Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative - Softcover

Mason, Herbert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0618275649 ISBN 13: 9780618275649

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2003

Synopsis

The most widely read and enduring interpretation of the classic Babylonian epic.

One of the oldest and most universal stories known in literature, the epic of Gilgamesh presents the grand, timeless themes of love and death, loss and reparations within the stirring tale of a hero-king and his doomed friend. A finalist for the National Book Award, Herbert Mason's retelling is at once a triumph of scholarship, a masterpiece of style, and a labor of love that grew out of the poet's long affinity with the original.

About this title

About the Author

Herbert Mason is William Goodwin Aurelio professor of history and religious thought at Boston University. He lives in Phillipston, Massachusetts.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Gilgamesh

A Verse Narrative

By Herbert Mason

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Copyright © 1970 Herbert Mason
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-618-27564-9

Contents

Title Page, 
Table of Contents, 
Copyright, 
GILGAMESH, 
I, 
II, 
III, 
IV, 
Names and Places Appearing in the Narrative, 
About the Gilgamesh, 
An Autobiographical Postscript, 
Gilgamesh: An Afterword by John H. Marks, 
Notes to Afterword, 
Afterword to the Mariner Edition, 
About the Author, 
Footnotes, 

CHAPTER 1

GILGAMESH

A VERSE NARRATIVE

It is an old story
But one that can still be told
About a man who loved
And lost a friend to death
And learned he lacked the power
To bring him back to life.
It is the story of Gilgamesh
And his friend Enkidu.


I

Gilgamesh was king of Uruk,
A city set between the Tigris
And Euphrates rivers
In ancient Babylonia.
Enkidu was born on the Steppe
Where he grew up among the animals.
Gilgamesh was called a god and man;
Enkidu was an animal and man.
It is the story
Of their becoming human together.

As king, Gilgamesh was a tyrant to his people.
He demanded, from an old birthright,
The privilege of sleeping with their brides
Before the husbands were permitted.

Sometimes he pushed his people half to death
With work rebuilding Uruk's walls,
And then without an explanation let
The walls go unattended and decay,
And left his people dreaming of the past
And longing for a change.
They had grown tired of his contradictions
And his callous ways.
They knew his world was old
And cluttered with spoiled arts
That they defended but could not revive.

Enkidu was ignorant of oldness.
He ran with the animals,
Drank at their springs,
Not knowing fear or wisdom.
He freed them from the traps
The hunters set.

A hunter's son one day
Saw Enkidu opening a trap:
The creature was all covered with hair
And yet his hands had the dexterity of men's;
He ran beside the freed gazelle
Like a brother
And they drank together at a pool
Like two friends
Sharing some common journey
Not needing to speak but just continue.

Gilgamesh was a godlike man alone
With his thoughts in idleness except
For those evenings when he went down
Into the marketplace to the Family House
To sleep with the virgins, or when
He told his dreams to his mother, Ninsun.

The hunter listened to his son's
Description of Enkidu
And was both angry and afraid.
He told his son to go to Uruk

And to tell what he had seen
To Gilgamesh and to ask him
To send a prostitute
Who would sleep with Enkidu
And make the animals ashamed of him.
Gilgamesh would understand, for he was king.

The hunter's son made the day's journey
To Uruk and told what he had seen
To Gilgamesh, showing him
His father's anger and his fear
And praising the strength of the strange
Creature who had come to his father's plains
And freed the animals from the traps
And lived as one of them
And threatened the livelihood of men.
Gilgamesh listened but he had heard
So many stories of the Wondrous
Creatures of the Forest and the Steppe
That he could hardly be aroused.
He sent the prostitute but then forgot
What he had listened to.

The hunter left the prostitute alone
At the spring. When evening came,
Enkidu appeared among the animals
And drank with them and rested at their side.
When he awoke he saw a creature
Unlike any he had seen before
Standing near the water, its skin smooth, tan
And hairless except for its head
And between its legs.
He wanted to touch it, but then
It made sounds he had never heard,
Not like the sounds of his friends, the animals,
And he was afraid. The prostitute
Came close to him and the animals withdrew.
She took his hand and guided it
Across her breasts and between her legs
And touched him with her fingers
Gently and bent down and moistened
Him with her lips then drew him
Slowly to the ground.

When he rose again
Looking for his friends who had gone,
He felt a strange exhaustion,
As if life had left his body.
He felt their absence.
He imagined the gazelles raising the dry dust
Like soft brush floating on the crests of sand
Swiftly changing direction, and the serpents
Asleep at the springs, slipping effortlessly
Into the water, and the wild she-camel
Vanishing into the desert. His friends
Had left him to a vast aloneness
He had never felt before. The lions returned
To the mountains, the water buffalo
To the rivers, the birds to the sky.

Gilgamesh woke anxiously from a dream
And said to Ninsun: 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.

She said: Your equal is the star
Which fell, as if a sign from Heaven
Had been sent which is too heavy
But which you will try to lift
And drive away, and fail.

But I have never failed before, he interrupted
Her, surprised himself at his anxiety.
It will be a person, she continued,
Speaking in her somber monotone,
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 was quiet at this interpretation
Of his dream.

That night he had a vision of an ax.
What does this mean, he said on waking;
The people stood around the ax
When I tried to lift it, and I failed.
I feel such tiredness. I cannot explain.

Ninsun said: The ax is a man
Who is your friend and equal
He will come. A graceful man
Who will lift you out of tiredness.

O Ninsun, I want your words to be true.
I have never known such weariness before,
As if some life in me has disappeared
Or needs to be filled up again.
I am alone and I have longed
For some companionship. My people
Also have grown tired of my solitude.

* * *

The prostitute slept beside Enkidu
Until he was used to her body.
She knew how gradually one stops
Desiring to run with old companions.
One morning she awoke and said to him:
Why do you still want to run with the animals?
You are a human being now, not like them.

You are like a god, like Gilgamesh.
I will lead you to Uruk
Where you belong, to the Temple of Ana
Where Gilgamesh rules over his people
And is strong, and you will recognize
Yourself in him, as in a clear stream
You see your own face, a man's face.
He listened to her words
And to the unfamiliar names
Of Anu, Gilgamesh ... and he felt weak.
He let her clothe him in a portion
Of her scarlet robe and lead him
To a shepherd's house
Where he was welcomed and taught to eat bread
And drink the liquor that the shepherds drank.
His soul felt new and strange
And his face was hot with sweat
And somehow gay. The prostitute
Shaved the long hair off his body;
She washed him with perfumes and oils,
And he became a man. At night
He stood watch for the shepherds
Against the lions so they could sleep,
He captured wolves for them,
And he was known as their Protector.

One day a man who was going to Uruk
Stopped to eat at the shepherd's house.
He told them he was hurrying to the marketplace
To choose for himself a virgin bride
Whom Gilgamesh by his birthright
Would sleep with before him.

Enkidu's face was pale.
He felt a weakness in his body
At the mention of their king.
He asked the prostitute
Why this should be his birthright.
She answered: He is king.

Enkidu entered Uruk.
The prostitute walked behind him.
The marketplace filled with people
When they heard that he was coming.
People said: He looks like Gilgamesh
But he is shorter and also stronger;
He has the power of the Steppe,
The milk of the animals he sucked.
They hailed him as the equal of their king.

At night when Gilgamesh approached
The market square to go into the Family House
Where the bride was to be chosen, Enkidu stood
Blocking his way. Gilgamesh looked at the stranger
And listened to his people's shouts of praise
For someone other than himself
And lunged at Enkidu.
They fell like wolves
At each other's throats,
Like bulls bellowing,
And horses gasping for breath
That have run all day
Desperate for rest and water,
Crushing the gate they fell against.
The dry dust billowed in the marketplace
And people shrieked. The dogs raced

In and out between their legs.
A child screamed at their feet
That danced the dance of life
Which hovers close to death.
And quiet suddenly fell on them
When Gilgamesh stood still
Exhausted. He turned to Enkidu who leaned
Against his shoulder and looked into his eyes
And saw himself in the other, just as Enkidu saw
Himself in Gilgamesh.
In the silence of the people they began to laugh
And clutched each other in their breathless exaltation.


II

Gilgamesh spoke then:
We go to kill the Evil One,
Humbaba. We must prove
Ourselves more powerful than he.

Enkidu was afraid of the forest of Humbaba
And urged him not to go, but he
Was not as strong as Gilgamesh in argument,
And they were friends:
They had embraced and made their vow
To stay together always,

No matter what the obstacle.
Enkidu tried to hold his fear

But he was sick at heart:
I feel the weakness that I felt before
Come over my body, as if I tried to lift
My arms and found that they were hollow.

It is Humbaba who has taken your strength,
Gilgamesh spoke out, anxious
For the journey. We must kill him
And end his evil power over us.

No, Enkidu cried; it is the journey
That will take away our life.

Don't be afraid, said Gilgamesh.
We are together. There is nothing
We should fear.

I learned, Enkidu said, when I lived
With the animals never to go down
Into that forest. I learned that there is death
In Humbaba. Why do you want
To raise his anger?

Only half listening Gilgamesh thought
Aloud about the cedars he would climb.

How can we climb those cedars?
Enkidu tried to sway his thoughts:
Humbaba never sleeps. He is the guardian
Whom Enlil has commanded to protect
The sacred trees by terror. I have learned
His sound is like a flood's sound
Slowly forming in the distance,
Then enveloping all other sounds.
Even the cries of animals cannot be heard.
Trees are hushed, the wind
Still moves them back and forth
But noiselessly. As when one senses
Violence gathering its force,
Soon there is no sound apart from it,
Not even one's own thoughts in terror.
I have learned that from his mouth springs fire
That scorches the earth and in a moment

There is nothing left alive,
No tree, no insect, as in a dream
That makes one wake and cry
Out of the pain one cannot find
The source of, out of nothing;
One wakes and everything has vanished.
I have learned Humbaba is the face of death.
He hears each insect crawling toward the edge
Of the forest; he twitches and it dies.
Do you think he could not hear two men?

Why are you worried about death?
Only the gods are immortal anyway,
Sighed Gilgamesh.
What men do is nothing, so fear is never
Justified. What happened to your power
That once could challenge and equal mine?
I will go ahead of you, and if I die
I will at least have the reward
Of having people say: He died in war
Against Humbaba. You cannot discourage me
With fears and hesitations.

I will fight Humbaba,
I will cut down his cedars.
Tell the armorers to build us two-edged swords
And double shields and tell them
I am impatient and cannot wait long.

Thus Gilgamesh and Enkidu went
Together to the marketplace
To notify the Elders of Uruk
Who were meeting in their senate.
They too were talking of Humbaba,
As they often did,
Edging always in their thoughts
Toward the forbidden.

The one you speak of, Gilgamesh addressed them,
I now must meet. I want to prove
Him not the awesome thing we think he is
And that the boundaries set up by gods
Are not unbreakable. I will defeat him
In his cedar forest. The youth of Uruk
Need this fight. They have grown soft
And restless.

The old men leaned a little forward
Remembering old wars. A flush burned on
Their cheeks. It seemed a little dangerous
And yet they saw their king
Was seized with passion for this fight.

Their voices gave the confidence his friend
Had failed to give; some even said
Enkidu's wisdom was a sign of cowardice.
You see, my friend, laughed Gilgamesh,
The wise of Uruk have outnumbered you.

Amidst the speeches in the hall
That called upon the gods for their protection,
Gilgamesh saw in his friend that pain
He had seen before and asked him what it was
That troubled him.

Enkidu could not speak. He held his tears
Back. Barely audibly he said:
It is a road which you have never traveled.

The armorers brought to Gilgamesh his weapons
And put them in his hand. He took his quiver,
Bow and ax, and two-edged sword,
And they began to march.

The Elders gave their austere blessing
And the people shouted: Let Enkidu lead,
Don't trust your strength, he knows the forests,
The one who goes ahead will save his friend.
May Shamash bring you victory.

Enkidu was resolved to lead his friend
Who was determined but did not know the way!
Now Gilgamesh was certain with his friend
Beside him. They went to Ninsun, his mother,
Who would advise them how to guard their steps.

Her words still filled his mind
As they started their journey,
Just as a mother's voice is heard
Sometimes in a man's mind

Long past childhood
Calling his name, calling him from sleep
Or from some pleasureful moment
On a foreign street
When every trace of origin seems left
And one has almost passed into a land
That promises a vision or the secret
Of one's life, when one feels almost god enough
To be free of voices, her voice
Calls out like a voice from childhood,
Reminding him he once tossed in dreams.
He still could smell the incense she had burned
To Shamash, saying: Why did you give my son
A restless heart, and now you touch him
With this passion to destroy Humbaba,
And you send him on a journey to a battle
He may never understand, to a door
He cannot open. You inspire him to end
The evil of the world which you abhor
And yet he is a man for all his power
And cannot do your work. You must protect
My son from danger.

She had put out the incense
And called Enkidu to her side, and said:
You are not my son but I adopt you
And call upon the same protection now
For you I called upon for Gilgamesh.
She placed a charm around his neck, and said:
O let Enkidu now protect his friend.

These words still filled their minds
As the two friends continued on their way.

After three days they reached the edge
Of the forest where Humbaba's watchman stood.
Suddenly it was Gilgamesh who was afraid,
Enkidu who reminded him to be fearless.
The watchman sounded his warning to Humbaba.
The two friends moved slowly toward the forest gate.

When Enkidu touched the gate his hand felt numb,
He could not move his fingers or his wrist,
His face turned pale like someone's witnessing
a death,

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. Enkidu followed close behind
So filled with fear he could not think or speak.
Soon they reached the high cedars.

They stood in awe at the foot
Of the green mountain. Pleasure
Seemed to grow from fear for Gilgamesh.
As when one comes upon a path in woods
Unvisited by men, one is drawn near
The lost and undiscovered in himself;
He was revitalized by danger.
They knew it was the path Humbaba made.

Some called the forest "Hell," and others "Paradise";
What difference does it make? said Gilgamesh.
But night was falling quickly
And they had no time to call it names,
Except perhaps "The Dark,"
Before they found a place at the edge of the forest
To serve as shelter for their sleep.

It was a restless night for both. One snatched
At sleep and sprang awake from dreams. The other
Could not rest because of pain that spread
Throughout his side. Enkidu was alone
With sights he saw brought on by pain
And fear, as one in deep despair
May lie beside his love who sleeps
And seems so unafraid, absorbing in himself the phantoms
That she cannot see — phantoms diminished for one
When two can see and stay awake to talk of them
And search out a solution to despair,
Or lie together in each other's arms,

Or weep and in exhaustion from their tears
Perhaps find laughter for their fears.
But alone and awake the size and nature
Of the creatures in his mind grow monstrous,
Beyond resemblance to the creatures he had known
Before the prostitute had come into his life.
He cried aloud for them to stop appearing over him
Emerging from behind the trees with phosphorescent eyes
Brought on by rain. He could not hear his voice
But knew he screamed and could not move his arms
But thought they tried to move
As if a heavy weight he could not raise
Or wriggle out from underneath
Had settled on his chest,
Like a turtle trapped beneath a fallen branch,
Each effort only added to paralysis.
He could not make his friend, his one companion, hear.

Gilgamesh awoke but could not hear
His friend in agony, he still was captive to his dreams
Which he would tell aloud to exorcise:
I saw us standing in a mountain gorge,
A rockslide fell on us, we seemed no more

Than insects under it. And then
A solitary graceful man appeared
And pulled me out from under the mountain.
He gave me water and I felt released.

Tomorrow you will be victorious,
Enkidu said, to whom the dream brought chills
(For only one of them, he knew, would be released)
Which Gilgamesh could not perceive in the darkness
For he went back to sleep without responding
To his friend's interpretation of his dream.

Did you call me? Gilgamesh sat up again.
Why did I wake again? I thought you touched me.
Why am I afraid? I felt my limbs grow numb
As if some god passed over us drawing out our life.
I had another dream:
This time the heavens were alive with fire, but soon
The clouds began to thicken, death rained down on us,
The lightning flashes stopped, and everything
Which rained down turned to ashes.
What does this mean, Enkidu?

That you will be victorious against Humbaba,
Enkidu said, or someone said through him
Because he could not hear his voice
Or move his limbs although he thought he spoke,
And soon he saw his friend asleep beside him.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Gilgamesh by Herbert Mason. Copyright © 1970 Herbert Mason. Excerpted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0618275649
• ISBN 13: 9780618275649
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128