Gilgamesh Page 3
As substitutes for life.
The priest and the ecstatic sat there too,
Their spirits gone, each body like an old recluse
No longer inhabiting its island.
Like shells one finds among shore rocks,
Only the slightest evidence
Of life survived.
Gilgamesh knew his friend was close to death.
He tried to recollect aloud their life together
That had been so brief, so empty of gestures
They never felt they had to make. Tears filled his eyes
As he appealed to Ninsun, his mother, and to the Elders
Not to explain but to save his friend
Who once had run among the animals,
The wild horses of the range, the panther of the Steppe.
He had run and drunk with them
As if they were his brothers.
Just now he went with me into the forest of Humbaba
And killed the Bull of Heaven.
***
Everything had life to me, he heard Enkidu murmur,
The sky, the storm, the earth, water, wandering,
The moon and its three children, salt, even my hand
Had life. It’s gone. It’s gone. I have seen death
As a total stranger sees another person’s world,
Or as a freak sees whom the gods created
When they were drunk on too much wine
And had a contest to show off
The greatness of the harm that they could do,
Creating a man who had no balls or a woman
Without a womb, a crippled
Or deliberately maimed child
Or old age itself, blind eyes, trembling hands
Contorted in continual pain,
A starving dog too weak to eat,
A doe caught in a trap
Wincing for help,
Or death.
The contest rules the one who makes
The greatest wretchedness wins.
For all of these can never fit
Into the perfect state they made
When they were sober.
These are the things I have witnessed
As a man and weep for now
For they will have no witness if friends die.
I see them so alone and helpless,
Who will be kind to them?
He looked at Gilgamesh, and said:
You will be left alone, unable to understand
In a world where nothing lives anymore
As you thought it did.
Nothing like yourself, everything like dead
Clay before the river makes the plants
Burst out along its beds, dead and . . .
He became bitter in his tone again:
Because of her. She made me see
Things as a man, and a man sees death in things.
That is what it is to be a man. You’ll know
When you have lost the strength to see
The way you once did. You’ll be alone and wander
Looking for that life that’s gone or some
Eternal life you have to find.
He drew closer to his friend’s face.
My pain is that my eyes and ears
No longer see and hear the same
As yours do. Your eyes have changed.
You are crying. You never cried before.
It’s not like you.
Why am I to die,
You to wander on alone?
Is that the way it is with friends?
Gilgamesh sat hushed as his friend’s eyes stilled.
In his silence he reached out
To touch the friend whom he had lost.
III
Gilgamesh wept bitterly for his friend.
He felt himself now singled out for loss
Apart from everyone else. The word Enkidu
Roamed through every thought
Like a hungry animal through empty lairs
In search of food. The only nourishment
He knew was grief, endless in its hidden source
Yet never ending hunger.
All that is left to one who grieves
Is convalescence. No change of heart or spiritual
Conversion, for the heart has changed
And the soul has been converted
To a thing that sees
How much it costs to lose a friend it loved.
It has grown past conversion to a world
Few enter without tasting loss
In which one spends a long time waiting
For something to move one to proceed.
It is that inner atmosphere that has
An unfamiliar gravity or none at all
Where words are flung out in the air but stay
Motionless without an answer,
Hovering about one’s lips
Or arguing back to haunt
The memory with what one failed to say,
Until one learns acceptance of the silence
Amidst the new debris
Or turns again to grief
As the only source of privacy,
Alone with someone loved.
It could go on for years and years,
And has, for centuries,
For being human holds a special grief
Of privacy within the universe
That yearns and waits to be retouched
By someone who can take away
The memory of death.
Gilgamesh wandered through the desert
Alone as he had never been alone
When he had craved but not known what he craved;
The dryness now was worse than the decay.
The bored know nothing of this agony
Waiting for diversion they have never lost.
Death had taken the direction he had gained.
He was no more a king
But just a man who now had lost his way
Yet had a greater passion to withdraw
Into a deeper isolation. Mad,
Perhaps insane, he tried
To bring Enkidu back to life
To end his bitterness,
His fear of death.
His life became a quest
To find the secret of eternal life
Which he might carry back to give his friend.
He had put on the skins of animals
And thrown himself in the dust, and now
He longed to hear the voice of one
Who still used words as revelations;
He yearned to talk to Utnapishtim,
The one who had survived the flood
And death itself, the one who knew the secret.
Before his loss, when he approached at night
The mountain passes where the lions slept
He raised his eyes to Sin, the moon god, and prayed.
Now he expected help from no one.
He tried to fall asleep despite the sounds
Of movement through the trees, his chest was tight
With needless fear Enkidu would have calmed.
When he arrived at the mountains of Mashu,
Whose peaks reach to the shores of Heaven
And whose roots descend to Hell, he saw
The Scorpion people who guard its gate,
Whose knowledge is awesome, but whose glance is death.
When he saw them, his face turned ashen with dismay,
But he bowed down to them, the only way to shield himself
Against effusions of their gaze.
The Scorpion man then recognized
In Gilgamesh the flesh of gods and told his wife:
This one is two-thirds god, one-third man
And can survive our view, then spoke to him:
Why have you come this route to us?
The way is arduous and long
And no one goes beyond.
I have come to see my father,*
Utnapishtim,
; Who was allowed to go beyond.
I want to ask him about life and death,
To end my loss. My friend has died.
I want to bring him back to life.
The Scorpion interrupted him and laughed,
Being impatient with such tales and fearful of sentiment:
No one is able to explain, no one has gone
Beyond these mountains. There is only death.
There is no light beyond, just darkness
And cold and at daybreak a burning heat.
You will learn nothing that we do not know.
You will only come to grief.
I have been through grief! Gilgamesh screamed.
Even if there will be more of pain,
And heat and cold, I will go on!
Open the gate to the mountains!
All right, go! the Scorpion man said,
As if in anger with a child
Who had not reached the age of reason.
The gate is open! His wife added:
Be careful of the darkness. Gilgamesh saw
His going frightened them. They only seemed secure.
He entered the Road of the Sun
Which was so shrouded in darkness
That he could see neither
What was ahead of him nor behind.
Thick was the darkness
And there was no light.
He could see neither
What was ahead nor behind.
For days he traveled in this blindness
Without a light to guide him,
Ascending or descending,
He could not be sure,
Going on with only
The companionship of grief
In which he felt Enkidu at his side.
He said his name: Enkidu, Enkidu,
To quiet his fear
Through the darkness
Where there was no light
And where he saw neither
What was ahead nor behind
Until before him
When it seemed there was no end
To loneliness
A valley came in view
Sprinkled with precious stones
And fruit-filled vines.
Gazing into the valley
He felt overcome with pain
As a man
Who has been in prison
Feels his chains
At his release from fear.
He spoke Enkidu’s name aloud
As if explaining to the valley
Why he was there, wishing his friend
Could see the same horizon,
Share the same delights: My friend Enkidu
Died. We hunted together. We killed Humbaba
And the Bull of Heaven. We were always
At each other’s side, encouraging when one
Was discouraged or afraid or didn’t
Understand. He was this close to me.
He held his hands together to describe
The closeness. It seemed for a moment
He could almost touch his friend,
Could speak to him as if he were there:
Enkidu. Enkidu. But suddenly the silence
Was deeper than before
In a place where they had never been
Together.
He sat down on the ground and wept:
Enkidu. Enkidu.
As when we can recall so vividly
We almost touch,
Or think of all the gestures that we failed
To make.
After several minutes he stood up
Explaining only to himself why he
Had come—To find the secret of eternal life
To bring Enkidu back to life—
Recognizing now the valley was deaf
To loss known only to himself.
This private mumbling made both time and distance pass
Until he reached the sea and came upon a cottage
Where a barmaid named Siduri lived. He beat the door
Impatiently. And when she called: Where are you going,
Traveler? and came to see, she saw him as half-crazed.
Perhaps he is a murderer! she thought
And drew away from him in fear.
Why do you draw back like that? he asked.
Has grief made me so terrible to look at?
Who are you? You are no one that I know.
I am Gilgamesh, who killed Humbaba
And the Bull of Heaven with my friend.
If you are Gilgamesh and did those things, why
Are you so emaciated and your face half-crazed?
I have grieved! Is it so impossible
To believe? he pleaded.
My friend who went through everything with me
Is dead!
No one grieves that much, she said.
Your friend is gone. Forget him.
No one remembers him. He is dead.
Enkidu. Enkidu. Gilgamesh called out:
Help me. They do not know you
As I know you.
Then she took pity on him
And let him enter and lie down and rest.
She gave him her bed to fall into and sleep
And rubbed his back and neck and legs and arms
When he was coming out of sleep, still muttering
About the one “who went with me through everything.”
Like those old people who forget their listeners
Have not lived through their past with them,
Mentioning names that no one knows.
Enkidu, whom I loved so much,
Who went through everything with me.
He died—like any ordinary man.
I have cried both day and night.
I did not want to put him in a grave.
He will rise, I know, one day.
But then I saw that he was dead.
His face collapsed within
After several days,
Like cobwebs I have touched
With my finger.
She wiped his face with a moist cloth
Saying: Yes yes yes yes,
As she made him cooler
Trying to help him to forget
By the steady softness of her flesh.
She moved her lips across his chest
And caressed the length of his tired body
And lay over him at night until he slept.
You will never find an end to grief by going on,
She said to the one half sleeping at her side,
Leaning forward to wipe the perspiration from his face.
His eyes were open though his whole self felt asleep
Far off alone in some deep forest
Planted in his flesh
Through which he felt his way in pain
Without the help
Of friends.
She spoke as to a child who could not understand
All the futility that lay ahead
Yet who she knew would go on to repeat
Repeat repeat the things men had to learn.
The gods gave death to man and kept life for
Themselves. That is the only way it is.
Cherish your rests; the children you might have;
You are a thing that carries so much tiredness.
When he arose, she washed his body and dressed him
And spoke of pleasures he could find with her
Instead of going on in foolishness.
But he, when he was fully awake,
Threw off the clothes she had put on
And dressed again in the dark pelts he had come so far in.
Her presence seemed to suffocate him now.
He wanted to throw off
Each pleasureful touch
And moment of forgetfulness
To bathe away
Her memory. To bathe
Was now more urgent
Than to sleep.
Tell me only the way
To Utnapishtim if you kno
w.
Tell me the way to him,
I am going on!
No one has crossed the sea of death to him.
Will you? You are impetuous like all the rest.
Stay here and sleep. Begin your life again.
You have come so far. You need much sleep.
He was fully awake with desperate energy.
Tell me the way!
All right, she sighed;
She had despaired of him already.
You must find his boatman Urshanabi;
He has stone images that will show the way.
If it can be arranged for you, who are
So blind with love of self and with rage,
To reach the other side,
It will be through his help, his alone.
If it cannot be, then turn back.
I am still fool enough to take you in.
She turned in anger back to her house
And slammed the door, not listening
As he screamed at her: I am not blind
With self-love but with loss!
He felt his head split with the pain
Of making himself heard
By her, by all the world.
It was as if his mind exploded
Into little pieces. He struck at everything
In sight He hurried with his ax
Drawn from his belt down to the shore
To find this Urshanabi.
Coming upon some stones that stood in his way
He smashed them into a thousand pieces.
Urshanabi, a lean old man with gray hair
Browned by the brackish water of his river,
Laughed at the stranger’s folly and even
Danced to mock the crazed man’s act.
You have destroyed the Sacred Stones
That might have taken you across!
Gilgamesh sat on the ground