by Brian Godawa
But Gilgamesh was not ready to leave on his journey. He told Enkidu that one last thing remained to knit him to Gilgamesh as close as a brother.
Chapter 12
Queen Mother, goddess Ninsun, left the feast for her temple Egalmah to intercede with Shamash on behalf of Gilgamesh and his crazy idea for glory and fame. She bathed herself seven times in tamarisk and soapwart for purity. Donning a robe and sash, along with jewels and her tiara, she went up to the roof, set incense before Shamash, and sprinkled holy water onto the ground.
She grieved before the sun god with raised arms, “Why have you inflicted my son Gilgamesh with a restless heart? He will travel on a road he knows not, to a destination he knows not where, and fight a battle he may never know again. During his days of journey to the Cedar Forest and back, may the Anunnaki, the Watchers of the night watch over him and his companion, Enkidu. Bring your mighty winds against Humbaba.”
But the sun god was strangely silent. He was after all a statue of stone.
A servant arrived and notified Ninsun that her guests had arrived. She completed her supplication and retired to her chapel below to speak with Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
The chapel hummed with the activities of priestesses, as well as votaries bound by oath, and the hierodules of the temple. Gilgamesh and Enkidu stood before the altar, Enkidu with wide eyes of wonder at all the pomp unfolding before him. It was a ceremony of some kind, the juniper incense tickling his sensitive nostrils. That was one of the things about religion that he did not care for, the incense. The odor was too strong for his highly attuned olfactory sense. There was much about religion that he questioned. But now was not the time.
Ninsun approached Gilgamesh and Enkidu, followed by her coterie. She looked at Gilgamesh and nodded in agreement. Gilgamesh smiled. They had some kind of agreement between them.
She looked at Enkidu and Gilgamesh whispered to him, “This is what I told you about earlier, my brother.”
Enkidu gave Gilgamesh a look of skeptical wariness and Ninsun spoke, “Mighty Enkidu, though you are not of my womb, I speak for the votaries of Gilgamesh and the priestesses and sacred women of Egalmah.”
Enkidu could feel the hair that was growing back in on his neck stand up. An excited chill ran through him as he began to realize what was taking place. Ninsun pulled off a leather strap with gold amulet from around her neck and draped it onto Enkidu’s trembling form. It bore the family seal stamped on precious metal.
Ninsun continued, a smiling tear rolling down her cheek, “This amulet is a talisman of our family name. It bears all the weight of mighty Uruk behind it. As the daughters of the gods take in a foundling, so I take Enkidu, to love as my adopted son. May Gilgamesh be a favorable brother to you.”
Now, Enkidu burst out weeping. It would be the only time Gilgamesh would ever see such a display of emotion from this former Wild Born, this Gibborim warrior by his side. Enkidu hugged Gilgamesh first and whispered into his ear, “My brother.”
Then Enkidu stood and embraced Ninsun saying, “My goddess, my mother.”
Ninsun concluded with a benediction, “I commission you, Enkidu to safeguard your King, your brother, and that if necessary you give your life for such an honor.” Enkidu’s eyes stared at her with utter submission.
Enkidu said simply, “I will.”
She looked at them both now. “May your journey to the Great Cedar Forest have short nights and long days. And may your loins be girded with strength and your stride be steadfast and sure.”
She reached behind her and pulled out a powerful looking bow that had a foreign design to it. It was not crafted for normal human use but for a giant. Gilgamesh knew immediately where it was from. Ninsun said, “I present this, the bow of Anshan, from the distant land of Elam to you my son to slay Humbaba the Terrible.”
She handed it to him and they made an offering of cuttings and prayed to Shamash for protection. It dawned on Gilgamesh that this must have been the meaning of his dreams of the star and axe that would be “made his equal” by Ninsun. By becoming his brother, Enkidu would be the family equal of Gilgamesh. He could not help thinking about her off-the-cuff comment about this equal being a possible “betrayer.” But he hoped it was just another one of her wrong interpretations.
Enkidu was moved to the very core of his being. Adoption into the family of Gilgamesh was more to him than royalty. It was the very answer to the human identity for which he had longed but of which he had been deprived. To have a family was to have continuity with humanity. It was to be a part of a lineage that would continue through the ages and give meaning to the branches and roots. As a lone wolf he would exist alone and die alone in the vast emptiness of solitary annihilation. What would his days of comfort and love with his wife be but a cruel joke, a momentary spasm in an eternal nothingness? By being grafted into this tree of human history, he would finally be rooted in a transcendence beyond himself, something bigger than his meaningless unrooted self. And semi-divine roots at that. It was the opposite of what Gilgamesh sought. It was a losing of himself in the whole. What Gilgamesh wanted was to stand out and be separate, to be a unique and eternal self of importance that shined above the masses of mundane existence — like a star, like a god.
Both of them were about to encounter the surprise of their lives.
The next day, Gilgamesh and Enkidu met with the fifty chosen warriors for their journey to the Great Cedar Forest. Gilgamesh had also called Dumuzi and Sinleqiunninni to see them off. Ninsun stayed in her palace that day. She was too emotional and full of fear for her sons. And she harbored a secret that was tearing her heart and soul apart. She could barely face Gilgamesh without the feeling of deep guilt and regret. But she was determined he would never discover her secret and so she stayed in her palace and hid herself away.
Gilgamesh spoke to Sinleqiunninni, “My scholar, be prepared when I return to inscribe my tale that I will bring back. For I will have mighty deeds to tell.”
“Yes, my king,” said Sinleqiunninni, “Your fame will bring you eternal life.”
The thought of that sentence suddenly struck Gilgamesh as incongruent. Fame is eternal life? What good was fame in Sheol? Was he a fool searching for the impossible? Was he a fool to search at all?
Enkidu leaned in and said in a low voice, “It is still not too late to turn back. You could finish the walls of Uruk to great fanfare and still be the mighty Gilgamesh who built the walls of Uruk.”
Gilgamesh gave Enkidu a snide look and did not dignify the statement with a response. Instead he turned to Dumuzi and said, “Dumuzi, my Shepherd, I want you to rule the city in my absence.” Dumuzi was shocked. He did not consider himself worthy of such an honor and he certainly did not desire the responsibility it laid on his shoulders.
“I am just a shepherd, my King,” said Dumuzi.
“Yes,” replied Gilgamesh. “And you shall shepherd Uruk until I return.” Gilgamesh placed his arm strongly around Dumuzi with affection. “My friend, aside from Enkidu, you are the only one I trust in my absence to so rule.”
Sinleqiunninni looked sour. He had secretly hoped that he would have been given such a privilege. He was after all, the ummanu, the scholar. More intelligent than anyone in the palace, and certainly more knowledgeable than this shepherd of low confidence. The volumes he knew were surely a well of wisdom that every ruler could only dream of.
Gilgamesh is a strong leader, but he is not an intellectual genius. Not like me, he thought. When will the world recognize that knowledge is true power?
Enkidu smiled as he saw Sinleqiunninni’s disappointment.
Gilgamesh finished his charge to Dumuzi, “The wall is almost complete. I need you to strengthen the morale of the workers to finish the task before I return. I am sure you see the benefit of me vanquishing the giant and arriving home to the completed mighty walls of Uruk.”
“It is positively mythical,” butted in Sinleqiunninni. He was determined not to let himself be pushed out of the moment entirely. “The
symbolism would be a powerful metaphor for advantageous propaganda in an epic cuneiform tale.”
Gilgamesh knew it was also to his advantage to avoid stifling the one who would pen his story with stylus to clay, so he just nodded and did not respond to the flattery.
Dumuzi could not deny it. Everything Gilgamesh said was true. He sighed and nodded to his lord and king, accepting the big responsibility before him. He would rise to the occasion. And he thought he would use his opportunity to stick Sinleqiunninni away on some scribal project to keep his annoying presence out of his hair.
They embraced and Gilgamesh turned to Enkidu, “Let us begin our journey.”
Enkidu turned to the warriors, atop their horse mounts, awaiting their command and shouted, “Ho, hurrah! Let us journey forth, warriors!”
Gilgamesh said to Enkidu, “I have been meaning to ask you, where on earth did you get that saying, ‘Ho, hurrah,’ you repeat with such annoying repetition?”
“From Dumuzi on the steppe, my lord,” smiled Enkidu.
Dumuzi looked away embarrassed.
Gilgamesh said sternly, “Dumuzi.”
Dumuzi looked up timidly at him.
Gilgamesh said, “Ho, hurrah,” and gave him a wink as they turned and left the city gates into the open land before them.
Chapter 13
It had been several days since Gilgamesh left Uruk for the Great Cedar Forest with Enkidu and his band of warriors. Dumuzi had taken to his new responsibilities over Uruk with a certain amount of distaste. The only satisfaction he received was sending Sinleqiunninni to the library archives for a detailed, up to date accounting of the kingdom finances. He would be there for weeks most likely, rummaging through a myriad of broken, misplaced, and out of date tablets trying to recalculate inaccurate numbers and tracking down missing accounts. The crown was meticulous in its accounting, but humans were fallible and corrupt, so there would be much malfeasance to uncover and wrongs to right, all of which made Sinleqiunninni the perfect bureaucrat of tedium to employ.
Fortunately, it was not a futile exercise as the wall was near finished and Gilgamesh would have to reconcile his finances and resources upon completion. So it was all necessary.
But Dumuzi missed the herds and the grazing fields. He missed the open air and the sound of baaing sheep lulling him to sleep. And how did he find himself in such an odd position of trust with the king whom he had wanted to kill for his violation of Dumuzi’s dignity and honor in the past? He found himself strangely drawn in by Gilgamesh’s magnetic charisma. He was an abusive ruler in some ways, but in others, he was a positive force of order out of the chaos. He was just the kind of leader that was needed to restrain the petty grumblings and mob mentality of the masses. People tended to behave like stupid sheep, following whatever was the strongest, most sensational call to action, regardless of its rationality or its moral value, right or wrong. And it was usually wrong. Only a strong leader could calm the mob or stir them in his calculated direction.
But Gilgamesh also provided a leadership with strong vision for a better future. He was a troubled king who seemed to be having his own personal crisis of meaning and identity and thus his quest for fame and eternal life. But if current events were any indication of the future of Uruk, Dumuzi was hopeful. Enkidu’s influence on Gilgamesh had already persuaded him to retract the abominable policy of jus prima noctis that had stolen Dumuzi’s honor and been the source of his rage. King Gilgamesh showed signs of becoming a better king, a more just king.
Dumuzi put it out of his mind as he approached the clay pit. The foreman had alerted him that the workers had noticed a strong smell permeating the area. It was the stench of rotting flesh — or to be more precise, as Sinleqiunninni would say, rotting fish.
He arrived at the pit and journeyed down the incline until he reached the bottom where the workers had stopped and were gathered around a large area of ground with something gargantuan uncovered from underneath. It appeared to be the rough scaly backbone of some huge sea monster. And it stunk to high heaven. The scales and spines were too strong to break through with their tools, but the flesh was rotting underneath it.
Dumuzi called Sinleqiunninni out of his exile in the dungeonous library to give him some explanation. As best the scholar could figure, it was probably a sea dragon of some kind that was buried in the sediment of the Great Flood.
“Normally, the flesh would have rotted away generations ago,” declared Sinleqiunninni with superior knowledge, “leaving only a carcass of bones. But according to my observations, the burial was rapid, and apparently must have worked like a kind of sealed tomb, which froze or slowed down the deterioration of the flesh. But when the workers broke the seal, and unearthed the body, it came into contact with the open air again, resulting in the rapid decomposition of its current state.”
And there was a lot of flesh to decompose. The thing was huge. It might even be large enough to obstruct the entire work area and force them to start a new clay pit.
Dumuzi ordered them to keep digging further away from the current excavation to see just how big the corpse was. He returned to the palace to take a nap and find some clean air to breath.
Chapter 14
A few days out from Uruk, Gilgamesh and his band of warrior brothers careened along their journey to the Great Cedar Forest at Mount Hermon in the west. They were an elite corps of mighty soldiers of the king, who had trained for years in his service. One could even call them Gibborim. Gibborim was a word that was evolving to mean mighty warrior, either human or Nephilim. Gilgamesh had led them on a fast-paced march that they were sure must have been supernaturally aided by the gods. Their trip was three hundred leagues to the foot of Mount Hermon in the midst of the Great Cedar Forest and Gilgamesh followed seven constellations by night through seven mountain passes all told. They navigated fifty leagues a day, twenty before they broke bread, and another thirty before they pitched camp. They traveled in a mere few days what would have taken weeks for a normal trained militia. It was nothing short of miraculous.
They dug a well and poured a water offering out to Shamash in gratitude. Enkidu had wondered what use water would be to a god who was a big ball of burning fire in the sky. Was he eternally thirsty? Would not water put his fire out? It did not make much sense to him, but he went along with it anyway. Perhaps Shamash would shine some light into the darkened corners of this infernal forest.
They had traveled along the Euphrates river, around the fertile crescent, and down into the foothills of the Sirion Mountain range. By the time they were in sight of the cosmic mountain and at the edge of the vast forest, Gilgamesh confided in Enkidu that he had been having dreams again as he had before he battled Enkidu in Uruk.
“What are the dreams?” asked Enkidu. “I am not skilled in the art of interpretation like your mother,” he said, pulling out the golden amulet from around his neck, “but I bear the spirit of your family name.”
Gilgamesh said, “There have been five of them.” Enkidu’s eyes went wide. That was quite a few dreams.
“Well,” said Enkidu, “let us construct a dream house of the gods and compose the circle for you to recount your dreams.”
So they threw together a crude dream house of the gods out of loose lumber. It was like a makeshift lean to. Enkidu drew the circle with a stick, poured out a libation of flour on the ground, and the two sat down in the middle. As if on cue, Gilgamesh became hypnotic and rested his head on his knees.
“My king?” said Enkidu.
Suddenly, Gilgamesh snapped his head back, looking at Enkidu with bleary red eyes, “Why did I wake up?” he shouted, “Why am I trembling? Did a god pass by?”
Enkidu stared at him blankly. He had no clue what Gilgamesh just said. But he figured he would wing it and try to help his friend find his way.
Enkidu spoke as if he knew what he was doing, “Tell me your dreams.”
Gilgamesh said, “In the first dream, I was in a mountain gorge and the mountain fell upon me. But I was pulle
d out of the mountain and cast it down, and it was covered with flies.”
Enkidu was even more confused than moments before. He wondered if he had gotten in over his head and if he should back out while he still had the chance. His mind raced for something positive, anything he could make up to encourage Gilgamesh. He was looking out upon Mount Hermon in the distance and just blurted the first thing that came to his mind, “The mountain is Humbaba!” Gilgamesh looked to him for more. He was very superstitious when it came to dreams and gullible toward anyone with an interpretation.
Enkidu filled in the silence with words until he could come up with something else, “Your dream is — uh — favorable. It is a precious — omen.” He had heard Ninsun use that word ‘omen’ before and thought it might fit well here, though he was not entirely sure.
He repeated, “The mountain you saw is Humbaba.” Then his thoughts drifted toward the monster and his emotions about the giant spilled out, “We will catch Humbaba and slay him — and throw his corpse out upon the field of battle for the flies to consume like excrement.”
That was not too bad. Gilgamesh was following like a hypnotized religious fanatic. The sun broke through the clouds and glared into Enkidu’s eyes. He sneezed from the brightness and said, “A sign that Shamash will show us favor.”
Gilgamesh began his next dream before Enkidu could try to stop. “My second dream surpasses the first.”
Oh, great, thought Enkidu. What have I gotten myself into?
Gilgamesh continued, “Another mountain threw me down and held me until a man appeared, a most handsome man, who pulled me from beneath the mountain and gave me a fresh drink of water.”
Gilgamesh paused and stared at Enkidu like a school child looking to the master to give the answer. But Enkidu was even more in the dark than before. He thought, what do the gods hope to achieve by giving such crazy dreams that do not make any sense? If I were a god, I would chose a little more clear means of communicating my message.
