The Epic of Gilgamesh - Yale University Press (2024)

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John Carey—

The oldest surviving literary work is The Epic of Gilgamesh. It wascomposed nearly 4,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia (roughly equivalent towhere Iraq and eastern Syria are now). No one knows who wrote it, or why, orwhat readership or audience it was intended for. It is preserved on claytablets in the earliest known alphabet, which is called cuneiform scriptbecause the scribes who wrote it formed the letters by making wedge-shaped(cuneiform) dents in wet clay with bits of reed.

For centuries the secret of how to read cuneiform script was lost. Then, inthe 1870s, a self-taught, working-class Londoner called George Smith, studyingclay tablets in the British Museum, cracked the code and brought The Epic ofGilgamesh to light.

The epic tells the story of a king, Gilgamesh, whose mother is a goddess.He rules the city of Uruk (now Warka in southern Iraq). He is a great warriorand builds a magnificent city using glazed bricks, a new technique. But he islustful and tyrannical, seizing and violating brides on their wedding day. Sothe gods create a wild man called Enkidu to stop Gilgamesh oppressing hispeople.

Enkidu is made from the clay the mother goddess washes from her hands, andhe is an animal rather than a human. He is covered in hair and lives with thegazelles, eating grass as they do. However, a votaress of the temple in Urukseduces him and after seven days and nights of fervent love-making he becomeshuman. She teaches him to wear clothes and eat human food.

Gilgamesh falls in love with Enkidu, caressing him like a woman. But whenEnkidu tries to stop him violating brides, they fight. They turn out to beequally matched, so they kiss and make friends and embark on heroic adventures.Together they go on a quest to the Cedar Forest and kill the monster Humbabawho lives there. This angers the gods, since Humbaba was their monster. WhileGilgamesh is washing after the fight the goddess Ishtar sees him, falls inlove, and proposes marriage. But she is the goddess of sex and violence and allher lovers come to a bad end, so Gilgamesh rejects her. She is angry, and callson her father, the sky god, to send another monster, the Bull of Heaven, tokill Gilgamesh. Instead Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull, which angers thegods still more, and they sentence Enkidu to death.

Gilgamesh mourns him bitterly and sets off to discover the secret ofeternal life. He is ferried across the waters of death and finds the immortalman Utnapishtim, who survived the great flood, in which all other humans died,by following the gods’ instructions and building a boat. Gilgamesh dives intothe ocean to find a plant that is said to make whoever possesses it youngagain. Though he finds it, and brings it to the surface, it is stolen by asnake, and Utnapishtim tells him that no one can defeat death. So Gilgameshreturns to Uruk, having learned that, though he is mighty and famous, he willbe equal in death with all other human beings.

From A Little History of Poetry byJohn Carey. Published by Yale University Press in 2020. Reproduced with permission.

John Careyis emeritus professor at Oxford. His books includeThe Essential“Paradise Lost,”What Good Are the Arts?,studies of Donne and Dickens, and a biography of William Golding.The Unexpected Professor,his memoir, was aSunday Timesbest-seller.

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