Tablet III — The Forest Journey

Tablet III

All that follows — the great ordeal, the grief, the quest beyond the waters of death — turns upon this: Enkidu became the friend of Gilgamesh. Not merely ally, not servant, but companion and equal, the one soul on earth who could meet the king eye to eye.

Two fragments, recovered from the dust and set down in Haupt’s collection, belong — so Jeremias argued — to the third and fourth columns of this tablet. They are broken vessels, but the wine they hold is intact enough to taste.

The first fragment seems to be a woman’s address — perhaps it was Shamhat who spoke:

… the gods let you enter … … forsaken was … … the consort …

And he saw it alone, and he unburdened his heart, and spoke to his friend:

“A dream I dreamed in my night’s sleep. The stars of heaven fell upon the earth. I stood there, frightened — ”

… his face became disturbed … … like a lion’s claws were his nails … … the dream strengthened me …

The second fragment gives us the sun. Shamash, the god who sees all, spoke with Enkidu — and after that speaking, Enkidu’s “angry heart became quieted.” For Enkidu longed to return to his mountain home, to the wild beasts and the open steppe; but Shamash urged him to stay. Shamhat stepped forward once more, and the promises that came were royal: the friendship and brother-love of Gilgamesh, and honours beyond what any man of the wild had ever known.

Thus spoke Shamash:

“Come. On a fine and noble couch — on a fine couch — he will let you recline. He will set you upon a couch, a seat at his left hand. The kings of the earth shall kiss your feet. The people of Uruk shall lament before you, and the nations shall labour for your sake. … All that is carried after you shall be yours, and in the midst of it shall he make his camp.”

Enkidu listened to the word of Shamash, the warrior-hero…

… and his angry heart became quieted.

Another slab — page eighty-seven of Haupt — appears to be the continuation. Here it is Gilgamesh himself who speaks, promising Enkidu the very gifts that Shamash had offered: the same couch, the same left-hand seat, the same world bowing down. The echo is deliberate, as though heaven and earth were speaking with one voice.

The gods had a purpose in drawing these two together. The scattered pieces of Tablets IV and V give the key: they tell of war, of the city of Uruk rising against the Elamite despot Humbaba, of the giant’s death and the enthronement of Gilgamesh as king. The gods themselves entered the fight, determined to destroy Humbaba and to break the rule of the hostile power called Humba. And so this poetic narrative — the friendship, the journey to the cedar forest, the slaying of the monster — is the mythic memory of a great upheaval, the story under the story: an Elamite dynasty overthrown, a Babylonian sun risen in its place.