GILGA&
MESH

Answers me, Enkidu. Who is the Bull of Heaven? Who is Humbaba? What did we kill? Why did the cedar forest fall?

I, Before We Begin

⚐ COMMA FRAMEWORK ARTICULATION · Gilgamesh as the first recorded encounter with the comma: the irreducible gap between mortal and immortal
The Questions Arrive Like Flood

Gilgamesh

Who really is the Bull of Heaven, that thing we slew in the streets of Uruk, that Ishtar sent when I refused her?

Gilgamesh

Humbaba. The Guardian. The face of fire. We climbed to the Cedar Mountain, and we cut him down, Enkidu. We cut him down. Who was he?

Who did we kill?

Why did the cedar wood fall?

What was Lebanon, and what was Anti-Lebanon?

Who is Utnapishtim?

What is his trial?

What is the snake?

Who am I?

WHO?

WHY?

II, What The Scholars Say

Meme Arrives With References

→ Meme

Scholars agree that-

Sir Jonathan Profound III

"The Cedar Forest is not merely a geographical location but a cosmological boundary, the edge of civilization, where the divine guardian Humbaba (Huwawa in the older Sumerian tradition) embodies the sacred wildness that precedes human order. To slay Humbaba is to enact the founding violence of all cities."

El Señor de la Santísimísísísisisisisizzizizizima Virgen de Guadalupe de Cristóbal de la Virgen de...

Escribió en su 2.3 diario que: "Lo que Gilgamesh buscaba al final del mundo no era la inmortalidad, era la comprensión. El río de la muerte, el barquero Urshanabi, las aguas de la muerte, son etapas del duelo. Enkidu ya había muerto. Gilgamesh no podía aceptarlo. El viaje era el luto mismo."

Huan Zhen Tsu, 《洪真子》

"The snake that steals the plant of immortality from Gilgamesh does not represent evil. In the Eastern reading: the snake sheds its skin. It renews. It accepts the cycle. Gilgamesh weeps at the water's edge because he cannot shed what he carries. The snake is not his enemy, the snake is what he failed to become."

Fine, Gilgamesh. Fine. I get it.
You don't know. I don't know.
Nobody knows.

Enkidu

III, The Far One

⚐ COMMA FRAMEWORK QUESTION · Is Utnapishtim (the flood survivor who received immortality) a mythological representation of the system that closed once at N_res and was never allowed to close again?
Who Is Utnapishtim?

He survived the flood. The gods gave him eternal life, and then, apparently, deeply regretted it. They placed him at the mouth of the rivers, at the end of the world, where no one could find him easily.

Gilgamesh finds him anyway. Of course he does.

Utnapishtim's trial: do not sleep for seven days. That is all. Stay awake. Conquer sleep, the small death, Hypnos, the brother of Thanatos, and perhaps you can conquer the large one.

GILGAMESH SLEEPS

FOR SEVEN DAYS

IMMEDIATELY.

He cannot even defeat sleep. How will he defeat death?

This is the joke and the tragedy and the truth all at once. The trial reveals what the whole epic has been saying: you are mortal. You were always mortal. Even two-thirds divine is still one-third clay.

Lebanon: the real cedar forests of the Levant, still called that. Anti-Lebanon: the mountain range running parallel to the east. Between them, the fertile valley, the source of the sacred wood that built temples and ships and thrones. To cut the cedar was to cut the sacred. No wonder Enlil cursed them for it.

IV, The Friend Who Knows Too Much

Enkidu Can Only Say So Much

            I can only say so much, Gilgamesh.

            I was made from clay and spit and the dream of a goddess.

            I ran with animals. I knew nothing of cities.

            Then I knew you.
          
Enkidu

            Was Humbaba a monster? He was appointed.

            Was the Bull of Heaven evil? Ishtar made it.

            Did the cedar have to fall? No. But we were young, and strong,
and we wanted to make our names permanent.
          
Enkidu

            That is why I am dying, Gilgamesh.

            Not as punishment. As consequence.

            The gods did not hate us. The forest was not ours to take.

            That is all I know.
          
Enkidu
narrator

            Gilgamesh does not answer. He holds his friend's hand for seven days after the death. The scholars disagree about whether this is love, grief, or denial. It is all three. It is the same thing.

( T_T )＼(^-^ )

GILGAMESH
STARES AT
HIS WALLS

He built them. Two-thirds of the city is wall, one-third is garden and temple. He built them after everything. Before the grief and after it. The wall is the answer to the question he could not stop asking. The wall is the answer to: Who am I? He is the one who builds.

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