Beyond School

Gilgamesh - the Earth's Oldest Epic. Stephen Mitchell's fine 2004 adaptation.

[The Unsucky English Gilgamesh series so far: 1: Dangerous Questions ~ 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ 3: Adam and Eve, Backwards ~ 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards ~ 5. Good, Evil, Nature, and the Hero, Backwards ~ This post ~ 7. A Goddess Prays 8. The Modern Mischief of the Gilgamesh Poets]¹

Since the last “lecture” five long months ago, I’ve left Gilgamesh and Enkidu stuck at the gates of Uruk, ready to journey to the Cedar Forest to kill the “evil” – or, depending on which god or mortal you listen to, “sacred” – monster Humbaba. Life got in the way since then. Click the footnote if you’re curious how.²

Since I need to ease back into this world after such a long hiatus, let’s pause to catch an idea regarding that “evil or sacred” detail before it flits away. It’s worth lingering on.

One Pleasure of Polytheism

That Humbaba could be considered “sacred” by the god Enlil, but “evil” by the sun-god Shamash and the goddess Ninsun (who is also Gilgamesh’ mother), suggests that religious dogmatism and absolute certainty about questions of good and evil, right and wrong, did not plague polytheistic religions the way they do religions with only one god – especially ones claiming, moreover, to possess the divinely-authored book.  Nobody claimed divine authorship of Gilgamesh, as far as I know. So the Sumero-Babylonians must have felt a nice bit of intellectual freedom to dispute it and discuss it as a result.

I’m not denying that rabbis, theologians, and imams have endlessly disputed their texts too, of course. I’m just saying that there’s still a difference between a religious text acknowledged to be the work of humans, like Gilgamesh, and one attributed to the godhead itself, that seems to make an essential difference in how a culture relates to it.

Me? I’d prefer the Sumerian option. Whoever the first priest in history was to come up with the claim that “these are God’s very words,” or “God wrote this book,” was, wittingly or not, a political genius. Look at the power that gives members of our priestly classes to this day. People are more comfortable disputing an Einstein or a Darwin than they are their humble neighborhood preacher. It’s mind-boggling, really. (And, come to think of it, literally.)

Anyway, before leaving Uruk, I want to linger on a couple more details from Book III that I didn’t mention in the last installment. They happen after Gilgamesh announces his plan to kill Humbaba to Enkidu, and before he and Enkidu leave. They’re minor, but interesting enough – especially in light of what comes later.

I’ll try not to be a spoiler.

The Birth of Something New

We left Gilgamesh justifying his decision to commit, in Enkidu’s view, a sacrilege by arguing that, on the contrary, his act was heroic. In lines that Achilles would echo in the Iliad a thousand years later, Gilgamesh articulates the classic heroic answer to the classic existential question, “What’s it all about, Alfie?”

We are not gods, we cannot ascend
to heaven. No, we are mortal men.
Only the gods live forever. Our days
are few in number, and whatever we achieve
is a puff of wind. Why be afraid then,
since sooner or later death must come?

So since immortality is impossible, what’s the next best thing in life? An immortal name. In other words, that thing we call “fame.”

I will make a lasting name for myself,
I will stamp my fame on men’s minds forever.

The Greeks would call this pure hubris – another great man thinking he’s a bit too great, and setting himself up for a tragic lesson thereby. As it turns out, the people of Uruk seem to see things this way too. First Enkidu, in tears, and then the city elders called to Gilgamesh’s throne to hear the announcement, ask Gilgamesh the same pointed question:

How can any man, even you,
dare to enter the Cedar Forest?
Who among men or gods could defeat [Humbaba]?

Everybody is counseling Gilgamesh to live his life restrained by traditional religious piety – Humbaba is Enlil’s guardian, thus holy; don’t defy the gods. They advise prudence instead of passion; humility, instead of hubris.

Moreover, none of them believes Gilgamesh can achieve the goal he’s set for himself.

And when the elders finish their pleas, what is the King’s response? First, in another instance of that “double that balances” motif, since Enkidu is crying at his side: laughter. And after that, no response at all, other than a “Let’s get moving” to Enkidu. Gilgamesh has chosen bravery over cowardice, fame over oblivion, the chance of greatness over mediocrity. He’s chosen free human will over traditional religious fear.

This just might be the first written example of Humanism in the history of our species. And the court poets who polished this story over 2,000 years have several “wtf twists” about this in store for us yet.

More soon. I promise.

1. This series based on the beautifully poetic 2004 Stephen Mitchell translation of Gilgamesh. [↩]
2. I got sucked into the presidential campaign first, then into interviewing for a radio job and a writing job over six weeks or so after that (I got them both, thank goodness), and then into applying and interviewing for a new teaching job beginning this summer (which worked out well too – I’ll be in Singapore by July to settle in and begin teaching Asian history there). On top of that, we’re still dealing with mourning in my family over my mother-in-law’s passing, and with the ominous mood of the global meltdown. Strange times. [↩]