! Until the time that I go and return, until I reach the Cedar Forest, until I kill Humbaba the Terrible, and eradicate from the land something baneful that Shamash hates, intercede with Shamash on my behalf! (Kovacs 25–26; Tablet III, lines 24–31)

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Humbaba lives a long way off and has done nothing to threaten the people of Uruk, whatever his standing in the eyes of Shamash (the Sun God). In the following lines—"If I kill Humbaba and cut his Cedar [?] / let there be rejoicing all over the land [?]"—another explanation is implied, and after killing Humbaba, Gilgamesh takes the cedar to make a gigantic door for the city wall. But the most important motivation is a desire for heroic fame. Gilgamesh reminds his friend Enkidu that no man lives forever: "As for human beings, their days are numbered, and whatever they keep trying to achieve is but wind!" (20, II, 230–1). Therefore, fame is their only chance at eternal life: "Should I fall, I will have established my fame" (line 236). In lines from the Old Babylonian version, he makes this aim more explicit:

I will make the land hear how mighty is the Scion of Uruk! I will set my hand to it and will chop down the Cedar, I will establish for myself a Name for eternity! (Kovacs 21)

Is this a good reason? For modern readers, killing another living being, pulling out his tongue, and stealing his cedar just to make a name for oneself is ethically suspect. But an ancient Sumerian had no hope for an afterlife with rewards and punishments (instead he would have expected a shadowy underworld of the dead, resembling neither heaven nor hell). In some sense, one's ability to remain alive after death depended upon leaving a famous name. And the way to win fame in this world was by daring deeds of violence.

This is not the only difference between Gilgamesh and the modern model of the hero. If we think a hero ought to be brave but self-sacrificing, noble, modest, and good, then Gilgamesh falls short in all but bravery. He is, by our standards, vainglorious and boastful. He does speak of the things he has done for the people of Uruk, but his accomplishments as king, like his assault on Humbaba, seem designed to burnish his own fame, and for the most part he is utterly self-centered. He gives little thought to the ordinary men and women among whom he lives or does so only as means to satisfy his own desires. Though missing lines prevent us from knowing exactly how he does it, we do know that Gilgamesh frightens the people of Uruk. His people complain to Anu, the Sky God, and their complaints hint at violence and sexual rapaciousness:

There is no rival who can raise a weapon against him. His fellows stand [at the alert], attentive to his [orders?], Gilgamesh does not leave a son to his father, day and night he arrogantly … Is he the shepherd of Uruk-Haven, is he their shepherd … bold, eminent, knowing, and wise? Gilgamesh does not leave a girl to her mother [?]! (5, I, 67–74)

In fact these excesses, and the divine creation of Gilgamesh's rival, Enkidu, launch the events that make up The Epic of Gilgamesh.

The nature of the gods also bewilders some modern readers. There are many of them, of course, Mesopotamia being a polytheistic culture. As in other polytheistic systems, pleasing one god may

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displease another (as we also see with Odysseus or Aeneas). The gods also act from obscure motives. For instance, the imposition of the flood, by contrast with the account in the book of Genesis, is capricious. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh, "The hearts of the Great Gods moved them to inflict the Flood" (97, XI, 14). The Atrahasis fragment, the source of this part of The Epic of Gilgamesh, specifies that people had become so numerous on the earth that their noise was keeping Enlil from sleep (Heidel 226).

The gods are also anything but remote from men. A god whispers the secret of the flood to Utnapishtim, apparently because he likes him (though unlike Noah, Utnapishtim is not said to be more virtuous than all the other human beings, who were later killed in the flood). Ishtar, the goddess of love, proposes to Gilgamesh. When he rejects her advances—contemptuously, reminding her of the poor life expectancy of her previous lovers—she arranges for the Bull of Heaven to attack Uruk. Enkidu and Gilgamesh kill the Bull of Heaven, another successful heroic venture against the divine, paralleling their murder of Humbaba. Remarkably, Enkidu, a mere man, wrenches off the bull's hindquarter and flings it into the face of the goddess (this proves to be going a step too far).

There are, to be sure, reasons to feel distanced from Gilgamesh. He is partly divine, in complete command of a city and its people, the love object of the Goddess of Love, stronger than anybody else on earth and handsomer, too. And yet the power of The Epic of Gilgamesh comes from its universal human qualities. The fact that a book is old is not enough to give it power over readers. Everyone can understand The Epic of Gilgamesh because everyone must grow up, everyone must love, and everyone must die.

Enkidu, Gilgamesh's heroic but entirely human counterpart, enacts the process of growing up; in fact, he enacts the maturation of the entire human species. To be sure, his birth is unusual. In answer to the complaint of the men of Uruk about Gilgamesh's intolerable behavior, the gods instruct Aruru (the mother goddess) to create someone to counter him. From a piece of clay, she sculpts Enkidu, who is a creature entirely of nature:

His whole body was shaggy with hair, he had a full head of hair like a woman, his locks billowed in profusion like Ashnan. He knew neither people nor settled living, but wore a garment like Sumukan. He ate grasses with the gazelles, and jostled at the watering hole with the animals; as with animals, his thirst was slaked with [mere] water. (Kovacs 6, I, 86–93)

Allied with wild animals, Enkidu protects them from a trapper. When the trapper seeks assistance from Gilgamesh, he sends a harlot, who seduces Enkidu and, in effect, makes him human:

But when he turned his attention to his animals, the gazelles saw Enkidu and darted off …

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Enkidu was diminished, his running was not as before. But then he drew himself up, for his understanding had broadened. (9, I, 178–79, 183–84).

Like Adam and Eve, Enkidu has fallen into adulthood, become fully human, through sex. Estranged from the animals, he then recapitulates the human movement from nature to culture: He moves to the city. Under the harlot's tutelage he becomes "civilized." In the Old Babylonian account,

Enkidu ate the food until he was sated, He drank the beer—seven jugs!—and became expansive and sang with joy! He was elated and his face glowed. He splashed his shaggy body with water, and rubbed himself with oil, and turned into a human. He put on some clothing and became like a warrior [?]. He took up his weapon and chased lions so that the shepherds could rest at night. (16)

Now drinking beer—an artificial human product—instead of the natural water, wearing textile clothing instead of his earlier skins, and siding with his fellow human beings against the animals, Enkidu has turned into a human. Like anyone's maturation from child into adult, Enkidu's is fraught with both gains and losses. His understanding is broadened, yet his running is slowed. He has a human relationship (with the harlot Shamhat), yet he has lost his friends among the animals. Later, as he faces death, Enkidu curses both Shamhat and the trapper, but Gilgamesh reminds him that his "fall," via the harlot's wiles introduced him to bread and wine, grand garments, and the friendship of "beautiful Gilgamesh" (63, VII, 128).

It is the loving companionship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu that most humanizes them both. As the epic opens, Gilgamesh is glorified and worshipped, as well as feared, by his subjects. He has his choice of all the women. He is the handsomest of men, proud of his unmatched achievements. But he is also solitary, because he is different in degree from all the other men in his world. When the gods create Enkidu, they explain,

Let him be equal to his [Gilgamesh's] stormy heart, let them be a match for each other so that Uruk may find peace! (5–6, I, 80–81).

"Match" can mean several things, and initially it suggests a violent struggle between equally matched heroes, which is what happens. Enkidu strides into Uruk-Haven, welcomed by the population, and takes up a position blocking "the entry to the marital chamber"—evidently where Gilgamesh is headed to enjoy another man's bride (18, II, 98). A battle ensues, their mighty conflict shaking the wall. Unfortunately, the text is imperfect here, but they seem to fight to a standstill and soon are kissing and becoming friends.

This is the more important way that Enkidu is a match for Gilgamesh. Enkidu cannot defeat him and force him to stop mistreating his people. But by becoming his friend (a role for which only he is qualified, because he is the only man equal to Gilgamesh), he can give Gilgamesh a companion and assist and accompany him on his journey. From this point no more is heard of Gilgamesh molesting the people.

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From here begin the heroic adventures. Enkidu's friendship has called Gilgamesh to rise above taking petty advantage of his superiority to ordinary human beings and undertake deeds commensurate with his greatness.

That Gilgamesh and Enkidu love each other is clear. Perhaps it makes sense to think of this as a homosexual relationship; certainly Enkidu is powerfully agitated by Ishtar's attempt to seduce his friend. Perhaps it is no more than a lifelong, life-changing companionship of beloved equals. Their love for each other is both the reason for Enkidu's fate and the condition that makes it so poignant. As we have seen, Gilgamesh and Enkidu together undertake exploits that neither could, or would, attempt alone. They kill Humbaba; they reject and humiliate Ishtar; they kill the Bull of Heaven. Although, as we might expect, there is disagreement among the gods about how blameworthy this deed is, one thing they agree upon is that Enkidu must die. Tablet VII begins with the gods in conference (in Gilgamesh's dream), and Anu, father of the gods, declares:

Because they killed the Bull of Heaven and have also slain Humbaba, the one of them who pulled up the Cedar of the Mountain must die! Enlil said: "Let Enkidu die, but Gilgamesh must not die!" (59, VII, 4–6)

Enkidu's death, described at great length in the poem, is dreadful for Gilgamesh, who watches with him for twelve days and is inconsolable after his death.

He covered his friend's face like a bride, swooping down over him like an eagle, and like a lioness deprived of her cubs he keeps pacing to and fro. He shears off his curls and heaps them onto the ground, ripping off his finery and casting it away as an abomination. (70–71; VIII, 47–52)

His grief is understandable and his mourning is extreme: sacrificing to the gods, disregarding his own person, and commissioning a rich and elaborate statue of his friend.

But the strongest result of Endiku's death is Gilgamesh's realization that he, too, can die. As his expedition against Humbaba marked his exterior journey, Gilgamesh's awareness of death marks a stage in Gilgamesh's inner, or psychological, journey. This is a man who has seen people die (during the Bull of Heaven episode, for instance) and who even declared in Tablet II, "As for human beings, their days are numbered" (20, II, 230). But apparently he never realized he shared their fate. Perhaps Gilgamesh in his pride was heedless; perhaps he reasoned from his undoubted superiority to all the other people he had ever met that he was exempt from their mortality. The death of Enkidu sobers him:

I am going to die!—am I not like Enkidu?! Deep sadness penetrates my core, I fear death, and now roam the wilderness—

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I will set out to the region of Utanapishtim, son of Ubartutu, and will go with utmost dispatch! (75; ix, 2–5)

Here begins the most important part of the hero's journey in The Epic of Gilgamesh. Utanapishtim is an ancient king who alone survived the flood (a sort of analogue to the biblical Noah), living at the Mouth of the Rivers, the most remote place there is. Newly anxious about death, Gilgamesh proposes to find Utanapishtim and discover the secret of his immortality. After a difficulty journey he reaches the sea, where he has a conversation with a tavern keeper, Siduri. Then he finds Utanapishtim and is surprised to find that he looks like a normal man. Utanapishtim relates the story of the flood and of his escape in something like an ark because the god Ea (breaking ranks with the other gods, who had agreed to kill all mankind without warning) had given him notice of the flood. When it subsided, Enlil declared: "Previously Utanapishtim was a human being. / But now let Utanapishtim and his wife become like us, the gods! / Let Utanapishtim reside far away, at the mouth of the Rivers" (103, XI, 200–202).

Utanapishtim does have the knowledge Gilgamesh seeks—the secret of eternal life. In order to gain it Gilgamesh has to stay awake for six days and seven nights. When he fails at this task, he has a consolatory chance to get renewed youth by means of a magic plant, but he is careless with it and a snake takes it. All that is left is to return to Uruk, and the last lines of the poem mirror the first, praising the city's wall and splendid design.

It doesn't matter if one is great, handsome, strong, ruthless, or of divine origin, all of which Gilgamesh was; one cannot escape death. Gilgamesh does not die in The Epic of Gilgamesh, but he does accept his own mortality. The Standard Version, at least in its eleven-tablet form, leads up to the meeting with Utanapishtim, Gilgamesh's failure to achieve immortality or even rejuvenation, and his return to Uruk. He must die, but he can be a great king until then (Utanapishtim was also a king).

The Old Babylonian version lacks the Utanapishtim episode and ends with Gilgamesh learning wisdom from Siduri, the tavern keeper (wise women bookend the poem, with Shamhat teaching Enkidu, and Siduri teaching Gilgamesh, what it means to be human). Siduri's advice is that one cannot avoid death, but one can make the most of life:

Gilgamesh, where are you wandering? The life that you are seeking all around you will not find. When the gods created mankind they fixed Death for mankind, and held back Life in their own hands. Now you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full! Be happy day and night, of each day make a party, dance in circles day and night! Let your clothes be sparkling clean, Let your head be clean, wash yourself with water!

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Citation Information

Attend to the little one who holds onto your hand, let a wife delight in your embrace. This is the [true] task of mankind[?] (85)

Abusch writes that this advice calls on the hero to accept "the value of life and its affirmation in the face of the heroic and the absolute, which can only lead to death" (617). These are two different responses to the question that the Epic of Gilgamesh asks of its readers, and of Gilgamesh himself: We all must die. What then?

Whether we dance and rejoice in clean clothes, the love of food and drink, or our spouse and children; whether we set to work to build the city wall and restore the god's sanctuary; whether we enjoy the profound sharing and love of an equal companionship—the lesson of Gilgamesh is that death gives meaning to life. It may be a tragic meaning but, in some measure, it is a meaning denied to the deathless gods themselves. It is a powerful message and one that is no less true for today's readers than for those who, four thousand years ago, told each other tales of the great Gilgamesh, the incomparable king. Further Information

Works Cited

Abusch, Tzvi, "The Development and Meaning of the Epic of Gilgamesh: An Interpretive Essay," Journal of the American Oriental Society, 121 (October–December 2001): 614–622.

Gardner, John and John Maier. Gilgamesh: Translated from the Sin-leqi-unninni Version. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.

George, A. R. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, Vol. I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Heidel, Alexander. The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946.

Kovacs, Maureen Gallery. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1985.

Mason, Herbert. Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative. New York New American Library, 1972.

Mitchell, Stephen. Gilgamesh: A New English Version. New York: Free Press, 2004.

Tigay, Jeffrey H. The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.

Moseley, Merritt. “Gilgamesh and the Hero's Journey.” Bloomʼs Literary Themes: The Heroʼs Journey, Facts On File, 2020. Bloomʼs Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=100535&itemid=WE54&articleId=2830.

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