Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh was the legendary king of the Sumerian city-state Uruk (biblical Erech) ca. 2650 BC. Of the man and his actual achievements nothing certain is known, but within a century of his death he had become a god residing in the underworld, a king and judge.      Elements of  his legend are thought to be associated with the Noah. Until the end of Mesopotamian civilization he remained associated with the cult and care of the dead.   Gilgamesh also lived on as a great hero of legendary exploits. Five or six tales were committed to writing ca. 2100 to 2000 BC in the Sumerian language.      Around 1800 the Sumerian traditions were united in a single work, written in Babylonian, of at least a thousand lines. This version spread across the Near East, at times translated into Hittite and Hurrian. Finally, in the late second millennium, it was edited in a standard form of about three thousand lines.        In this form, the epic has been transformed into a wisdom tale. It is addressed to a reader who is urged to read and ponder the story of a great man's struggle with life and the human condition. It is structured around three weeklong rites of passage: rites conferring humanity, rites rejecting humanity, and rites restoring humanity.   At first Gilgamesh would overcome death by the immortality of fame. This he achieves by slaying the monster Huwawa. But his dearest friend, Enkidu, dies, and fame becomes worthless.      Now he will be satisfied only with the transcendence that belongs to the immortal gods and the one man who shares in this immortality, Utnapishtim, the Babylonian Noah and sole survivor of the Flood; hence the journey to this unique figure. But Gilgamesh learns that this distinction is due to divine caprice, never to be repeated. At last Gilgamesh accepts his mortality and regains his humanity.      At the end, pointing to the city Uruk and its mighty walls, he shows a sense of human achievement as well as human limitation; "He was weary but at peace."