Gilgamesh

             The Gilgamesh myth touches people even after so many centuries because it is about issues that touch all people in all times. These issues are the anguish of loss and death for all human beings. Myths reflect our will to understand what we cannot understand, and reconcile us to mortality.
             The earliest know Gilgamesh texts came from Sumer. The Sumerians were the first literate people of Mesopotamia, and their literature was preserved on clay tablets. On some of these tablets were stories specifically about Gilgamesh, king of Uruk.
             Gilgamesh's father is mortal and his mother is a goddess. Being part mortal, Gilgamesh must die eventually, which he discovers and accepts during the course of the myth. He is a bad ruler, who sleeps with all the women and takes away children from their families. His people ask the Gods for help, so the goddess Aruru creates Enkidu who will be almost Giglamesh's equal. Enkidu gets created in the woods and is covered with shaggy hair. He eats grass and water with the animals. A trapper who sees Enkidu is frightened, so he goes back and asks his father what he should do because Enkidu is freeing the animals from the traps. The father advises the trapper to go to Uruk and find Gilgamesh and tell him of the wild man. Then he should ask for a harlot from the temple and bring her back to seduce Enkidu, so the animals will reject him and he can be lured into civilization.
             The harlot ends up seducing Enkidu, which in turn makes him rejected by the animals. She teachers Enkidu on how to live in civilization and tells him the strength of Gilgamesh. Enkidu wants to challenge Gilgamesh to a contest of brute strength.
             Enkidu finds out how Gilgamesh is sleeping with the women of Uruk and he is shocked. He now wants to challenge Gilgamesh in order to conquer him and make him behave properly. When the meet they struggle like equals, but eventually Gilgamesh...

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Gilgamesh. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 11:47, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/81901.html