Gilgamesh: The Heavens
Were Alive With Fire
Feraco
Myth to Science Fiction
19 September 2012
He tried to ask his friend for help
Whom he had just encouraged to
move on,
But he could only stutter and hold out
His paralyzed hand.
It will pass, said Gilgamesh.
Would you want to stay behind
because of that?
We must go down into the forest
together.
Forget your fear of death. I will go
before you
And protect you.
Dreams take on great
importance within the epic.
They foreshadow the future,
reinforce themes, and influence
the characters’ decisions – even
serving as Shamash’s conduit to
Gilgamesh’s consciousness.
Several of them are worth
knowing and analyzing.
I saw a star
Fall from the sky, and the people
Of Uruk stood around and admired it,
And I was jealous and tried to carry it away
But I was too weak and I failed.
What does it mean? I have not dreamed
Like this before.
Ninsun tells him that the star
represents “a companion who is your
equal/In strength, a person loyal to a
friend,/Who will not forsake you and
whom you/Will never wish to leave.”
Gilgamesh’s only objection to her
interpretation: he has never failed before.
The people stood around the ax
When I tried to lift it, and I failed.
I feel such tiredness. I cannot
explain.
Ninsun tells him the same thing –
the ax symbolizes your “friend and
equal” (who we know will be
Enkidu).
But her interpretations here
don’t fit, or at least don’t tell the
whole story.
When it comes to lifting stars and
axes – or at least their human
counterparts – Gilgamesh actually can
do it.
After all, the two men journey to the
Cedar Forest over Enkidu’s fevered
opposition.
Enkidu never agrees with
Gilgamesh’s views: he simply gives in
and goes along…much like a star or ax
being carried somewhere (not moving
of its own accord).
The problem, of course, is that
Gilgamesh often tries to possess
whatever’s within reach – and he cannot
control what he aims to carry here,
because he is not the only force acting
upon it.
While the two visions are highly similar, I’d
submit that the star-as-Enkidu parallel works
more effectively; the ax, in my view, makes for a
more problematic comparison.
If anything, the ax seems to symbolize the
forces that govern mortality (an ax, after all,
could be used to cut a life in two) moreso than
Enkidu.
After all, Gilgamesh also tries to master
these forces, and with plenty of people
standing around (Utnapishtim, Siduri,
Urshanabi, etc.).
While he succeeds somewhat in influencing
Enkidu, however, he ultimately fails to control
life and death (with the relationship between
both represented by Enkidu).
If anything, then, Gilgamesh dreams of
death at roughly the same time he dreams of
that which gives him life – a somewhat
unsettling image, but one that’s perfectly in
keeping with the lesson the epic ultimately
seeks to teach.
After being urged in his dreams to kill
Humbaba, Gilgamesh departs with Enkidu.
He stops to receive Ninsun’s blessing and
prayers, at which point she curses Shamash
and welcomes Enkidu (ceremonially) into her
family.
But where Mason’s translation cuts a large
(and hugely repetitive) section covering the
heroes’ journey to the forest, that section is
actually worth noticing.
The passage of time in these ancient stories
was often marked by refrains – intentionally
repeated passages, like choruses in pop songs
– and Gilgamesh’s author is no stranger to the
technique
Gilgamesh himself has no fewer than five
dreams before he reaches the forest, always
preceded by Enkidu performing the same
ritual and introduced by the same five
questions:“What happened? Did you touch
me? Did a god pass by? What makes my skin
creep? Why am I cold?”
And as it so happens, he dreams of
terrible things.
In one dream, a mountain falls on
them.
Next, a mountain attacks him (he’s
only saved by a friendly stranger’s
intervention).
In a third, tremendous storm brings
rain and fire.
In yet another, a beast combined
from two others breathes fire at him
(he’s saved by the same stranger –
Enkidu takes this as a sign that the gods
are watching over and protecting
Gilgamesh)
Finally, a bull shatters the ground it
stands on, killing scores of men.
Here, the dreams are more useful as
structural support than they are for
foreshadowing purposes (hmm…what
could that bull dream be hinting at?).
Every time the heroes advance x
amount of distance, growing closer and
closer to the forest, the dreams return in
increasingly terrifying fashion.
The effect is similar to the one
experienced by horror-film audiences
who yell at the screen before a character
enters the room in which he/she will
inevitably be dispatched: You’re filled
with this urge to reach into the story and
stop the characters from doing
something that, when viewed from a
distance, seems phenomenally stupid.
But because we can’t do
anything to stop it, our dread has
no outlet.
Thus we’re already filled with
dread when Gilgamesh gets his
first look at Humbaba, which
makes for some very interesting
interplay between story and
audience: We not only feel exactly
what the character feels, but we
feel it first.
This happens to be one of the most
damaged portions of the poem, and our
reconstruction of these events is
uncertain.
Mason’s translation diverges from
the others here by essentially tearing
through the section concerning
Gilgamesh’s and Enkidu’s dreams,
focusing instead on Enkidu’s wounded
hand (damaged when he reaches the
barrier to the Cedar Forest).
This wound doesn’t appear in many
of the translations – even here,
Gilgamesh dismisses it – but it plays a
part in Mason’s depiction of the battle.
The battle is presented very
differently here than in other
versions.
I’ve retyped Mitchell’s
translation in order to compare it
with Mason’s…and it’s at this point
that we’ll read it!