The Epic of Gilgamesh: The World’s First Grand Tale of Adventure
One of the world’s oldest forms of literature reveals universal truths about our mortality, grief in the loss of others, and the meaning of life.
Siduri (divine winemaker)
“[W]hy do you come here wandering over the pastures and wilderness in search of the wind?”
Gilgamesh:
“Why should I not wander over the pastures and wilderness in search of the wind?”
Many ancient texts, including The Epic of Gilgamesh, have been unearthed through painstaking archaeological excavations and decades of meticulous study and translation. The Epic of Gilgamesh dates to around 1800 BCE and was discovered in northern Iraq at the ancient Assyrian site of Ninevah in what is today the city of Mosul on the banks of the Tigris River. Much like The Descent of Inanna, this Mesopotamian tale comprises Sumerian literature that only survived the millennia due to being carved into cuneiform on clay tablets and being preserved under the sands until being excavated by archaeologists in the mid to late 19th century.
Gilgamesh is a story as old as time: the search for the meaning of life and death amid a fantastical quest. Gilgamesh, the king of the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk who is two-thirds god and one-third man, has it all: wealth, fame, prestige, dominance, strength, and an entire kingdom that satisfies his every beck and call. He has conquered all and yet cannot escape the one thing we all have in common: death. He fears it, is restless, and stubbornly goes to the ends of the earth to seek everlasting life only to find he still cannot escape death. He loses his best friend Enkidu and grieves for him until utterly exhausted.
Gilgamesh finally meets the one person at the end of the earth who has been granted immortality by the gods, Utnapishtim, called the Faraway, who survived a great flood by building a boat, not unlike the story of Noah in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Scriptures. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh of how he was granted his immortality and tells him about a plant at the bottom of the sea that is said to grant one immortality. While pursuing the plant, Gilgamesh soon encounters a serpent that steals the plant from Gilgamesh. To Gilgamesh’s dismay, Utnapishtim then tells him what everyone else has been telling him all along, that he must die and should learn to accept this and cherish the one life he has to live.
Whether we’ve read this tale or not, we are already personally well-acquainted with Gilgamesh’s story, because it speaks to the common threads of human existence. Like him, we are individuals struggling and searching for meaning in this life. Often, we want to escape from suffering. We harbor a wealth of emotions and come to make many mistakes in our quests. We face grief and pain at the loss of our loved ones. And we make our way in life by charting courses into the unknown, hoping to discover who we are and what we will make of our lives. We come to discover that the price of our consciousness is a fear of death. Thus we sympathize and identify with Gilgamesh because he is a wanderer like we are wanderers in this life,—doing all we can to transcend our limitations. Ultimately, the epic reveals to us the wisdom of accepting our fate as humans.
The mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead famously wrote that “All Western philosophy is but a footnote to Plato.” Perhaps then, all existential philosophy ought to be a footnote to The Epic of Gilgamesh for this tale encompasses human universal truths surrounding concerns over our mortality and the meaning of life. This is summed up in the wisdom that Siduri, a divine winemaker, imparts to Gilgamesh when he relays to her his dread of dying and his grief at the loss of his friend:
Siduri: Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to?…cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.
In questioning Utnapishtim about death, Gilgamesh also learns to view life and death as a cycle and that change is inevitable:
Utnapishtim: There is no permanence…life and death they allot, but the day of death they do not disclose.
Although we may not have control over much in this life, we do have some control over how we spend our time with the people we care for most. The remarkable thing about one of humanity’s first recorded stories is how much it still speaks to us today and how much, despite the passing ages, we still behave like stubborn Gilgamesh, struggling and reluctant to accept this eternal message: life is perpetual change and we all must die. Continue to make the most of your time while you are here.
Thanks for being a fellow traveler with me through this read. Please consider subscribing, sharing, and supporting this project—much more to follow.
Cheers!
-JSB
I loved this essay - very deep and full of meaning.