More about Gilgamesh

[dreamshark]

The story of Gilgamesh dates back at least 4500 years, to ancient Sumeria. Yet, it is strangely familiar. Superhero and loyal sidekick fight monsters, save civilization. Hero is tempted by dangerous vixen with a disturbing history of dead boyfriends, turns her down, then has to deal with the wrath of a woman scorned. Hero loses beloved friend and journeys into the land of death in a vain attempt to rescue him. Along the way he walks for days in the dark under a huge mountain. He rides with the boatman that ferries the dead across the water. He even stops for a beer at the Restaurant at the Edge of the World.

And he listens to a long story-within-a-story about how this guy survived a great flood by building an ark (instructions divinely provided), determines that the waters are dropping by sending out birds to look for land, and ultimately receives insurance against future deluges in the form of - you'll never guess - a rainbow! And that's not the only story that gets lifted and dropped into a much later best-seller, the Old Testament. Enkidu is a man created out of clay by a god. He lives wild and innocent with the animals until he is seduced into an act that awakens his mind and turns him from an animal into a self-aware human being, after which he has a moral sense and can no longer commune with the beasts. Sound familiar? Well, it did to me.

Other literary homages that occurred to me as the story unfolded: the Red Bull of King Haggard in "The Last Unicorn" seems like a direct reference to the Great Bull of Heaven. And the sorceror Lugulbanda from the sci-fi theatrical trilogy "Warp"? Lugulbanda was the name of Gilgamesh's father. Surely Tolkien's Paths of the Dead owes its inspiration to Gilgamesh's dark journey under the mountain. I'm not sure if The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is a direct reference or just one of those ideas that people keep thinking up on their own. Really, though, what an odd place to put a restaurant! You wouldn't think you'd get much walk-by traffic.

Anyway, Richard and I had a lot of fun reviewing the story as we ate dinner and trying to figure out how Silverlock's verses about Tammuz fit in. I checked it out on the Internet when we got home, and discovered that Charley's version was quite faithful to the original. (Tammuz didn't have any direct connection with Gilgamesh's story, but he was one of the unfortunate former boyfriends of Ishtar, the vamp that tries to seduce Gil).

Comments

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Oldest story in the world and people are still ripping it off. :)

I'm also very fond of Gordy Dickson's filk song on the theme - did Richard sing it for you yet?

[barondave.livejournal.com]

What? No radioactive spider?

[jiawen]

I actually taught a class on the Epic back in grad school... I might have a few interesting tidbits about it. Did you catch the snake that had shed its clothes and was bathing just as naked as (I think) Gilgamesh? Did you notice how some of the birds in the Utnapishtim myth were different than the ones in the Noah myth?