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Nov. 6, 2019 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
39:07
The Politics of the Epic of Gilgamesh
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Time Text
Finally, I don't have to talk about politics.
Thank God.
I have been waiting to do this for years.
This is purely for my own pleasure.
And if you don't enjoy it, that's too bad because we're locking the doors and you're sat here and you're going to have to deal with it.
So, the epic of Gilgamesh.
Has anyone even heard of this before I start?
Alright, so there's no point in me doing this and we should all just pack up and go home.
I'm doing it anyway, right?
Because this is just absolutely brilliant.
Because it's actually a really sort of real emotional roller coaster, actually.
It's a real sort of ancient adventure.
And it's really stood the test of time.
Because you might think that, like, you know, something written about three to five thousand years ago would actually be a terrible story to read now.
But it just goes to show you how timeless certain aspects of the human character are.
So we begin in Uruk, which looks something like this 5,000 years ago.
It's just a collection of small fishing villages on the banks of the Euphrates, and they discover agriculture.
About 2,000 years later, so the distance in time between us and Jesus, it looks something like this.
It's got about 50 to 80,000 inhabitants.
It's one of the largest cities that has ever existed.
And we're still 3,000 years until Jesus is born.
Around this time, a nine kilometer long, look at this, this is great.
This is exactly what I was hoping for.
Total silence as I bore you all to death with historical facts.
But this is the only factual part of this presentation, actually.
There's a nine-kilometer wall built around it by a successful historical king called Gilgamesh.
Now, we are sure that Gilgamesh was actually a real king.
There are other references to him.
Around somewhere like 2800 to 2500 BC.
And that's pretty much all we know.
He's in the king lists, he's mentioned by like one other king.
He's definitely a person.
And for some reason, there's something about Gilgamesh that inspires this ridiculous story that lasts for thousands of years.
And it begins with Gilgamesh being created by the gods, which is kind of contradictory or a very nice euphemism for saying that his mother, the goddess Nin's son, saw his human father and thought, all right, have a bit.
And for some reason, Gilgamesh turned out two-thirds god and one-third mortal, which is mathematics, it doesn't make sense.
But he is 100% Chad.
I'm not joking.
That's not a joke, he's genuinely, this is from Civ 6, but it's basically a historical representation.
I mean, we're told in tablet one of the epic, his body is perfect, he is handsome and bold, and he's literally cucking the entire city.
Everyone.
He has imposed prima noctis on the entire city.
Does anyone know what that means?
Yeah.
The men of the city are not happy about this, as you might imagine.
This is true, okay?
His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior's daughter nor the wife of the noble.
And as luck would have it, the gods of Sumer are actually listening to the men of the city grumble about this.
They're like, Christ, we created a half man, or sorry, a third man, two-thirds god, and he set himself up as a Randy tyrant.
What can we do about this?
And the gods don't really have much in the way of ideas.
They're like, okay, well, I mean, I guess if we created Gilgamesh and sent him down there, the only solution is to create another one and send him down there.
That's got to work.
And so they create Enkadu, the wild man.
Now, this is actually a really generous picture of Enkadu because the description is not nearly as encouraging.
His body was rough.
He had hair like a woman's.
His body was covered in matted hair like the god of cattle.
He was innocent of mankind.
He knew nothing of cultivated land.
He's this giant, savage, unwashed guy who lives with the animals and eats grass.
He's actually an incel.
He's no, he's not actually a furry.
He's born that way, actually.
But he's a giant incel.
He's twice as tall as other men and can't get a woman.
And he likes to ruin things for others.
Every day, these trappers go to this watering hole and they sit there and go, Why the hell are all of our traps broken?
And then they realize it's Enkadu coming down with the animals, freeing them from the traps, and so they're all going hungry.
What a dick.
But Gilgamesh knows what to do about incels.
When they go to Uruk and say, King Gilgamesh, please help us with this giant incel in the woods that's ruining all of our hunting.
Gilgamesh just taps his nose.
Well, listen, lads, you know, just think about it.
Send a sacred prostitute down there.
It's an easy solution.
And so Enkidu, the trapper takes a sacred prostitute called Shamat down to the watering hole where Enkadu lives, and he tells the harlot to strip off and seduce Enkadu, which she does.
And it's actually remarkably graphic.
And so I'm not going to recount any of it here because, I mean, my channel isn't monetized, but I don't want to get taken down.
But this leads us on to the 5,000-year-old red pill.
It's true.
They...
They spend an entire week shagging, which is a pretty good inning, really.
Most of us don't get that much opportunity on a first time.
But by this point, this is a bad thing for Enkadu, and he doesn't realize because he's been tainted by civilization now.
He's no longer pure.
And so when he approaches the gazelles, they can smell the woman on him.
And they're like, fuck you, mate, we're off.
And the way it describes this, Enkadu is depleted.
He no longer has the strength to follow them.
So he makes his second big mistake and sits down at Shamat's feet and starts listening to her.
Ladies, I'm so sorry, it's just a joke.
Trust me, by the end of this, you'll see where I'm going.
I'll pull this back.
Shamat tells Enkidu about Uruk and the wonders of civilization because he's out of luck now.
She tells him about Gilgamesh, who's the mightiest man alive.
And Enkidu vows on the spot that he's going to challenge him to demonstrate that he is, in fact, the strongest.
Which seems a bit unnecessary since he has already scored at this point.
But either way, they head on towards Uruk.
And Shamat takes him to some shepherds' huts.
And she teaches him to wash and groom himself, eat bread and drink beer.
And through this process, Enkidu is, quote, turned into a human, which I think is a really interesting way of framing the thing.
If you're not a civilized man, you're not a human at all.
And he helps the shepherds by taking up arms and driving the wolves and lions out from the land to protect their flocks.
Enkadu's a really good guy.
He's a team player.
He's become a pillar of the community.
And then one day, this is a feature of this story, okay?
And then one day, a man comes past the village.
Shema asks him, why the hurry?
What are you late for?
And the guy says, well, I'm late to a wedding in Uruk.
He tells them Gilgamesh is going to be there and he's going to cuck the future husband.
Enkidu is not happy about this.
In fact, when he hears about this custom, he becomes irrationally angry.
The text says, at the young man's speech, Enkidu's face flushed with anger, and then there's a break in the text.
And the next time we're introduced to the narrative, Enkidu is just stomping in a rage towards Uruk with Shema running behind him, trying to persuade him: look, it's not as bad as you think.
And so, Enkidu and Gilgamesh finally meet.
Because Enkidu goes into Uruk, and all of the people gather around, hoping that he's going to be a match for Gilgamesh, because, let's be honest, he's their best shot.
Gilgamesh goes to the house to do the deed, and Enkidu leaps out of the shadows to cockblock him.
The two have a huge fight.
They grappled with each other in the entry to the marital chamber.
In the street, they attacked each other.
The doorpost trembled and the wall shook.
But eventually, Gilgamesh wins and throws Enkidu to the ground.
It's not as bad as you think, though.
From the ground, Enkidu concedes that he's been defeated by the stronger man and acknowledges Gilgamesh's divine nature.
Then, quote, they kissed each other and became friends.
No homo.
Probably a bit, yeah.
Well, I mean, look, it's a 5,000-year-old language, so it's pictograms and symbols.
So the no-homo bit's definitely there.
But then we do get to an interesting bit, right?
Because Gilgamesh's mortal father, Ligal Banda, he's the king of Uruk that Gilgamesh inherits.
He's dead before the narrative starts.
And so Ninsun, his mother, the goddess, comes down and says to Gilgamesh something really empathetic, actually.
Enkadu has no father or mother.
His shaggy hair no one cuts.
He was born in the wilderness and no one raised him.
And Enkidu's standing there and he hears this.
And it says, he sat down and wept.
His eyes filled with tears.
His arms felt limp.
His strength weakened.
They took each other by the hand and Enkidu made a declaration to Gilgamesh.
Now, again, that sounds a bit gay, but it's a pledge of loyalty.
And from this point onwards, the two are like brothers.
They have a very strong familial relationship.
A number of lines are missing in the narrative, but these are the lines that seem to give Gilgamesh and Enkidu their first quest from the sun god Shamash to slay the demon Humbaba.
They've got to travel all the way to Lebanon.
This is from the other side of Iraq, basically, and defeat the guardian of the cedar forest, the demon Humbaba, so they can cut the cedar and use it to build a giant gate.
This is something nobody's done before because Humbaba is a being of great power.
His roar is a flood, his mouth is fire, his breath is death.
He can hear a hundred leagues away any rustling in his forest.
Hoo would go down into his forest.
He's been assigned there by Elil as a terror to human beings.
You can't threaten Gilgamesh with a good time though, and he thinks this sounds great.
Because Gilgamesh is the biggest dick in the world.
He says, I will undertake it.
I will cut down the cedar.
It is I who will establish fame for eternity.
So he goes down, Leonzel's, the craftsmen, start making him and Enkidu fancy new armour and weapons, because they're going to need it.
He tells the townfolk his adventure, and everyone's thrilled.
Presumably, there's a flurry of wedding planning that takes place in the timely he's going to be away.
And Enkadu makes the mistake of going and speaking with the wise men.
And they give their advice to Gilgamesh.
They say, you are young, Gilgamesh.
Your heart carries you off.
You do not know what you're talking about.
You know, Humbaba's roar is a flood.
His mouth is fire.
His breath is death.
He can hear any rustling 100 leagues away.
Who are you to go and confront him?
And so Gilgamesh says, well, I'm going to do it anyway, and goes to Ninsun, his mother, and lets her know that, by the way, mum, I'm going on an adventure to kill an unkillable demon.
I'll be back in a little bit.
She's not happy.
She's, in fact, heartbroken.
The text says bereaved at the news of this.
And so she doles herself up for a religious ritual.
She's a goddess.
I don't actually know what that means.
But she goes and finds some incense, lights a fire, and then incense and offers a prayer to Shamash, who's the god of the sun, who's she's really frustrated at Shamash because, as far as she's concerned, he's put the desire for wandering in Gilgamesh's heart, and he's putting him in danger.
But it doesn't matter because Shamash doesn't listen.
And they travel off to the Cedar Forest.
It's in distant Lebanon, so we're told that they walk 50 leagues in a day, which is 140 miles.
And normally this would take over a month.
So as they travel, Gilgamesh has five dramatic dreams.
These are dreams of great violence and leave Gilgamesh trembling as he wakes about falling mountains, raging storms, wild bulls, and a fire-breathing thunderbird.
Enkadu bizarrely interprets these as positive omens.
But the fear of Humbaba is clearly beginning to tell in Gilgamesh.
And so the god Shamash actually finally decides to listen to someone for once and speaks from the heavens and says, Look, right, I know you're getting scared, but for some reason, Humbaba wears seven coats of armor.
And at the moment, he's only wearing one.
And you can already hear him roaring from within the forest.
So get a move on.
So the two head their way into the forest and hack their way through thorn bushes and cross ravines.
And finally, they confront Humbaba.
And the dialogue's quite broken here, so it's difficult to follow.
But Humbaba treats Enkidu like a traitor, which is really interesting because until this point we have no idea that Humbabra and Enkidu even know each other.
Enkidu doesn't mention it.
And he calls him a son of a fish, which idioms are different in all times and places.
I'm sure that was deeply cutting.
But he's going to feed his flesh to the screeching vulture.
And so they fight.
Gilgamesh is unsure, though.
As it comes up to the battle, he turns to Humbabra and turns to Enkidu and says, Humbaba's face is constantly changing.
And I think that's what he's trying to say is Humbaba's making a persuasive argument.
Humbaba's changing my mind on what we're doing here.
Because we don't seem to have come apart from any reason to just take whether that's justified or not.
But Enkidu shames him into the battle, saying he's a coward.
And so the two fight Humbaba.
The ground split open with the heels of their feet.
They whirled around in circles.
Mount Hermon and Mount Lebanon split.
White clouds darkened.
Death rained down them on a fog, like a fog.
The combatants are evenly matched.
The battle goes on all day.
And eventually, Shamash has to intervene by sending 13 winds to cover Humbaba's face, which, who knows how that works.
But they subdue Humbaba.
And then Humbaba begs Gilgamesh for his life.
He says, if you spare me, I'll serve you.
I'll cut down the wood that you're looking for.
And you won't have to spill my blood.
But Enkadu interrupts and says, you know what?
Fuck this guy.
It's like, dude, what has he done to you?
Like, why are you so annoyed at this guy?
Because he literally says that Gilgamesh should kill, grind, pulverise, and destroy Humbaba.
It's like, dude, you came to him.
Like, he didn't come to you.
And so Humbaba curses Enkadu to die first.
And then they put Humbaba to a gruesome death.
Quote, they pulled his insides out, including his tongue, which must have been delicious.
And after cutting the cedar wood they want, they tied together a raft.
Enkidu steered it, while Gilgamesh held the head of Humbaba.
That's the actual title for Tablet 6.
So they return to Uruk.
Successful heroes, they've slain an infamous demon, they've got the cedar they wanted, they've got the stains of the road on them.
Gilgamesh goes into his palace in Uruk, cleans himself up, turns around, boof, Ishtar is right there.
Now Ishtar is Ninsun's sister, and she has the hots for Gilgamesh.
She didn't have the hots for Gilgamesh until he'd gone and got the cedar.
And she says to him, Come along, Gilgamesh, you be my husband, and to me grant your lusciousness.
She's a hypergamous tart.
She's seeing Gilgamesh going up in the ranks and thinking, oh, okay, maybe.
Gilgamesh is having none of this.
As far as he's concerned, she's the gold-digging bicycle of the celestial world.
He.
Look, I'm not even making this up, right?
He refuses point blank and says, see here now, I will recite the list of your lovers.
And then says, Tammuz, a mighty bird, a mighty lion, a stallion, the shepherd, Inshilanu, her father's date gardener.
All of these are people who not only Ishtar has had affairs with, but she's also brought ruin upon them.
And so he says, and now me, it is me you love, and you will ordain for me as you did for them.
She doesn't take this well.
When Ishtar heard this, in a fury, she went up to the heavens, going to Anu, her father, and crying, going to Anrum, her mother, and weeping, Father, Gilgamesh has insulted me over and over.
Gilgamesh has recounted despicable deeds about me.
Despicable deeds and curses.
but not lies.
Anu, her father, is also red-pilled on the women question and rebukes her.
He says that she deserves it for provoking Gilgamesh.
But she doesn't care.
She demands the bull of heaven from Anu so she can use it to attack Gilgamesh.
And if she doesn't get it, she's going to knock down the gates of the netherworld and let the dead rise up and eat the living.
Which is a proportional response.
So Anu relents, because it's like, well, it's either you go down and kill Gilgamesh because you pissed him off and you're a tart, or everyone dies.
So Ishtar leads the bull of heaven down to Uruk, where it attacks Enkadu and Gilgamesh, killing 300 of the townspeople in the process.
So Enkadu and Gilgamesh do battle with the bull.
Enkadu grabs its horns, Gilgamesh stabs it in the back of the neck, and after it's defeated, they cut out its heart and present it to Shamash as an offering, who is doubtless pleased.
I'm sure that's what he's always wanted.
And then Ishtar decides that this just, it's gone in her favour so little at this point that you would just normally cut your losses, right?
You'd just be like, okay, fine, Gilgamesh, you're a prick, but we're done.
But no, not Ishtar.
She goes to the walls of the city, overlooking them, and shouts down at them, woe unto Gilgamesh, who slandered me and killed the bull of heaven.
This enrages Enkidu.
So he reaches down, pulls off one of the bull's ass cheeks, and hucks it.
It hits her in the face.
So she's standing on the walls of Uruk with a bull's ass cheek on her face.
And she finally decides to leave.
But bizarrely, not before setting a bunch of the temple priestesses to mourning over the bull's ass cheek.
It's just one line, and I thought I had to include it because, I mean, what a weird thing.
But Gilgamesh takes the horns as a trophy, puts them up in the palace, has a big celebration with all the men of the city.
Everyone has a good time.
But it's all starting to get a bit stargate now.
Because Enkadu has a dream about a council of gods, and the pair are essentially upsetting the natural order at this point.
Anu, Ninsun, sorry, Anu, which is Ninsun and Ishtar's father, is angry because they killed Humbaba.
They took the cedar and killed the bull of heaven.
Enlil refuses to allow Gilgamesh to be killed by their judgment, and everyone blames Shamash for the problems.
And to be honest, it's entirely Shamash's fault.
But after a bitter argument, Enkadu is fated to die.
The gods will that Enkidu fall sick, despite being innocent in their eyes.
One of the major points of contention in the argument the gods are having is that, look, Gilgamesh might be the world's second biggest dick after Donald Trump.
And let's be honest, Trump has got nothing on Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh is just the fucking worst.
But Enkidu didn't really do anything wrong, which is something I'm going to dispute a little bit, because I think that Enkidu was...
There's some conspiracy going on with Enkidu.
But Enkadu, Enkadu is going to die.
And Gilgamesh weeps with tears flowing like canals.
So it's proper manly tears, you know.
Enkidu prepares himself to go and sit with the ghosts of the dead and see my dear brother nevermore.
Gilgamesh comforts him and promises that he'll build a great golden statue in his memory.
And as Enkidu worsens, he curses the trapper and Shamat in harsh terms, total condemnation.
May you never marry me, may you never have kids, may you become a transgender leftist.
See, I didn't write that in, I was just like, well, that's a funny thing to say, but now I'm in trouble.
But then Shamash makes another appearance, rebuking Enkadu, saying, well, come on.
You know, Shamat is the reason that you met Gilgamesh in the first place.
You know, it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.
And so Enkadu doesn't want AT and is like, actually, yeah, Shamash is great.
And, you know, one week.
One week of Shackin.
He becomes dreadfully ill for a week himself, and it's a common refrain that they always use in these kind of texts that were obviously handed down from oral traditions.
You always get the same amount of time.
In the Bible, it's 40 days and 40 nights.
In this, it's six days and seven nights, but it's always, you know.
But and so Enkadu dies, and almost all of Tablet 8 of 11 tablets is dedicated to singing his praises, Gilgamesh singing Enkadu's praises and weeping over him.
It's really, really sad.
And so Gilgamesh is plunged into a deep despair.
He doesn't know what to do.
He's lost his true bosom companion who is with him through thick and thin, and he roams the wilderness pondering his own mortality.
He says, Am I going to die?
Am I not like Enkadu?
He resolves to visit Utana Pishtim, who is a survivor of the great flood.
He was made immortal by the gods, and Gilgamesh resolves on finding him and demanding how exactly he became immortal.
Can happen for him, it can happen for Gilgamesh.
So he has to go and travel across a mountain and reaches a pass inhabited by lions, who he slays because he's Gilgamesh.
He crosses the mountain and encounters terrifying scorpion beings guarding the gate of Mount Mashu.
A male and a female guarding the mountain, this is gender equal, and recognize actually, and recognize Gilgamesh as two-thirds god, one-third man.
And they ask why he's come.
And he replies, I've come on account of my ancestor, Utanapishtim, who has joined the assembly of the gods and was given eternal life.
About death and life, I must ask him.
And the scorpion beings just say, Look, you're about to pass through 12 leagues of darkness.
No mortal can do that.
But Gilgamesh doesn't care.
He demands they open the gate and says that he's going to go on, come what may, no matter what the peril.
And so the journey is described like this.
One league he travelled, dense was the darkness, like there was none.
Neither what lies ahead nor behind does it allow him to see.
Two leagues he travelled, dense is the darkness.
Eight leagues he travelled, dense the darkness.
Nine leagues he traveled, and the north wind licked at his face.
Ten leagues he travelled, and like there was none.
Eleven leagues he traveled and came out before the sunrise.
Twelve leagues he travelled and it grew brilliant.
Gilgamesh finds himself in a garden full of flowers, full of fruit, and he walks through it wonder.
This is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.
And he finds himself arriving at the sea.
He finds a tavern by the seashore, and a woman called Siduri owns it.
And after taking one look at Gilgamesh, she assumes he's a murderer or a vagabond and bolts her door.
Gilgamesh says, Tavern keeper, what have you seen that made you bolt your door, bolt your gates, bolt your lock?
If you do not let me in, I will break your door and smash the lock.
Which must really have set her mind at ease.
Gilgamesh introduces himself.
I am Gilgamesh.
I killed the guardian.
I destroyed Humbaba who lived in the cedar forest.
I slew lions in the mountain passes.
I grappled with the bull that came down from heaven and killed him.
To which Siduri replies, If you are Gilgamesh, who killed the guardian, who destroyed Humbaba, who lived in the cedar forest, who slew the lions in the mountain passes, who grappled with the bull that came down from heaven and killed him, why are your cheeks emaciated?
Your expression desolate?
Why is your heart so wretched?
Your features so haggard?
Why is there such sadness deep within you?
Why do you look like one who has been traveling a long distance so that ice and heat have seared your face?
Because that's what the hero has to go through.
He can't accomplish his goal without suffering these hardships.
And so he replies, Tavern Keeper, should my cheeks not be emaciated?
Should my heart not be wretched, my features not haggard?
Should there not be deep sadness within me?
Should I not look like one who has been traveling a long distance and should ice and heat not have seared my face?
My friend Enkadu, we joined together and went up to the mountain.
We grappled and killed the bull of heaven.
We destroyed Humbaba, who lives in the seed of forest.
We slew lions in the mountain passes.
My friend Enkadu, whom I love deeply, who went through every hardship with me, the fate of mankind has overtaken him.
And with that he demands that she tells him the way to Utana Pishtim.
So she sends him to the ferryman, Urshinabe, who will transport him across the waters of death using poles to push the boat, because touching the water will take your soul.
He has a dock and a boat, which I guess are new inventions around 3000 BC, because Gilgamesh doesn't seem to understand what he's looking at.
He arrives at the dock in the boat and finds that Urshinabi isn't there, and he flies into a fit of rage and smashes everything.
Urshinabi is out picking mint in the forest, and he hears all of this, and he runs back, and they have the exact same emaciated cheek conversation that he has with Siduri.
And after retiring the entire spiel, he says, now, Ushinabi, what is the way?
And Urshinabi replies, you fucking idiot.
It is your hands, Gilgamesh, that have prevented the crossing.
You have smashed the stone things.
You have pulled their retaining ropes.
And so Gilgamesh has to go into the forest and cut a bunch of new wood and go through the rigmarole of fixing the boat.
Utana Pishtim is gazing off from the shore, staring out over the sea.
He sees a boat coming towards him.
He's like, that's weird.
Weirdly, all the stone things on that boat have been smashed and there's some giant jackass waving his shirt around as if to try and catch the wind.
Eventually they arrive on the shore and after one look at Gilgamesh, Utana Pishtim is like, what's with the emaciated cheeks mate?
And so we have to go through the same thing all over again, which I'll skip past.
And Gilgamesh explains that he doesn't want to die like his friend Enkadu.
But Utana Pishtim explains, well, this is the fate of mankind.
Every man is fated to die and what has resistance to that fact got you?
You toil yourself out.
You fill your body with grief and you bring your long lifetime to a premature end.
He explains that nothing lasts forever and no man can know how long he has until he dies.
Of course that might have more weight if he wasn't immortal himself.
Gilgamesh points that out to Utana Pishtin as in, well, he demands to know how he became immortal.
So at this point we find out that Utana Pishtim is essentially Moses.
No, Noah, sorry, not Moses.
There was a great flood coming that the gods had decreed, but for some reason the gods also told him, build a giant ark, bring all living beings onto the ark, and then once the rain stops, light some incense to the gods, and you'll be shown where the dry land is.
And so that's what he does.
All the gods except Enlil, who incidentally is one of the, he's the one who did all of the bad things up until this point.
Because Enlil is the one who sent the flood to destroy mankind.
And it's a lot more harrowing, this description of that story, because I mean, in the Bible, okay, mankind are dying, you know, all mankind are dying, but God doesn't care because he's sending the flood.
Well, in this, this isn't just the act of like one supreme god, this is an act of a group of gods led by Enlil.
No, in fact, it's just Enlil doing this.
And Ishtar is the mother of humanity, and so she's shrieking like a woman in childbirth, watching the human race die.
It's actually way more harrowing.
But the reason that Utana Pishtim was given immortality is by Enlil himself.
Because the point that Enlil was going for is, I will wipe out all the mortals.
And after the flood, he's sat there, and Utana Pishtim and his wife are still there.
He's like, fine, I'll just make you a mortal, and then I'm still right.
But this is the moral of the story, really.
There is no immortality.
Utana Pishtim challenges Gilgamesh to stay awake for a week, and Gilgamesh probably fails as he's exhausted and instead sleeps for a week.
And when he wakes, he laments, Oh woe, what shall I do, Utana Pishtim?
Where shall I go?
Because it was all for nothing.
There is no immortality for him.
There is no everlasting glory.
Finally, Utana Pishtim's wife takes pity on Gilgamesh.
She persuades him to tell Gilgamesh about a plant at the bottom of the ocean that has the ability to make a person youthful again.
There's a plant like a box thorn whose thorns will prick your hand like a rose.
If your hands reach that plant, you will become a young man again.
So, being a man of action, Gilgamesh just ties a couple of stones to his feet and leaps in.
He finds the plant, pricks his hand, so he's like, This is the right one.
He cuts the stones off his feet, travels back up to the shore.
There he meets Shanabi again, the ferryman, and he says, Well, this plant is literally called the old man becomes a young man.
And with that, he plans to return to Uruk and test it on an old man before eating it himself.
They travel back, and after 30 leagues, they stop for the night.
Gilgamesh goes to a spring.
Beautiful, cool water.
It's been a really long, tiring journey.
So Gilgamesh strips off, puts his clothes on the shore, gets into the spring, and then, enticed by the smell of the plant, a snake comes along, goes to his clothes, steals the plant, and disappears forever.
At this point, says the narrative, Gilgamesh sat down weeping, his tears streaming over the side of his nose.
It's been a tough day.
And finally, at the end of the narrative, we get back to Uruk.
Gilgamesh essentially turns a trump at this point.
He starts bragging about the size and power of the city, the size of its walls.
It's like a tourist promotion, like 3,000 years ago.
Did not the seven sages themselves lay out its plan?
And it seems that Gilgamesh takes heart in the successful works of mankind to console himself.
But this is a really undeveloped point of the story at the very, very end.
And it's actually really disappointing the way it ends.
But what can we learn from all this?
What exactly do we learn from the epic of Gilgamesh?
Because there's some truly timeless advice in there.
Genuinely long-standing observations about human nature.
For example, human nature is constant.
The relationships that we have with one another, our families, these have been happening for thousands of years.
And the reason that matters is because currently there is a well-organized, well-funded, and ideologically aggressive attempt to alter these familial relationships.
They've been the same for thousands of years and now that we've decided that these things are up for debate.
It's not working out brilliantly, is it?
When Ishtar.
But the point is, the people in the story that we're dealing with, there might be real fantastical scenarios, but they're real human emotions.
You know, there's real grief, real scorn, real anger that we're dealing with.
And so, like, when Ishtar gets blown out by Gilgamesh for being easy and vengeful, she runs to her father, who, over her hurt feelings, tries to hurt him in return, and gets told off by her father for provoking this.
And then she threatens to do something crazy and hurt a far greater number of people, and he relents.
And tell me that interactions like that haven't happened in neighborhoods since the dawn of time between fathers, daughters, and their boyfriends.
The story is told from a position of a man, but women are viewed in three dimensions.
It's actually quite a feminist story, really.
No, it actually is.
There is a remarkable amount of gender egalitarianism in it.
Women are treated as if they have agency.
They run the range from being openly hostile, like Ishtar, to sympathy from Utana Pishtin's wife, to love and worry from his mother, to neutral judgment from a stranger in Siduri, who just sees this haggard guy and thinks, oh God, he's dangerous, to playing a role in civilizing men like Shamat does with Enkadu.
Point three is that we are all mortal and we all change.
Gilgamesh is a very different man at the end of his travels than he was at the beginning.
At the beginning of the epic, he is a tremendous asshole.
He doesn't care about anyone else.
But as he goes through his trials and these become more difficult and more costly, he becomes less cocksure and much more of a sympathetic character.
And almost all of his woes come from his own arrogance.
Like, why smash up the stone things at the dock?
You know, why was he so arrogant to Ishtar?
I mean, she was haughty when she approaches him, demanding he marry her.
But if he'd been a bit more polite, it actually would have saved like three tablets worth of catastrophes.
Why intimidate Siduri when she locks the doors?
You know, if you don't let me in, I'll smash this down.
It's like, you probably could have taken a more diplomatic position, like he did, like he does with the scorpion beings.
And he just asks them to go through, and they're like, okay, well, it's your funeral.
And so essentially, in it is a warning against excessive masculinity and indulging your anger.
Because it feels good to get the anger out in a destructive way sometimes.
But obviously, this has consequences.
And that's one of the things that the story is teaching young men.
Because I think that young men need stories like this.
The epic of Gilgamesh is clearly a narrative to teach young men how to integrate into the society in which they find themselves.
It teaches them who to trust and who not to trust, how to build bonds between his fellows, and the value of bravery and the consequences of hubris.
These are really current themes that we're going through now as well.
These have always stood the test of time because humans have not changed that much.
And it gives them a fair education as to some of the kinds of women that they'll encounter in their lives and the ones you should trust and the ones you shouldn't.
And the way you shouldn't reject a woman who thinks she's hot.
These are actually timeless things that young men need to think about and we shouldn't forget that.
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