What is likely the oldest piece of literature in the West is The Epic of Gilgamesh,1 a Sumerian-Akkadian poem, dating from the third millennium B.C.E. The Epic is a 1200-verse poem about a man, Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, a city-state located in Lower Mesopotamia. King Gilgamesh may have actually lived. Tradition has it that he was two-thirds god and one-third human. By about 750 B.C.E, however, all the tablets containing Gilgamesh’s story were lost. That is . . . until unearthed in 1853 C.E. at the archaeological excavation of ancient Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq).
The epic poem says that Gilgamesh was “the man who saw the deep.” His story is that of a tragic hero. In the poem, we learn that Gilgamesh, “the civilized man,” fought with Enkidu, “the wild man” of the hills who ate grass and ran like a gazelle. (Enkidu had been tamed by a prostitute, who also introduced him to beer and bread.). After their fight, Gilgamesh and Enkidu became the best of friends, perhaps lovers. Together, they went on many adventures as to “The Cedar Forest” of Lebanon. There they slay the monster Humbaba. On one occasion they fight with lions. They also had to elude the clutches of the goddess Istar who lived by the mouth of the Tigris River and wanted to marry Gilgamesh. Rejected, she then sends a bull to slay the two, but they kill it. So she kills Enkidu.
When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh is cast down and forced to consider his own mortality. He begins, then, a search for eternal life. His search leads him to distant mountains—the mountains of the rising and setting sun. Via a tunnel he goes through them to a watery shore. There, Siduri, the maker of wine, directs him to the ferryman Urshanabi on the Sea of Death.2 And, Urshanabi takes him over the water to meet Utnapishtim (“the faraway”) and his wife. The couple are the only ones on earth to escape drowning in a great flood. They survived by boarding an ark along with many animals. Afterward, they were given life eternal. Gilgamesh asks Utnapishtim to help him escape death, but the old man explains that he cannot do so. His wife, though, helps by directing Gilgamesh to go to the deepest part of the sea, where the Plant of Eternal Youth will be fovund. We read . . .
The epic poem says that Gilgamesh was “the man who saw the deep.” His story is that of a tragic hero. In the poem, we learn that Gilgamesh, “the civilized man,” fought with Enkidu, “the wild man” of the hills who ate grass and ran like a gazelle. (Enkidu had been tamed by a prostitute, who also introduced him to beer and bread.). After their fight, Gilgamesh and Enkidu became the best of friends, perhaps lovers. Together, they went on many adventures as to “The Cedar Forest” of Lebanon. There they slay the monster Humbaba. On one occasion they fight with lions. They also had to elude the clutches of the goddess Istar who lived by the mouth of the Tigris River and wanted to marry Gilgamesh. Rejected, she then sends a bull to slay the two, but they kill it. So she kills Enkidu.
When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh is cast down and forced to consider his own mortality. He begins, then, a search for eternal life. His search leads him to distant mountains—the mountains of the rising and setting sun. Via a tunnel he goes through them to a watery shore. There, Siduri, the maker of wine, directs him to the ferryman Urshanabi on the Sea of Death.2 And, Urshanabi takes him over the water to meet Utnapishtim (“the faraway”) and his wife. The couple are the only ones on earth to escape drowning in a great flood. They survived by boarding an ark along with many animals. Afterward, they were given life eternal. Gilgamesh asks Utnapishtim to help him escape death, but the old man explains that he cannot do so. His wife, though, helps by directing Gilgamesh to go to the deepest part of the sea, where the Plant of Eternal Youth will be fovund. We read . . .
When Gilgamesh heard this he opened the sluices so the sweet-water current
might carry him out to the deepest channel; he tied heavy stones to his feet
and they dragged him to the water-bed. There he saw the plant growing;
although it pricked him he took it in his hands; then he cut the heavy stones
from his feet, and then the sea carried him and threw him on the shore. 3
might carry him out to the deepest channel; he tied heavy stones to his feet
and they dragged him to the water-bed. There he saw the plant growing;
although it pricked him he took it in his hands; then he cut the heavy stones
from his feet, and then the sea carried him and threw him on the shore. 3
King Gilgamesh in the Depths
(Graphic by James C. Vandermiller)
(Graphic by James C. Vandermiller)
(Though the ancient text does not say it, Gilgamesh, I posit, went down and back up with catchable fish looking on!) Back on terra firma, he and Urshanabi head for Uruk. Enroute a serpent from the netherworld crawls out of a well and steals the treasured plant forever.4
Immortality lost, Gilgamesh then builds a great wall around the city, his compensatory memorial. Although most of the story is totally mythic, remnants of the wall of Uruk have been excavated and continue to be uncovered. More than by a wall, Gilgamesh achieved his true immortality through the poem that tells his story.
Thus, in brief, we have The Epic of Gilgamesh, the man who saw the deep.
Millennia later, men and women gone fishing have found considerable meaning when “walking beside still waters” (Psalm 23)—or waters flowing freely, often deep. Anthropologist and natural-science writer Loren Eiseley says it well, “If there is any magic on this planet, it is contained in water.”5
Immortality lost, Gilgamesh then builds a great wall around the city, his compensatory memorial. Although most of the story is totally mythic, remnants of the wall of Uruk have been excavated and continue to be uncovered. More than by a wall, Gilgamesh achieved his true immortality through the poem that tells his story.
Thus, in brief, we have The Epic of Gilgamesh, the man who saw the deep.
Millennia later, men and women gone fishing have found considerable meaning when “walking beside still waters” (Psalm 23)—or waters flowing freely, often deep. Anthropologist and natural-science writer Loren Eiseley says it well, “If there is any magic on this planet, it is contained in water.”5
1 Over the years, The Epic of Gilgamesh has had several translations and iterations. N. K. Sandars edited a version in the 1970s which was updated with new scholarly shaping for its 2014 and 2021 editions. On BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Downloads) I listened to it and, later, obtained a printed copy, it being: The Epic of Gilgamesh (London: Penguin Books, 2006). Only the Egyptian Book of the Dead, made up of ancient funeral prayers, is older than the story of Gilgamesh.
2 Cf. Charon, the ferryman in Greek mythology who takes shades of the dead across the River Styx to Hades.
3 N. K. Saunders, editor, The Epic of Gilgamesh (London: Penguin Books, 2006), p. 58.
4 Much of the above sounds similar to the later biblical story of Noah and the ark and also that of Adam, Eve, and the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Flood stories are told worldwide, China to Africa and beyond, the Roman poet Ovid having one in Metamorphoses.
5 Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey (New York: Random House, 1957), p.15.
2 Cf. Charon, the ferryman in Greek mythology who takes shades of the dead across the River Styx to Hades.
3 N. K. Saunders, editor, The Epic of Gilgamesh (London: Penguin Books, 2006), p. 58.
4 Much of the above sounds similar to the later biblical story of Noah and the ark and also that of Adam, Eve, and the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Flood stories are told worldwide, China to Africa and beyond, the Roman poet Ovid having one in Metamorphoses.
5 Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey (New York: Random House, 1957), p.15.