Enraged, the wounded animal turned again to find its attacker. Using the respite, Enkidu jumped out of the pit and grabbed the animal by its tail, holding fast, letting it not move or shake Gilgamesh off. Atop the bull, Gilgamesh thrust his dagger into its neck again and again. Then the Bull of Heaven issued a groan like that of a thousand dying warriors and fell on its side. It heaved and wiggled awhile, then lay still.
From above, hovering in her skyship, Ishtar had watched the unfolding battle.
As the Bull of Heaven was slain, Ishtar cried out in agony, her voice booming down to the triumphant comrades. “What evil you have done! The Bull of Heaven, the destiny of Enlil’s era, you have slain! The wrath of the great gods shall now be upon you. Go away, evildoers! Go and await your punishment!”
The comrades looked up at the swirling skyship. Gilgamesh raised his hands in supplication and fell to his knees.
“Go, for the Cedar Forest you shall never enter!” the voice boomed again at them. And no sooner had Ishtar spoken than a brilliant flash emanated from the skyship toward the forest’s invisible gateway. There was a shattering of rocks and a crush of trees, and where the ray hit the forest, fires and flames erupted.
“Go back to await your punishment or my brilliance shall consume you too!” Ishtar’s voice boomed from the skyship.
Gilgamesh stood up, raising a fist toward the craft.
“It is by the will of the gods that I have vanquished Huwawa and the Bull of Heaven!” he shouted. “In fair battle have I the creature from Nibiru slain. I am now worthy to be taken to Nibiru!”
“The gateway is forever closed, and your fate by the Seven Who Judge shall be determined!” Ishtar announced. “Go away or I shall turn you to vapor!”
Enkidu tugged at his comrade. “There’s no wisdom in angering the gods,” he said. “Your valor has been established; there’s nothing more that can be achieved here. Come, let’s to Erech return and there establish your name, your glory to proclaim!”
“So be it,” Gilgamesh answered him, “but first let’s claim our trophies.”
Using his dagger, he cut off the Bull of Heaven’s three horns. The two short ones he gave to Enkidu to carry. The other, the long horn, he carried himself.
* * *
To Erech they then returned. With the aid of the magic boots, they completed a journey of a month and fifteen days in a mere three days. Word of their return and their deeds in the Cedar Forest preceded them; people came out of their villages to view the hopping comrades and admire their trophies. At the gate of Erech they were met by the city’s fifty heroes, led by the king’s chamberlain, Niglugal. But the Elders did not come out to greet them, and in the streets many houses were shuttered.
Back in the palace, Gilgamesh summoned the craftsmen, the armorers, and all of the artisans to admire the Bull of Heaven’s horns and to hear their suggestions as to how the horns might best be preserved as trophies. After all had spoken, the long middle horn was hung on the wall behind the king’s throne as a constant reminder of his feats in the Cedar Forest. The two other horns were taken away to be coated with gold, two fingers thick, and adorned with beads of lapis. After this was done, the bejeweled horns were filled with scented wines.
Though two men were typically needed to carry each horn, Gilgamesh lifted each one by himself. From the first one he drank and praised the great gods, thanked his godfather, Utu, and paid homage to his mother, who, by her womb, had made him two-thirds divine. And from the other he drank and paid homage to his ancestors on his father’s side, priests and kings all, and especially the hero Lugalbanda.
“Divine I shall yet be, Everlife I shall yet attain!” he pronounced. “Let there be celebrations in the palace!” But in the Sacred Precinct, Ishtar assembled the priests and priestesses, and over the slaying of the Bull of Heaven set up a great wail.
“Oh Anu, great father!” she cried out a message, “let those who slew the sacred bull, who had defamed your beloved Irnina, pay with their lives!”
11
In the night, after the banquet, Enkidu had a dream.
His screams awakened Gilgamesh. They were bedded side by side, and it took Gilgamesh a few moments to realize that they were not in the palace but in Salgigti’s house of pleasure, where they had gone after the banqueting at Enkidu’s urging.
Enkidu, flailing his hands, was screaming at the door. “Oh door, it is I who made you, it is I who raised you!” he was shouting. “Do not let through those who come after me, be they king or god! Let no one erase my name that is upon you and place his own name there instead!”
Gilgamesh was puzzling over his comrade’s strange rantings when Enkidu grabbed the doorposts and ripped them out. Gilgamesh jumped up and grabbed his comrade. “What has come over you?” he asked gently. “How can one who has wisdom say such strange things?”
“Oh Gilgamesh,” Enkidu said, tears in his eyes. “A dream I had. In my dream I saw my name inscribed upon the door. A bright being, a king or a god, appeared at the door. He rubbed out my name and was replacing it with his own. . . . It is a bad omen, Gilgamesh!”
As he spoke, Salgigti appeared, having been awakened by the noise. She saw the ripped-out doorposts and let out a wail.
“Enkidu had a nightmare,” Gilgamesh explained. “I will make good your damage on the morrow.”
Becalmed, she neared Enkidu and put out her hands to embrace him. But he looked at her strangely and shoved her away.
“Of you I’ve also dreamt,” he said to her. “It was you who led the defacer to my door.”
Salgigti stepped back. “I’ve let no one in, I was asleep in my bed. I don’t understand your strange words.”
“No, it was you!” Enkidu shouted, lunging at her.
“What has come over you, Enkidu?” Gilgamesh cried out as he tried to restrain his friend. But Enkidu gave his comrade a mighty shove also.
“It was her!” he shouted, enraged. “She led doom to my door!”
Seized with panic, Salgigti knelt down, humbling herself before Enkidu. “Forgive me,” she implored. “They made me speak and break my oath . . .”
“What are you saying?” Gilgamesh shouted. “Speak clearly!”
“The priests . . . they seized me after the royal guards had questioned me. . . . Of your change of clothes and of Adadel they had already known, I know not how. They slapped my face before the High Priest, the wrath of the gods they were bringing upon me. . . . I told them what I knew.”
“My dream was true!” Enkidu shouted. “The harlot has betrayed us!” He lunged at her, catching her by the throat. His hands, like a vise, began to choke her. “Death, death unto you!” he shouted.
Gilgamesh rushed to pull his comrade’s hands off the woman’s throat. But at that moment it was Enkidu, not the woman, who let out a cry.
“My hands!” he cried out, letting go of Salgigti’s throat. “My hands! They are going numb!”
Gilgamesh pulled his comrade away from Salgigti. “Be gone, woman,” he said, “for the wrath of the gods indeed shall be upon you. Cursed shall you be, and cursed shall be your house! Now, go open the door that we may leave!”
He examined Enkidu’s hands. They were red and swollen like they had been in the Cedar Forest after Enkidu pried open the cave’s bars.
“Come, Enkidu, to the palace,” Gilgamesh said. “There we shall wash your hands with pure water and restore your strength.”
“It’s no use,” Enkidu replied, sitting down. “I now know that my dream was true, and the rest of it shall also come true. . . . A divine emissary is on his way, my name to erase. . . . Through the nameless doorposts he shall lead me to the Land of No Return.” Overcome by weakness, his hands dropped beside his body.
A great anxiety seized Gilgamesh. “To my mother Ninsun’s House of Resuscitation let us then hurry,” he said. “Whatever your malady, she will cure it.”
He helped Enkidu up and supported him as they left Salgigti’s house. In the street the weakness spread over Enk
idu’s whole body and he began to stumble. Seeing a patrol, Gilgamesh hailed the soldiers. Using their spears and girdles they made a stretcher to carry Enkidu to Ninsun’s hospital. Surprisingly, the crowd that usually gathered before sunup, awaiting the gate to be opened, was not there. It was only after some banging that the gate was opened for Gilgamesh.
“Hurry, call the Lady Ninsun!” he shouted, “for Enkidu is severely ill!”
They carried Enkidu into the hospital’s compound. Moments later Ninsun’s handmaiden, Ninsubar, appeared.
“Your mother, the Lady Ninsun, is not here,” she told Gilgamesh. “She was summoned to Nippur to attend an assembly of the gods called by the great Lord Enlil.” She knew not when Ninsun was expected back.
They carried Enkidu to one of the smaller buildings. For seven days and seven nights he lay on a couch, unable to move, unable to eat or drink, delirious from time to time and seeing evil dreams. Gilgamesh did not budge from his comrade’s side. From time to time he wet Enkidu’s mouth, and it was at such moments that Enkidu could move his lips, murmuring his dreams to his companion.
On the seventh night, before he passed out completely, Enkidu told Gilgamesh his latest dream.
“Oh my friend,” he mumbled in a whine, “I saw a dream. The Heavens shouted, the Earth responded. I was standing between them. There was a young man whose face was dark like the face of Zu, his talons like an eagle’s claws. He overpowered me. . . . He submerged me, in what I do not know. He transformed me so that my arms were like those of a bird. Then he led me to the House of Darkness, from which none who have entered leave. Its dwellers are bereft of light, dust is their fare and clay is their food. . . . Clothed as birds, with wings for garments, are their guardians . . .”
And then he stopped talking and passed out.
For another day and another night Gilgamesh paced by the couch, touched his friend, rubbed his hands, put water to his lips. Enkidu did not move, neither opening his eyes nor pursing his lips, but he was not dead.
Crowds assembled outside the compound, eager for the latest news of the king and his comrade. The Elders of the city were there too, whispering evil of the comrades. “Because they have slain the Bull of Heaven, seven years of barren husks shall afflict the land of Erech,” they said. “There shall be no grain for the people, no grass for the beasts on account of the evil of the king and his comrade.”
The next day Ninsun’s faithful handmaiden conveyed the Elders’ words to Gilgamesh: “Enkidu is dying. The king is dying too. So has Anu, father of the gods, decreed.”
Distraught and angered, Gilgamesh came to the gate. There were cries of surprise and pity as he showed himself—his hair unkempt, his cheeks hollow, his nails grown like a vulture’s talons, his eyes red from sleeplessness and crying.
“Hear me, oh Elders of Erech!” he said as loudly as he could, for all the people to hear. “It is for Enkidu, my comrade, that I weep—he who was like a shield unto me, who with me scaled the white-powdered mountains, brought damnation upon Huwawa in the Cedar Forest, and the Bull of Heaven did slay. And now, a sleep without ending has taken hold of him. He breathes but cannot move, he hears me but cannot speak . . . he lives not but is not dead. . . . Now do tell me, people of Erech, shall I veil Enkidu my comrade as a bride and call his heartbeat ended, or shall I cry unto the gods that a hero like none before, a creature uniquely fashioned by the Lord Enki, shall arise again, and by its living, the glory of the gods attest?”
There was a hushed silence as Gilgamesh concluded his bewailing. Ashamed of their eagerness for tragic news, the people dispersed, the Elders returning to their abodes. Relieved somewhat, Gilgamesh returned to his comrade’s bedside. But Enkidu lay as motionless as before. Gilgamesh touched his heart; it did not beat.
With trembling hands Gilgamesh veiled his comrade like a groom does to a bride. Then he tore his clothes, and by the couch, sat down on the floor to mourn.
That same afternoon Ninsun returned from Nippur. She saw Gilgamesh sitting on the floor, looking like a ghost. She saw Enkidu lying on the couch as if dead.
“Oh my mother!” Gilgamesh cried out when he saw her. “Enkidu is dead, and my own death is waiting!” He held out his right hand; it was jerking uncontrollably.
“Oh my son, beloved son,” Ninsun said as she took his head to her bosom. “When you were born, on a bed of honor I made you lie. When your sixth finger was circumcised, Utu held you in his arms. When you were growing up, to royalty and heroship I raised you. And now, when mortal fears fill your heart, long life I shall yet attain for you!”
She put her hand to Enkidu’s temple. “Enkidu is not dead, Gilgamesh,” she said. “The great gods, the Seven Who Judge, have otherwise decreed.”
Overjoyed, Gilgamesh took a moment to revel in the news, and then he asked, “And I?”
“Come with me to my chambers, refresh your heart with nectar, and I will tell you what has transpired in Nippur,” Ninsun said and took her son by the hand.
“But Enkidu . . .” Gilgamesh began to say, reluctant to leave his comrade.
“He will regain his senses. Now come with me,” she told him.
When they were in Ninsun’s chambers, she ordered her handmaiden to bring a certain nectar for Gilgamesh. When the filled cup was brought to him, he grabbed it to quench his thirst, but Ninsun admonished him to sip the nectar slowly. Soon some color returned to his cheeks and the jerking of his hand ceased.
“The wailing of Ishtar,” Ninsun began, “reached unto Anu, the Heavenly Father. ‘Gilgamesh has heaped insults against me,’ she complained to him. ‘The Bull of Heaven he and Enkidu have slain; Huwawa the guardian of the Cedar Forest they have smitten.’ The great Lord Anu then sent word to the Lord Enlil. ‘Let Gilgamesh and Enkidu be sentenced by the Seven Who Judge as to whether they shall live or die.’ That, my son, was the word of the great Lord Anu.”
“Whether to live or die?” Gilgamesh cried out. “Was it not with divine help that we reached the Cedar Forest? Did not Huwawa and the Bull of Heaven challenge us, by divine design, my right to establish Everlife?”
“My son, becalm yourself,” Ninsun said. “Though two-thirds of you are godly, the affairs of the gods you are far from knowing. Hush till I tell you of the divine assembly.”
She sat herself on her favorite armchair, Gilgamesh on a low stool opposite her. It was twilight, and the sun’s rays that shone through the ceiling’s latticework were reddish and fuzzy.
“Nippur, the Navel of the Earth before the Deluge, is still a sight to see, Gilgamesh,” she began to tell him. “Its seven-staged tower is resplendent from afar, awesome from nearby. A garden with all manner of flowers, and an orchard with every kind of fruit tree, surrounds it. Hummingbirds sing in the trees and peacocks walk the garden’s paths. A canal leads from the great rivers to the place of anchorage, a basin large enough to hold the barques of all the visiting gods. And in a masterful enclosure, which we were allowed to see, was Enlil’s Boat of Heaven . . .
“The great Lady Ninlil was a most gracious hostess. Father Enlil, having been summoned from the Land Beyond the Seas, presided. With him came the foremost son, the Lord Ninurta. The great Lord Enki, Enkidu’s creator, came from Eridu. Sitting to Enlil’s left, he insisted that the throne next to him be left vacant, assigned in absence to the exiled Lord Marduk . . .”
“Of the Seven Who Judge—who were then the seven?”
“Those three; the Lord Sin, Enlil’s firstborn on Earth; the Lord Adad, Enlil’s youngest, who had come from the western domains; and the Lord Utu. And, keeping the peace as she had done before, my mother, the great Ninharsag.”
“And Ishtar?”
“Like Nabu, she was an accuser.”
“Like Nabu?”
“Yes, but his complaint was against Utu, for improper divine interference, the transgression having been your rescue by the skyship west of the great river.”
“But we were tracked, attacked, and about to be seized!”
“Or lost in
the wilderness and about to be rescued. It all depends on who tells the story. I, of course, told mine.”
He looked up at her; there were tears in her eyes.
“What is it, my mother?” he asked, alarm in his voice. “What evil is there in store?”
“Gilgamesh,” she said, “having been in Erech so long, all that mattered seemed to be happening here in Erech. But out there, in the olden lands as well as in the lands beyond, time has not stood still. Enlil and Enki, dashing heroes who set out to master a planet, are tired and old. My mother, a beauty over whom two successors to the heavenly throne competed, is now old and heavy. And those who on Earth were born are getting to look as aged as their parents. How long and to what purpose shall we stay on upon Earth? That was the bothersome question . . .”
“The legends,” Gilgamesh said, “tell of a golden age that started it all. Was it not so?”
Ninsun pressed his head against her bosom. “Indeed, eons ago the Anunnaki settled on Earth for its gold. Nibiru was losing its atmosphere, its air, and our scientists protected it with suspended particles of gold. A great project was set afoot. Gold was extracted on Earth, then sent aloft to orbiting platforms for periodical transfer by spaceships to Nibiru. At first it was obtained from the waters of the Lower Sea, then from deep below the ground in the Lower World. In time the toil proved unbearable; the Anunnaki mining the ores mutinied. It was then that Man was fashioned to be a primitive worker. My mother and the Lord Enki fashioned him . . .”
She paused, caught in thoughts. “Then mankind increased in numbers, and the Anunnaki began to take the daughters of Man as wives. And when the Deluge was about to overwhelm Earth, Enlil decreed that only the Anunnaki could save themselves, by lifting off in our spacecraft, leaving mankind to perish. When the waters returned to their confines and the Anunnaki could land back on Earth, all that was before was swept over and buried under a sea of mud. A new spaceport had to be built, this time in the land called Tilmun. A new mission control center replaced Nippur’s. Then rivalries led to wars, and Earth had to be divided. And now you and Enkidu have upset it all by slaying the Bull of Heaven!”
The King Who Refused to Die Page 18
