Myths and legends. The tale of Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the underworld in the light of the cosmogonic ideas of the Sumerians Sumerian tales of Gilgamesh
« Epic of Gilgamesh", or poem " About the one who has seen it all"(Akkad. ša nagba imuru) is one of the oldest surviving literary works in the world, the largest work written in cuneiform, one of greatest works literature of the Ancient East. The “Epic” was created in the Akkadian language based on Sumerian legends over a period of one and a half thousand years, starting from the 18th-17th centuries BC. e. Its the most full version was discovered in the mid-19th century during excavations of the cuneiform library of King Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. It was written on 12 six-column tablets in small cuneiform, included about 3 thousand verses and was dated to the 7th century BC. e. Also in the 20th century, fragments of other versions of the epic were found, including in the Hurrian and Hittite languages.
In 1839, a young Englishman, Austin Henry Layard, set off on an overland journey to Ceylon. However, in Mesopotamia he lingered on the excavations of Assyrian burial mounds. This “delay” dragged on for many years; at this time the ancient cities of Nineveh (1849) and Nimrod were excavated. Thanks to these excavations, Layard brought to the British Museum most of the collection of Assyrian sculptures, as well as thousands of broken tablets from the palace at Nineveh.
During further excavations in the city, a cuneiform library of King Ashurbanipal was found. Cuneiform tablets from this library were given to the British Museum by Layard's assistant, Ormuzd Rassam, who in 1852 excavated the second part of the library, which contained tablets from the Assyrian collection of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
More than 25 thousand tablets were transported safely to the British Museum in London. The decryption was started by an English intelligence officer in Baghdad, Henry Rawlinson. On the way to Baghdad, Rawlinson, then an army officer and employee of the East India Company, discovered what became the main key to deciphering the cuneiform script - the Behistun Inscription, inscribed on a rock near Kermanshah, in Persia. This inscription was composed in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian. The work begun by Rawlins in Baghdad was continued by him in London, where he returned in 1855.
Later, the talented self-taught assistant of the Egyptian-Assyrian department of the museum, George Smith, studied the found tablets. On December 3, 1872, he gave a presentation to the Society for Biblical Archaeology. In the report, he stated that he had discovered a flood myth similar to that described in the Bible.
This was the famous 11th tablet from the Assyrian epic collection. Shortly after this speech, Smith published The Chaldean Account of the Flood, and with it short description epic Interest in the epic immediately awakened. However, the flood tablet was incomplete and other tablets were needed. The Daily Telegraph contributed 1,000 guineas to equip a new expedition to Nineveh, which Smith organized on behalf of the British Museum. Soon after arriving at Nineveh, Smith found the missing lines from the flood account, which was then, as now, the most complete part of the entire epic. More tablets were found that same year and the following, and Smith was able to compile an extensive account of the epic before, in 1876, he fell ill and died near Aleppo at the age of 36.
Continuing to decipher the tablets, Smith discovered that the message about the flood was part of some great poem called the Tales of Gilgamesh by the Babylonians. According to the scribes, the Tales consisted of 12 songs, each of which was about 300 lines. He soon realized that part of the story was missing because several tablets were missing. As a result of the expedition he organized in 1873, he managed to find 384 tablets, among which was the missing part of the Epic.
In publishing The Flood, Smith argued that it was probably a copy of a much earlier version written in Uruk (biblical Erech, modern Varka). Important for the history of the “Epic of Gilgamesh” was an American archaeological expedition from the University of Pennsylvania, which at the end of the 19th century, under the leadership of John Peters, began excavations at the Niffar mound (ancient Nippur), in southern Iraq. By this time archeology had accumulated a lot of experience in excavation, but this expedition showed foolish frivolity: the first season of work in Nippur in 1888-89 began when Peters and his group galloped madly through the reeds to the excavation site, and ended when the same The expedition left the mound, and at the site of the destroyed camp, hostile Arabs performed a war dance. However, the work continued the following year, and about 40 thousand tablets were found and distributed between museums in Philadelphia and Istanbul. Among these tablets were several containing the oldest versions of the Gilgamesh cycle in the Sumerian language.
Most ancient texts are of a commercial and administrative nature and are of little interest to the general public. All the more important are the results of excavations in Nippur, Nineveh and other centers of the early civilization of Mesopotamia, because they revealed to us the most interesting literary monuments.
The Epic of Gilgamesh must have been quite famous in the second millennium B.C. one version of the poem, in Akkadian, was found in the archives of the capital of the Hittite Empire, Boğazköy (in Anatolia). It was also translated into Hittite. In southern Turkey, fragments were found in Sultantepe. A small but important fragment from Megiddo, in Palestine, indicates the existence of a Canaanite version of the epic, as well as the possibility that the biblical authors were familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh.
At the beginning and middle of the 20th century, a number of other tablets were found containing fragments of the Epic in different languages.
In 2015, the famous epic was expanded by another 20 new lines. This happened after employees of the Iraqi History Museum bought several dozen clay tablets from a smuggler, unaware of their true content. As it turned out later, on one of the tablets a hitherto unknown fragment of the epic was recorded.
The Epic of Gilgamesh was created over the course of one and a half thousand years. Cuneiform tablets have survived to this day, in which the songs about Gilgamesh, which are part of the Epic, are written in four languages of the Ancient East - Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian and Hittite. The oldest texts are written in Sumerian. However, the most important version is considered to be in Akkadian, which is a huge artistic achievement.
The surviving Sumerian tales of Gilgamesh are not united into any group of works. In total, nine of them have survived, and all of them belong to the category of epic monuments. Three tales are known only from retellings, the remaining six have been preserved and have been published.
The early tales belong to the so-called Nippur Canon, which was part of the Akkado-Sumerian epic. Initially, their protographs were probably part of a cycle telling about the rulers of the city of Uruk from the First Dynasty of Uruk. In addition to the epic about Gilgamesh , who was the fifth ruler of Uruk, legends about Enmerkare , second ruler of Uruk, and Lugalbande , fourth ruler and father Gilgamesh .
Akkadian-Sumerian legends associated with Gilgamesh are preserved in lists dating back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. (circa 18th century BC). However, based on numerous clerical errors and inaccuracies, as well as on the basis of the nature of the language, which looked archaic for this time, researchers believe that the poem was created much earlier. Taking into account the fact that the poem, apparently, was created before the establishment of the unity of the divine pantheon by the kings of Ur, and also based on data on the spread of the Akkadian language in the south of Mesopotamia, the creation of the poem is attributed to the 23rd-21st centuries BC. e.
The following legends are currently known:
Gilgamesh and Aga- tells about the conflict between Akka, king of Kish, and Gilgamesh. Unlike other works about Gilgamesh, the king is not endowed with magical-fairy-tale features. This poem was not included in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh and the Mountain of the Living(Gilgamesh and the Land of the Living, Gilgamesh and the Mountain of the Immortal) - tells the story of Gilgamesh’s campaign to the giant Huwava, who protected the sacred cedars.
Gilgamesh and the Sky Bull- describes the love of the goddess Innin (Ishtar) for Gilgamesh, which he rejected, and the battle of Gilgamesh and his slave Enkidu with the heavenly bull sent by the angry goddess. The end of the poem has not survived.
Gilgamesh and the willow(Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Underworld) - tells how Gilgamesh, at the request of the goddess Innin, expelled the lion-headed eagle and Lilith from the willow tree, after which he made a chair and a bed for the goddess from wood, and for himself - a drum and a stick (according to the latest interpretation - a wooden ball and bat for playing). Later, the drum fell into the underworld, and the slave Enkidu sent after him could not return, as he had violated several prohibitions. Only after Gilgamesh's request did the gods allow him to communicate with the spirit of Enkidu.
Death of Gilgamesh- describes how Gilgamesh seeks immortality, but learns that it is unattainable. The poem survives only in fragments.
Flood- contains a story about the creation of man, the emergence of royal power, the flood, and also about how King Ziusudra escaped from the flood by building a ship and became immortal. The end of the sign was destroyed.
No one remembered Gilgamesh as a historical figure when these tales were written. Written in the genre of epic poem, they are primitive in content and archaic in form, which is very different from the Akkadian poem about Gilgamesh, which was created not much later
According to Epic researchers, the first songs about Gilgamesh were created at the end of the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. e. The first tablets that have reached our time were created 800 years later. Around this time the creation of Akkadian version poem, which probably finally took shape in the last third of the 3rd millennium BC. e. In the second millennium BC. e. in Palestine and Asia Minor another version of the Akkadian poem was created - “ peripheral " The translation of the “Epic” into the Hurrian and Hittite languages also dates back to this time. From the end of the second millennium to the 7th-6th centuries BC. e. the final version of the “Epic” was created - “ Nineveh ", which was found in the library of Ashurbanipal.
The Epic was based on both mythological motifs based on the religious beliefs of the Sumerians and historical legends. Gilgamesh was historical figure- Lugalem of the Sumerian city of Uruk around 2800-2700 BC. e. His name, which in Sumerian is conventionally rendered as "Bil-ga-mes", is mentioned in a Sumerian tablet with a list of Sumerian rulers, dated to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. However, quite early on, Gilgamesh began to be deified. From the 18th century BC. e. his name in the form "Bilgemes" or "Bilgames" is mentioned among the Sumerian deities. Numerous legends arose around him, in which he was presented as a divine hero, the son of the goddess Ninsun and the hero Lugalbanda (according to another version, the spirit “lilu”). Later, the name Gilgamesh became very popular in Babylonia, the Hittite kingdom and Assyria; he was associated with the image of a hero fighting animals, his companion being a half-bull, half-man hero. Later it was believed that Gilgamesh was a deity who protected people from demons, a judge of the underworld. His images were placed at the entrance to the house, since it was believed that in this way the home was protected from evil spirits. At the same time, Gilgamesh did not play any special role in the official cult.
The Sumerians were the first educated inhabitants of Mesopotamia; it was their language that was the language of the most ancient tablets from Nippur, associated with the story of Gilgamesh. The Sumerians already knew the irrigation system before they were conquered by Semitic tribes in the third millennium. The Sumerians themselves were perhaps conquerors who came from the north and east during the fourth millennium. Their language was still in use, although the Sumerians themselves no longer played a major role at the beginning of the second millennium, when the Epic of Gilgamesh was written in this language.
Because of their wealth, the cities were coveted prey by the wild Semitic tribes of Arabia and the warlike peoples of Elam and the Persian highlands. Soon after the fall of the royal dynasty of Uruk, when the Semites established themselves in Agada in the north, their king, Sargon, destroyed the walls of Uruk. There used to be a saying: “Uruk has strong walls,” and Gilgamesh was their builder.
In the era of the early Sumerian kings, each city already had a temple dedicated to one main god. These were magnificent buildings, decorated with reliefs and mosaics, with a courtyard and inner sanctuary and sometimes, as at Uruk, a ziggurat. The ziggurat was a miniature holy mountain; he served as an intermediary between heaven and earth, where the gods could talk with people. Thus, when Gilgamesh calls upon his mother, the goddess Ninsun, she goes to the roof of the temple to pray and make a sacrifice to the great Sun God. The temples were served by priests, in whose hands, at one time, was almost all the wealth of the state and among whom were many archivists and teachers, scientists and mathematicians. In the early centuries they had unlimited power until “the kingship descended from heaven,” i.e. no royal dynasties were formed. The influence of the temples, however, remained significant.
The main characters of the "Epic" are the demigod Gilgamesh - a mighty warrior, the king of Uruk, as well as Enkidu - a wild man whom the goddess Aruru created from clay. The goddess created Enkidu in response to requests from the inhabitants of Uruk, who were dissatisfied with their ruler, Gilgamesh, whom they accuse of his rampage knowing no bounds. Enkidu must confront and possibly defeat Gilgamesh.
Enkidu is not familiar with civilized life, lives in the steppe among wild animals and has no idea what he was created for. At the same time, Gilgamesh has visions from which he understands that he is destined to find a friend.
One day, news came to Uruk that some powerful man had appeared in the steppe, who did not allow hunting, protecting animals. Gilgamesh decides to send a harlot to him, believing that this will force the beasts to leave Enkidu. He achieved his goal - Enkidu was seduced, after which the harlot takes him with her to the city, where he joins civilization and tastes bread and wine for the first time.
In the city, Enkidu meets with Gilgamesh. A duel takes place between them, but none of them manages to win. After this, they become friends and together they begin to perform feats. They fought with the ferocious Humbaba, who guards the mountain cedars, then their rival becomes a monstrous bull sent by the goddess Ishtar, furious at Gilgamesh for his refusal to share his love with her. The murder of Humbaba provokes the wrath of the gods, which falls on Enkidu, causing him to die.
The death of Enkidu shocked Gilgamesh, out of grief he runs into the desert, yearns for his friend, his despair is enormous. Gilgamesh realizes for the first time that he is mortal and realizes that death is the fate of all people.
As a result of his wanderings, Gilgamesh finds himself on the island of the blessed, where Ut-napishtim lives - the man who alone among all became immortal. Gilgamesh wants to understand how Ut-napishtim managed to do this, who tells the story global flood, after which he was the only survivor. After this, Ut-napishtim tells Gilgamesh that for his sake the council of the gods will not gather again. He further suggests that Gilgamesh find a way to overcome sleep, but this turns out to be impossible.
Ut-napishtim's wife, taking pity on the hero, persuaded her husband to give him a parting gift. Gilgamesh gains knowledge of the flower of eternal youth, which is very difficult to find. Gilgamesh managed to find, but not taste the flower: when he decided to swim, the snake eats the flower, sheds its skin and becomes young.
After the incident, the hero returned to Uruk, where he invited his helmsman Urshanabi to walk with him along the walls of the city, which were built by Gilgamesh himself. Gilgamesh shows the walls and expresses the hope that his descendants will remember his deeds.
Canto XII, which is of later origin and was mechanically added to the Epic, is a literal translation into Akkadian of the second part of the Sumerian poem "Gilgamesh and the Willow." It tells the story of how Enkidu decides to descend into the underworld to return the drum, but at the same time violates magical prohibitions and cannot return back. Gilgamesh makes a request to the gods, and as a result he was allowed to communicate with the spirit of Enkidu, who told how bleak the fate of the dead. This part, despite the fact that it is not linked to the previous plot, made it possible to emphasize the idea that no one can avoid death.
The Sumerian songs lack the connecting core found by the Akkadian poet. The strength of character of the Akkadian Gilgamesh, the greatness of his soul, lies not in external manifestations, but in his relationship with the man Enkidu. “The Epic of Gilgamesh” is a hymn to friendship, which not only helps to overcome external obstacles, but transforms and ennobles.
The epic also reflects many views of the philosophy of that time on the world(elements of cosmogony, the story of the “Great Flood” in a later edition), ethics, place and fate of man (the search for immortality). In many ways, the Epic of Gilgamesh is compared to the works of Homer - the Iliad, which is a thousand years older than it, and the Odyssey.
"Old Babylonian" version . Three different versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh in Akkadian have survived to this day. The oldest of them is the so-called “Old Babylonian” version. It is preserved in 6 fragments on tablets dating from the 18th-17th centuries BC. e.
Pennsylvania table. Corresponds to songs I and II from the later version of the Epic. Published by Stephen Langdon.
Yale table . Corresponds to songs II and III from the later version of the Epic. It probably goes back to the same list as the Pennsylvania Table. Published by Morris Jastrow and Albert Clay.
First fragment from Tell Harmal . Corresponds to Canto IV from the later version of the Epic. Published by Van Dyck.
Second fragment from Tell Harmal .
Bauer table . Corresponds to song V from the later version of the Epic.
Meissner table . Corresponds to Song X (and possibly VIII) from the later version of the Epic.
These tablets do not refer to the same place in the Epic, which is why there is no complete certainty that they all go back to the same list of the Epic. However, they have similarities in style and language. The handwriting on all the tablets is fluent and difficult to read, and the language is difficult to understand. In addition, most of the tablets are poorly preserved - only 4/5 of the text remains from the Pennsylvania Table. In addition, only the Pennsylvania Table, the Yale Table, and the Meisner Table contain the text that appears in the later version. The rest of the text was not preserved in the later version.
"Peripheral" version . This version of the poem has reached our time in a small fragment that was found during excavations in the Boghazkoy settlement, which was at one time the capital of the Hittite kingdom. This fragment contains several songs corresponding to cantos VI and VII of the later version of the Epic, but they are presented briefly. Another fragment was also found at the site of the ancient city of Megiddo in Palestine, which corresponds to Canto VII of the later version of the Epic. Both fragments date back to the 15th-14th centuries BC. e.
The “peripheral” version also includes the Hittite and Hurrian translations of the Epic. From them several fragments corresponding to songs I, V and X of the later version of the “Epic” have survived to our time. These fragments are dated to the 14th century BC. e.
"Nineveh" version . This version got its name from the place where it was found. Sometimes it is also called “Assyrian”. For this version, researchers identify 4 groups of lists:
- Fragments found during excavations of the city of Ashur. They contain the well-preserved text of canto VI. These fragments are dated to the 13th-12th centuries BC. e.
- More than a hundred fragments found during excavations of the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. They contain fragments of all songs, and the texts of songs I, VI, XI and XII are completely preserved and have only minor damage. 8 fragments are currently unpublished. All fragments are dated to the 7th century BC. e.
- A student's copy found during excavations at the site of Sultan Tepe (Northern Mesopotamia). Contains fragments of songs VII and VIII. Dated to the 7th century BC. e.
- Fragments found during excavations of the city of Uruk. Tentatively dated to the 6th century BC. e.
Compared to the “Old Babylonian” version, the “Nineveh” version contains an introduction, from the first verse of which the new title of the poem appeared - “About Who Has Seen Everything.” In addition, the poem probably also had a conclusion.
Initially, the “Nineveh” version ended with canto XI, the end of which was the conclusion of the poem. However, later the XII song, which has a later origin, was mechanically added to it. It is a literal translation into Akkadian of the Sumerian poem "Gilgamesh and the Willow Tree".
Version differences
« Old Babylonian " And " Nineveh "The versions are generally similar to each other. Their text is largely the same. The main differences are the replacement of a number of words (mostly outdated words are replaced with more modern synonyms), as well as the expansion or contraction of the lyrics. Expansion occurred either through the multiplication of epic formulas (some of which were borrowed from other works), or through repetition. Also, in a number of cases, some pieces of text were rearranged.
« Peripheral " version is significantly different from the other two - it is shorter. In essence, it represents not just a translation of “ Old Babylonian » version, but its complete reworking. It contains abbreviations - it probably does not contain episodes that had a significance specific to Babylon (for example, episodes that occurred before Enkidu's appearance in Uruk, conversations with elders, etc.). In addition, moments that were unacceptable from a religious point of view (in particular, the shaming of the goddess Ishtar) were removed from it. As a result, the "peripheral" version is actually a new Gilgamesh poem.
Composition and development of the poem
The most complete version of the “Epic” is written on 12 six-column tablets in small cuneiform and includes about 3 thousand verses. In modern translations of the text of the poem, it is customary to divide it into 12 parts, each of which is designated by a Roman numeral (from I to XII). Each part, called a table or song, corresponds to a separate tablet in " Nineveh » versions.
Such division was initially carried out mechanically - when there was no space left on one tablet, a new one began. However, in " Nineveh » version the division into tables is more harmonious, each table contains a separate song
Table |
Song |
The Rampage of Gilgamesh and the Creation of Enkidu | |
The arrival of Enkidu in Uruk and the friendship of heroes | |
Preparations for the campaign against Humbaba | |
Campaign against Humbaba | |
Battle with Humbaba | |
Ishtar and Gilgamesh. Fight with the sky bull | |
Illness and death of Enkidu | |
Mourning and funeral of Enkidu | |
Gilgamesh's journey to the shores of the World Ocean | |
Gilgamesh's Crossing of the Ocean | |
Gilgamesh on the island of Utnapishtim. Return | |
Summoning the spirit of Enkidu from the underworld |
The poem contains 4 songs, which, according to some researchers, were originally independent:
« Enquidiad", which tells the story of the savage hero Enkidu, and how he was introduced to culture;
campaign against Humbaba(Huwavy);
Ishtar episode, the prototype of which was the Sumerian goddess Innin, as well as a fight with a bull;
journey of gilgamesh in an attempt to gain immortality.
At present, prototypes of songs about the campaign against Humbaba and about the fight with the bull, written in the Sumerian language, are known. However, when creating “Epic”, these songs could not be mechanically connected, since the connection between them from the point of view of idea and composition is well thought out and has a deep philosophical meaning. However, a number of songs about Gilgamesh, which the author of the Epic probably considered unsuitable for his purposes, were not included. This is not how the song of Gilgamesh and Hagga was used.
In addition to songs from heroic epic when creating the poem was used and mythological epic. In particular, the text from the poem “Ishtar’s Walk into the Underworld” was used.
The Epic was first translated into Russian by the poet Nikolai Gumilyov in 1918. As a basis, he took the recently published French translation of the Epic, made by the French orientalist E. Dorme. At the same time, Gumilyov was advised by a specialist in Sumerian and Assyrian texts, Vladimir Shileiko, who wrote the introduction to the translation published in 1919. Like Dorm's translation, Gumilyov's translation is prone to errors. In addition, Gumilyov supplemented the translation with excerpts of his own composition.
The following translation into Russian was made by Shileiko himself.
Shileiko completed his translation of the Epic in 1920. Shileiko also paid attention to the poetic form of the Epic. To convey it in Russian, he chose dolnik as a meter, which was introduced into Russian poetry by A. Blok. The translation was supposed to be published as part of the volume “The Assyro-Babylonian Epic” in the publishing house “Eastern Literature”, but in 1925 the publishing house was closed, and the volume was never published, and after the death of the author, her manuscript was lost. The Shileiko family has preserved a second copy of the manuscript. Excerpts from it were published in 1987 in V. V. Ivanov’s collection “Sunrises of Eternity” and in 1994 in A. V. Shileiko’s collection “Through Time.” Only in 2007 V.V. Emelyanov published “The Assyro-Babylonian Epic”
The next translation of the “Epic” into Russian was undertaken in 1961 by orientalist I. M. Dyakonov. Unlike Gumilyov, Dyakonov translated from the Akkadian language. At the same time, he was familiar with the manuscript of Shileiko’s translation and also used it for transmission poetic form as a meter dolnik. The translation was provided with extensive reference material and was distinguished by philological accuracy. In addition, Dyakonov distinguished between all versions of the text, and also pointed out the difficulties of reconstructing lost and damaged fragments. This translation was reprinted in 1973 and 2006.
Another translation of the “Epic” into Russian was made by S.I. Lipkin. If Shileiko and Dyakonov set as their goal the creation of philologically accurate translations with an extensive reference apparatus, then Lipkin tried to make the text of the “Epic” more modern. He used Dyakonov's translation as the basis for the translation. However, Lipkin changed the rhythm. Based on the study of the sound structure of the Epic, he replaced the dolnik with a three-syllable meter. In addition, there are no gaps or conditional reconstructions in the translation.
In 2012, a reconstructed version of the Russian translation of the “Epic” in Dyakonov’s translation was released, supplemented by Andrew George’s 2003 edition, undertaken by a group of employees of the Department of History and Philology of the Ancient Near East of the Institute of Oriental Cultures and Antiquity of the Russian State University for the Humanities.
Federal Agency for Education
Novosibirsk State University Economics and Management – NINH
Academic discipline: Cultural studies
Department: Philosophy
Test:
Option 5
"The Epic of Gilgamesh"
Group number: n MOP91
Name of specialty:
"Organisation management"
Student:___________________
Record book number (student card):
Institute registration date:
"____" __________ 200__
Date of registration by the department:
"____" __________ 200__
Checked: _____________________
Makarova N.I.
year 2009
Introduction
History of the Epic of Gilgamesh
Hero of the epic
"The Epic of Gilgamesh"
Conclusion
Bibliography
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this work is to introduce the “Epic of Gilgamesh” - the greatest poetic work of ancient Eastern literature and, through the poem, to study ancient Eastern culture.
Sumerians - ancient people, who once inhabited the territory of the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the south of the modern state of Iraq (Southern Mesopotamia or Southern Mesopotamia). In the south, the border of their habitat reached the shores of the Persian Gulf, in the north - to the latitude of modern Baghdad.
The origin of the Sumerians is a matter of debate. The mountains to the east of Mesopotamia are being put forward as one of the supposed “ancestral homelands”. The possibility of a local origin of the Sumerian civilization, as a result of the development of its predecessor, cannot be ruled out. The Sumerian epic mentions their homeland, which they considered the ancestral home of all humanity - the island. Attempts to find their original homeland have so far ended in failure.
The Sumerian language, with its bizarre grammar, is not related to any of the languages that have survived to this day.
It must be said that southern Mesopotamia is not the best place in the world. Complete absence of forests and minerals. Swampiness, frequent floods, accompanied by changes in the course of the Euphrates due to low banks and, as a consequence, a complete lack of roads. The only thing there was in abundance there was reed, clay and water. However, combined with fertile soil fertilized by floods, this was enough to produce about . the first cities of ancient Sumer flourished there.
In the second half of the 4th millennium BC. e. Sumerians appeared in southern Mesopotamia - a people who in later written documents call themselves “black-headed” (Sumerian “sang-ngiga”, Akkadian “tsalmat-kakkadi”). They were a people ethnically, linguistically and culturally alien to the Semitic tribes who settled Northern Mesopotamia at approximately the same time or somewhat later.
At the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. in Mesopotamia there were about one and a half dozen city-states. The surrounding small villages were subordinate to the center, headed by a ruler who was sometimes both a military leader and a high priest. These small states are now commonly referred to by the Greek term “nomes”.
By the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e. On the territory of Sumer, a number of opposing new states of the dual super-ethnic group of Sumerians and Akkadians emerged. The struggle between the nomes was aimed primarily at establishing supreme power, but not a single center could maintain its hegemony for long.
According to the ancient Sumerian epic, around 2600 BC. e. Sumer unites under the rule of a king, who later transfers power to a dynasty. Then the throne is seized by a ruler who subjugates Sumer from the area to the southwest. At the end of the 24th century. BC e. the new conqueror - the king expands these possessions to .
In the 24th century BC. e. Most of Sumer was conquered by the king (Sargon the Great). By the middle, Sumer was absorbed by the growing empire. Even earlier, towards the end, the Sumerian language lost its status as a spoken language, although it persisted for another two thousand years as a language of literature and culture.
For a whole millennium, the Sumerians were the main actors in the ancient Near East. Sumerian astronomy and mathematics were the most accurate in the entire Middle East. We still divide the year into four seasons, twelve months and twelve signs of the zodiac, measure angles, minutes and seconds in sixties - just as the Sumerians first began to do.
When going to see a doctor, we all... receive prescriptions for drugs or advice from a psychotherapist, without thinking at all that both herbal medicine and psychotherapy first developed and reached a high level precisely among the Sumerians.
Receiving a subpoena and counting on the justice of the judges, we also know nothing about the founders of legal proceedings - the Sumerians, whose first legislative acts contributed to the development of legal relations in all parts of the Ancient World.
Finally, thinking about the vicissitudes of fate, complaining that we were deprived at birth, we repeat the same words that the philosophizing Sumerian scribes first put into clay - but we hardly even know about it.
But perhaps the most significant contribution of the Sumerians to the history of world culture is the invention of writing. Writing has become a powerful accelerator of progress in all areas of human activity: with its help, property accounting and production control were established, economic planning became possible, a stable education system appeared, the volume of cultural memory increased, as a result of which a new type of tradition emerged, based on following the canon written text.
The Sumerians wrote with their fingers (sticks) on damp clay; they called this activity cuneiform. Mesopotamia is poor in material resources, there is little stone, wood and no high mountains. The plains of Mesopotamia are occasionally interrupted by low hills with flat tops. What there is a lot of there is clay. A well-trained Sumerian can knead twenty baskets of fresh, juicy clay in a day, from which another well-trained Sumerian molds up to forty clay tables. , having sharpened the stick, cheerfully scratches across the clay at random, drawing various kinds of lines that would seem to any sane person to be traces of jackdaws or crows.
After the Sumerians, a huge number of clay cuneiform tablets remained. It may have been the world's first bureaucracy. The earliest inscriptions date back to 2900 BC. and contain business records. Researchers complain that the Sumerians left behind a huge number of "economic" records and "lists of gods" but never bothered to write down the "philosophical basis" of their belief system. Therefore, our knowledge is only an interpretation of “cuneiform” sources, most of them translated and rewritten by priests of later cultures, for example, the one I am considering, ““ or poems ” dating back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. So, perhaps we are reading a kind of digest , similar to an adaptive version of the Bible for modern children, especially considering that most of the texts are compiled from several separate sources (due to poor preservation).
THE HISTORY OF THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH
One of the most famous works Sumerian literature is considered "" - a collection of Sumerian legends, later translated into. Tablets with the epic were found in the king's library. The epic tells the story of the legendary king of Uruk Gilgamesh, his savage friend Enkidu and the search for the secret of immortality. One of the chapters of the epic, the story that saved humanity from the Flood, is very reminiscent of the biblical story of Noah's Ark, which suggests that the epic was familiar even to the authors. It is even more natural to assume that both stories tell about the same event, recorded in historical memory peoples independently of each other.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, the famous king of Uruk in Mesopotamia, was written in a time that was completely forgotten until archaeologists began excavating the ruined cities of the Middle East in the 19th century. Until this time, the history of the long period separating Abraham from Noah was contained in only two chapters of Genesis. Of these chapters, only two less well-known names have survived: the hunter Nimrod and the Tower of Babel; in this same cycle of poems, collected around the figure of Gilgamesh, we return directly to the middle of that previously unknown era.
The most recent and complete collection of works on Gilgamesh was found in the library of Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire (7th century BC).
The discovery of the epic is due, firstly, to the curiosity of two Englishmen, and then to the work of many scientists who collected, copied and translated the clay tablets on which the poem was written. This work continues in our time, and many gaps are filled from year to year.
You can get acquainted with the epic translated by N.S. Gumileva, I.M. Dyakonova, S.I. Lipkina. Translation by I.M. Dyakonov, amazes with its power, it was transferred, according to V.V. Ivanov, with all possible philological accuracy.
HERO OF THE EPIC
Scientists have established that, indeed, there was such a person, a king named Gilgamesh, who lived and ruled in Uruk in the first half of the third millennium. The names of his predecessors and contemporaries were written on bricks and vases. There are two documents - the Sumerian "king list" and the so-called "History of Tummul" - that give conflicting information about Gilgamesh. According to the "king list", Gilgamesh was the fifth king from the founding of the first dynasty of Uruk (after the flood) and reigned for 126 years, while his son reigned for only 30 years, and subsequent kings were completely ordinary people.
The epic does not tell about Gilgamesh's miraculous birth or his childhood, although these episodes are usually inserted into epics about folklore heroes. When the story begins, Gilgamesh has already grown and surpassed all other people in strength, beauty and inordinate desires, which are a consequence of his semi-divine origin.
"THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH"
The Epic of Gilgamesh was translated into all the languages spoken in Sumer, Akkad, Babylon and Assyria. During the period from the end of the 4th to the end of the 1st millennium BC, several powerful empires flourished and fell into decline in the territory of Mesopotamia. All this time, the myths about Gilgamesh were passed on with approximately the same status with which the Bible has been revered in Christian countries for the last two thousand years.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is undoubtedly the pinnacle of Mesopotamian literature, representing a complex fusion of different genres, telling the story of the legendary achievements of Gilgamesh, the Sumerian king of Uruk, and his hopeless quest for immortality.
To call The Epic of Gilgamesh an epic would not be entirely accurate: this work contains epic heroes and mythological characters, and it uses a number of plots of epic origin, but it is not dedicated to events folk history, but the paths of the individual, the fate of man in the world.
The first lines briefly describe Gilgamesh's achievements:
He saw the secret, knew the secret,
He brought us news of the days before the flood,
I went on a long journey, but I was tired and resigned
The story of the labors was carved in stone.
These words are followed by evidence of the authenticity of the message:
Enclosed by a wall, Uruk was fenced,
The bright barn of Eana the Sacred. -
Look at the wall, whose crowns, like a thread,
Touch the thresholds that have been lying since ancient times,
And enter Eana, the home of Ishtar, -
Even the future king will not build such a thing, -
Rise and walk the walls of Uruk,
Look at the base, feel the bricks:
Are its bricks burnt?
And aren’t the walls lined with seven wise men?
The last lines demonstrate a situation that is strange from the point of view of modern man - the sages burn bricks and line the wall. The sages serve as masons and craftsmen. The result of the work of the sages is the city wall, the perfection of which serves as the main proof of the greatness of King Gilgamesh.
The words about the wall in this passage correspond to the “archaeological” view. Exclamation type: “Even the future king won’t build something like this!”- apparently implies greatness in the past, in addition, it is proposed to survey the “base of the wall,” which has clearly already undergone destruction.
Ancient Uruk is a city-state that rose before Babylon and served as the prototype, the forerunner of cities in general. What is the essence of the city, why did people begin to settle so densely and gather together? Walls are the border of the city, a sacred border that separates the world of culture, the world mastered and inhabited by man, from external dangers, and allows for the preservation of cultural information.
After the introduction, where baked bricks serve as confirmation of the words, there follows the introduction of Gilgamesh himself:
Two-thirds god, one-third human
In this statement there is not only an idea of the possibility of combining the divine and human in one being, there is also an amazing proportion of such a union!? The question arises: how did people imagine the world and what did people believe in for thousands of years? Is human consciousness the subconscious of God or is it the other way around?
The description of Gilgamesh's "genetics" is followed by aesthetic, physical, and erotic descriptions of him. First it talks about “body image”, then about strength, fitness and belligerence, and only then about incredible love. "Gilgamesh will not leave the maiden... betrothed to her husband!"- a similar practice is known to us as the “right of the first night.” However, there is more to it than that:
Only Gilgamesh, king of the fenced Uruk,
The marriage peace is open, -
He has a betrothed wife!
If we take the above at face value, then the king finds himself in intimate relationships with all the townswomen, his subjects. A Christian would accuse Gilgamesh of breaking a well-known commandment. The city is not a harem: wives formally belong to their husbands and are preserved social functions marriage. The fact that the marriage peace is “open only to Gilgamesh” means, among other things, the existence of a love connection between the king and everyone, a special information connection.
The most intimate secrets of his subjects are revealed to the king. Let us remember that he is two-thirds god. The Tsar is the father in all families, the depth of the Tsar’s connection with the “masses” is unprecedented...
It is clear that such a situation, regardless of the degree of its plausibility, cannot be sustainable. This situation causes criticism and complaints - not everyone likes the total cohabitation of the king with other people's wives. The text contains the position of humility of a city dweller who talks about this situation:
So it was: I will say: so it will be,
This is the decision of the council of gods,
By cutting the umbilical cord, that’s how he was judged!
However, the beginning of the intrigue of the entire “Tale” lies precisely in the fact that the complaints of the inhabitants were heard by the gods of heaven. They called out to the great Arur:
Aruru, you created Gilgamesh,
Now create his likeness!
When he equals Gilgamesh in courage,
Let them compete, let Uruk rest.
This appeal is one of the most striking passages in the entire work, and, perhaps, in all world literature. We see here in two phrases a complete recipe for solving the problem. The gods' request is specific. The gods intend to treat Gilgamesh, their favorite, as with a beloved but spoiled child: they want to divert his attention. He loves training, competitions of strength and courage: let him have it.
Our hero is so “violent in the flesh” that he forces heaven to “take action.” The heavenly gods “program” Arura to complete the task. It may be up to Aruru to carry out or not carry out this program, but the goddess is essentially left with no choice. The gods remind the mother that she should give her beloved son a toy. There is a challenge in this reminder that love cannot fail to answer.
The love of people and gods for Gilgamesh gives energy to the story; it subtly drives the ancient legend and carries it through several millennia to our time.
Aruru, hearing these speeches,
She created the likeness of Anu in her heart
Aruru washed her hands,
She plucked off the clay and threw it on the ground,
She sculpted Enkidu, created a hero.
The goddess did not doubt for a minute the necessity of the work and happily set about it. First of all, she creates a “project” in her heart - the likeness of the supreme god Anu, the model according to which people are made. He sculpts from clay on the ground, sculpts Enkidu (which translated means “king of the earth” or “king of the steppe”). Immediately follows a description of what Enkidu looks like:
His whole body is covered with fur,
Like a woman, she wears her hair
The hero, the likeness of God, may well be both woolly and hairy; most likely, we are talking about an internal likeness, and not about purely external signs.
Strands of hair are thick like bread;
I saw neither people nor the world
An interesting fact: where does it end up? new hero?
He eats grass with the gazelles,
Together with the animals he crowds to the watering hole,
Together with the creatures, the heart rejoices with water.
A man - a hunter-hunter meets him in front of a watering hole.
The hunter saw him and his face changed,
He returned home with his cattle,
He became frightened, fell silent, and became numb
The message about the appearance of a monster in the steppe reached Gilgamesh, but before that some events occurred, which we will learn about in the text later. Gilgamesh begins to have strange dreams. As if something was falling from the sky on him. The dreams repeat themselves: first something that looks like a stone falls, then an axe. In a dream, this object comes to life. And every time the dream ends with Gilgamesh’s love for this heavenly guest. For the interpretation of dreams, Gilgamesh turns to his “human” mother - and she prophesies that he will meet a friend.
The king thereby prepares for some important events. Prepared through dreams and interpretations. Dreams are sent by the gods and interpreted by people. Through joint efforts, gods and people outside and the divine and human principles inside the hero guide him through life, and the most important point of his behavior is attention to dreams, receiving information from dreams. The king's dreams become known to people. The exchange of information between the residents of the city of Uruk occurs intensively - and at a very deep level. It turns out that the king's dreams are as open to the townspeople as the entrance to the bedrooms of their wives is open to him. The structure of "informal" communication in the city of Uruk looks unusual.
Let's return to the plot: the hunter returns home and complains to his father about the appearance of a “protector of animals” in the steppe, who does not allow him to hunt animals - he pulls out traps and fills up holes.
The father not only directs the hunter to Gilgamesh - which is not surprising - but also informs him in advance of the solution to the problem: he must send a harlot to seduce the hairy protector of animals. The smell of a city woman will turn animals away from humans. An older man successfully predicts the king's actions. Here we encounter the competence of Gilgamesh's subjects.
Everything happens as predicted. Gilgamesh selects the harlot Shamhat to “capture” Enkidu. The harlot and the hunter hunt down Enkidu, then - “the matter of women.” After this, Enkidu has no choice but to listen to the harlot’s speech:
You are beautiful, Enkidu, you are like a god,
Why are you wandering in the steppe with the beast?
Let me lead you into fenced Uruk,
To the bright house, the dwelling of Anu,
Where Gilgamesh is perfect in strength,
And like a tour, it shows its power to people!
She said that these speeches are pleasant to him,
His wise heart is looking for a friend.
It is in search of an equal, in search of a friend, that Enkidu goes to the city - and already comes up with the intrigue of a meeting with Gilgamesh in advance:
I will call him, I will say proudly,
I will shout in the midst of Uruk: I am mighty,
I alone change destinies,
Whoever is born in the steppe, great is his strength!
In these words you can hear “valiant prowess.” The harlot Shamhat rejoices and tells her idea of the city:
Let us go, Enkidu, to fenced Uruk,
Where people are proud of their royal dress,
Every day they celebrate the holiday...
Here we see the harlot's understanding of the city: this is a place where people celebrate a holiday every day (by the way, not so far from the current image of civilization in the mind popular culture...).
Then we learned that Uruk is a special city: the harlot knows the dreams of the king. After the victory, rejoicing from the completed task, the harlot told Enkidu about Gilgamesh’s prophetic dreams - in which he felt his friend approaching.
In the city, Enkidu first of all blocks Gilgamesh’s path to the wedding chamber of Ishhara:
They grabbed at the door of the marriage chamber,
They began to fight in the street, on the wide road -
The porch collapsed and the wall shook.
Gilgamesh knelt on the ground,
He humbled his anger, calmed his heart...
Each felt an equal opponent: the good fellows made peace with each other and were reconciled. The battle ended in noble fraternization, Gilgamesh brought Enkidu to his mother and proudly told her how this orphan, who had neither mother nor friend, brought him to his senses.
When Enkidu is in the royal palace, received with honor and respect by the king’s mother, and listens to kind words about himself, what seems incredible at first glance happens:
Enkidu stands, listens to his speeches,
I got upset, sat down and cried
His eyes filled with tears:
He sits idle and loses his strength.
Both friends hugged, sat next to each other,
They held hands like brothers.
Enkidu explained the reason for his sadness:
The screams, my friend, are tearing my throat:
I sit idle, my strength disappears.
Idleness turns out to be a heavy burden for the hero: the hero cannot stand idle in vain - he was created for exploits, the strong woman is looking for applications.
The story of Uruk is an allegory: Enkidu goes through all the stages that lead humanity from savagery to civilization. The great friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, which began with the battle of Uruk, is the link that connects all the episodes of the epic. After meeting Gilgamesh, Enkidu becomes his "little brother" dear friend"It is Enkidu who brings the news about the mysterious cedar forest and its guardian monster.
"My friend, far away are the mountains of Lebanon,
Kedrovoye those mountains are covered with forest,
The fierce Humbaba lives in that forest
Let's kill him together, you and I
And we will drive out everything that is evil from the world!
I will chop cedar, and the mountains will grow with it,
I will create an eternal name for myself!"
And the victory won:
They struck down the guard, Humbaba, -
The cedars groaned in two fields around:
Enkidu killed forests and cedars with him.
Anu said: “It is fitting to die
To the one who stole cedars from the mountains!“
Ellil said: “Let Enkidu die,
But Gilgamesh must not die!
Dying, the child of nature curses those who contributed to his humanization, which brought him nothing but suffering:
"Come on, harlot, I'll assign you a share,
What will not end forever in the world;
I will curse you with a great curse,
So that soon that curse would befall you...”
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The most outstanding work of Babylonian literature is the wonderful “Poem of Gilgamesh,” in which the eternal question of the meaning of life and the inevitability of death of a person, even a famous hero, is posed with great artistic force. The content of this poem in its individual parts dates back to deep Gudumerian antiquity. For example, the story of how the shadow of Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s deceased friend, rose from the underworld to earth and how Gilgamesh asked her about the fate of the dead was preserved in the ancient Sumerian edition. Another Sumerian poem, Gilgamesh and Agga, describes the struggle of Gilgamesh with Agga, the king of Kish, who was besieging Uruk. It is quite possible that there was a whole cycle of epic tales about the exploits of Gilgamesh. The names of the main characters - Gilgamesh and Enkidu - are of Sumerian origin. Numerous artistic depictions of Gilgamesh, as if illustrating individual episodes of the poem, also go back to Sumerian antiquity. The name of Gilgamesh, the semi-legendary king of Uruk, is preserved in the lists of the most ancient kings of Sumer. It is possible that one of the editions of this poem was compiled during the period of the First Babylonian dynasty, as indicated by the surviving fragment, which differs sharply from the later, but most complete Assyrian edition, compiled in Akkadian using Assyrian cuneiform in the 7th century. BC. for the Nineveh Library of King Ashurbanipal. “The Poem of Gilgamesh” is divided into four main parts: 1) The story of Gilgamesh’s cruel reign in Uruk, the appearance of the second hero, Enkidu, and the friendship of these two heroes; 2) Description of the exploits of Gilgamesh and Enkidu; 3) The story of Gilgamesh’s wanderings in search of personal immortality; 4) The final part, containing a conversation between Gilgamesh and the shadow of his deceased friend, Enkidu.
In the introduction to the poem, the author refers to the fact that Gilgamesh himself “inscribed his works on a stone slab,” which reflects the author’s claim to the historical and real reliability of the events described in the poem. Indeed, some episodes of the poem can be interpreted as distant echoes of historical events preserved in ancient legends. These are the episodes about the reign of Gilgamesh in Uruk, about the relationship of Gilgamesh to the goddess Ishtar, which indicates the struggle of royal power with the priesthood. However, the “Epoem of Gilgamesh” also contains some mythological and legendary stories related to ancient tales about the Flood and the creation of man.
The beginning of the poem tells how Gilgamesh, “two-thirds god and one-third man,” reigns in the ancient city of Uruk and brutally oppresses the people, forcing them to build city walls and temples to the gods. The inhabitants of Uruk complain to the gods about their plight, and the gods, heeding their complaints, create the hero Enkidu, endowed with supernatural power. Enkidu lives among wild animals, hunts and goes to water with them. One of the hunters, who are prevented by Enkidu from hunting wild animals, asks Gilgamesh for help. In an effort to lure this primitive hero to himself, Gilgamesh sends a temple slave to him, who tames Enkidu’s wild temper and brings him to Uruk. Here both heroes enter into single combat, but those endowed with the same strength cannot defeat each other. Having become friends, both heroes accomplish their feats together. They head to the cedar forest, where the powerful Humbaba, “guardian of the cedar grove,” lives.
The goddess Ishtar, seeing the victorious hero, offers him her love. However, the wise and cautious Gilgamesh rejects the goddess's gifts, reminding her of how much grief and suffering she caused to her former lovers:
Did you not doom Tammuz, the friend of your youth,
Year after year of bitter tears?
Offended by Gilgamesh's refusal, the goddess Ishtar complains about him to her father, the supreme god of the sky, Anu, and asks him to create a heavenly bull that would destroy the obstinate hero. Anu hesitates and does not immediately fulfill his daughter's wish. However, yielding to her urgent requests, he, as can be assumed from scraps of damaged text, sends a monstrous bull to Uruk, which destroys several hundred people with its destructive breath. But still the heroes kill this terrible monster; their new feat inflames Ishtar's anger even more. The goddess climbs the wall of Uruk and sends curses on the head of Gilgamesh. However, the wrath of the goddess does not frighten the brave hero. He calls his people and orders them to take the horns of the bull and sacrifice them to their patron god. After a solemn celebration in the royal palace, Enkidu sees a prophetic dream that foreshadows his death. And, indeed, Enkidu becomes mortally ill. He complains to his friend about his fate, which condemns him to an inglorious death on his sick bed, depriving him of the opportunity to die in a fair fight on the battlefield. Gilgamesh mourns the death of his friend and for the first time feels the blowing of the wings of death over him.
Tormented by the fear of death, driven by dying sadness, Gilgamesh sets off on a long journey. He directs his path to his ancestor Ut-Napishtim, who received the great gift of immortality from the gods. The difficulties of a long journey do not frighten Gilgamesh. Neither the lions that guard the gorges of the mountains, nor the fantastic scorpion people, “whose gaze announces death,” nor the Garden of Eden with trees on which blossoms can detain him. gems, nor the goddess Siduri, who encourages him to forget about death and surrender to all the joys of life. Gilgamesh sails on a ship through the “waters of death” and reaches the monastery where the immortal Ut-Napishtim lives. Striving for immortality, the brave hero tries to find out the secret of eternal life from his ancestor. He says to him: “How did you search and where did you find eternal life?” Answering Gilgamesh's questions, Ut-Napishtim tells him about the global flood and how the god Ea taught him to build an ark and escape from the waters of the flood in it, as a result of which Ut-Napishtim and his wife received immortality from the gods. This is an ancient legend about how the gods sent flood waters to the earth to punish people for their sins and how during this gigantic world catastrophe only one person was saved, taking with him into the ark “the seed of all life” (i.e. different kinds animals and birds), inserted into the text of the poem in the form of a special episode. It is very possible that this legend reflected the primordial struggle of the Sumerian tribes with gigantic river floods in Southern Mesopotamia, which, flooding the lowlands, threatened great destruction, but at the same time provided abundant harvests for the ancient farmers.
Then Ut-Napishtim reveals the “secret word” to Gilgamesh and advises him to sink to the bottom of the ocean to pluck the grass of immortality, whose name is “the old man becomes young.” Gilgamesh, on his way back to Uruk, gets this wonderful herb. But carelessness destroys the hero. Seeing a pond on his way, Gilgamesh plunges into its cool waters. At this time, a snake sneaks up and steals the wonderful herb of immortality. The saddened hero, returning to his city of Uruk, asks the gods for his last mercy. He wants to see at least the shadow of his dead friend Enkidu. However, only with great difficulty does Gilgamesh manage to penetrate the secrets of the abode of death. Of all the gods, only one god of wisdom, Ea, provides him with decisive help. Ea orders the ruler of the underworld, Nergal, to release Enkidu's shadow onto the earth. The poem ends with a final analogy between friends.
Here, for the first time, with utmost clarity and at the same time with great artistic power and brightness, the idea of the inevitability of death is expressed, to which all people are subject, even those who are ready for any feat in order to overcome the inevitable death, even those in whom, as aptly expressed, the author of the poem, “two thirds from God and one third from man.”
“The Poem of Gilgamesh,” the main part of which dates back to ancient times, is a kind of cycle of ancient tales. The story telling about the exploits of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, about the tragic death of Enkidu and about the wanderings of Gilgamesh in search of immortality, is intertwined with a number of ancient religious myths, which in the form individual episodes inserted into general text poems. This is a brief fragment of the legend about the creation of man (Enkidu) from clay soaked in the saliva of a god; This is the famous myth about the Flood, which tells in detail how the ancient hero Ut-Napishtim, on the advice of the god of wisdom Ea, built an ark, escaping the waters of the flood in it, and thereby earned eternal life.
“The Poem of Gilgamesh” occupies a special place in Babylonian literature both for its artistic merits and for the originality of the thoughts expressed in it. The ancient Babylonian poet’s thought about man’s eternal desire to know the “law of the earth,” the mystery of life and death, is presented in a highly artistic form. The words of the ancient author of the poem are imbued with deep pessimism. The future life is depicted by him as an abode of suffering and sadness. Even the famous Gilgamesh “mighty, great and wise,” despite his divine origin, cannot earn the highest favor from the gods and achieve immortality. Bliss in the afterlife is given only to those who fulfill the commandments of religion, the demands of the priests, and the rituals of the religious cult. This is the main idea of the entire poem, the roots of which undoubtedly go back to folk artistic creativity, but which largely reflected the later ideology of the aristocratic priesthood.
Egyptian monotheism god Gilgamesh
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Introduction
1. The emergence of writing in ancient Mesopotamia
2 Literature in ancient Mesopotamia
3. The history of the creation of the “Epic of Gilgamesh”
4. The Epic of Gilgamesh
Conclusion
Literature
Introduction
At the turn of the 4th-3rd millennium BC. In the Sumerian cities of the Southern Mesopotamia, the first clay tablets appeared with samples of archaic writing, which arose on the basis of a system of three-dimensional clay symbols-chips, which were used for accounting in the temple households of Sumer.
The advent of writing played a huge role in the formation and consolidation of the new culture of ancient society, with the advent of which new forms of storing and transmitting information became possible. The advent of writing contributed to the development of literature.
Ancient Mesopotamian literature is a single, despite bilingualism, literature of the peoples who inhabited the area between the Euphrates and Tigris in the 3rd-1st millennium BC - the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians.
New trends, images and themes appeared in literature and art. Many poems, legends, myths, and songs were written. The most important monument of Sumerian literature was the cycle of tales about Gilgamesh, the legendary king of the city of Uruk, who ruled in the 18th century. BC. In these tales, the hero Gilgamesh is presented as the son of a mere mortal and the goddess Ninsun, and his wanderings around the world in search of the secret of immortality are described in detail. The legends of Gilgamesh and the legends of the Flood had a very strong influence on world literature both the culture and the culture of neighboring peoples who accepted and adapted the legends to their national life.
1. Appearancewriting in ancient Mesopotamia
The most significant contribution of the Sumerians to the history of world culture is the invention of writing. Writing has become a powerful accelerator of progress in all areas of human activity: with its help, property accounting and production control were established, economic planning became possible, a stable education system appeared, the volume of cultural memory increased, as a result of which a new type of tradition emerged, based on following the canon written text. The Sumerians wrote with their fingers (sticks) on damp clay; they called this activity cuneiform. After the Sumerians, a huge number of clay cuneiform tablets remained.
Sumerian writing contains logograms (or ideograms), which are read as whole words, signs for vowels, and also consonants together with vowels (but not consonants alone). To make it easier for the reader to navigate when reading complex texts, which often resembled puzzles, scribes used special determiners to designate wooden tools or objects, names of professions, numerous plants, etc. .
The Akkadian language has been attested in southern Mesopotamia since the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, when speakers of this language borrowed cuneiform from the Sumerians and began to widely use it in their Everyday life. From this same time, intensive processes of interpenetration of the Sumerian and Akkadian languages began, as a result of which they learned many words from each other. But the predominant source of such borrowings was the Sumerian language. .
One of the greatest achievements of Babylonian and Assyrian culture was the creation of libraries. In Ur, Nippur and other cities, starting from the 2nd millennium BC, for many centuries scribes collected literary and scientific texts, and thus extensive private libraries arose.
Among all the libraries in the Ancient East, the most famous was the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669-c. 635 BC), carefully and with great skill collected in his palace in Nineveh. For her, throughout Mesopotamia, scribes made copies of books from official and private collections or collected the books themselves. The library of Ashurbanipal contained royal annals, chronicles of the most important historical events, collections of laws, literary works and scientific texts. In total, more than 30,000 tablets and fragments have been preserved, which reflect the achievements of Mesopotamian civilization. At the same time, the library of Ashurbanipal was the first systematically collected library in the world, where clay books were placed in a certain order. Many books were presented in several copies so that two or more readers could use the necessary texts at the same time. .
Our knowledge is only an interpretation of “cuneiform” sources, most of them translated and rewritten by priests of later cultures, for example, “The Epic of Gilgamesh” or the poem “Enuma Elish” dating back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.
2. Lliterature in ancient Mesopotamia
In terms of the number of surviving works, cuneiform literature far surpasses all other literature of Antiquity, except Greek and Roman. True, the volume of cuneiform literary works is for the most part small: it was difficult to write lengthy texts on heavy and bulky clay tiles. Therefore, even the largest cuneiform literary monuments contain no more than two to three thousand lines. Sumerian literature has come down to us mainly in the records of the 19th-18th centuries. BC. The Mesopotamian tradition is characterized by the presence of so-called literary catalogs. The oldest catalog discovered dates back to the 1st millennium BC. Catalogs are lists in which the titles of works are recorded in the first lines of text. Literary texts have been found in many private homes. Sumerian catalogs note 87 literary works. For some of them, the authors are indicated, but often semi-mythical personalities, sometimes deities, appear in their capacity.
By genre these are: poetic recordings of myths; epic tales; prayers; hymns to kings and gods; psalms; wedding love songs; lamentations - funeral ones, about national disasters; from didactic works - teachings, edifications; fables; Proverbs and sayings. A special genre consisted of works about the destruction of Sumerian cities due to raids by neighboring tribes. “Lament for the death of the inhabitants of Ur” (at the end of the 21st century BC) was very popular, which describes terrible details about the suffering of women, old people and children who suffered from hunger, burned in houses on fire and drowned in the river. The most famous monument of Sumerian literature is the cycle of epic tales about the legendary hero Gilgamesh. .
The oldest monuments in the Akkadian language date back to the middle of 3 thousand BC. e. The displacement of the Sumerian language by Akkadian did not mean the destruction of Sumerian culture; there was a merging of cultural traditions. This is also noticeable in mythology. All Akkadian deities are either of Sumerian origin or were identified with Sumerians. .
Literary catalogs are also characteristic of Babylonian literature. The catalogs sometimes indicate the authorship of the texts, but in some cases this is far from plausible - “recorded from the mouth of a horse.” An example of an author's work is the epic "About Etana", the author of which is considered to be Lu-Nanna. .
In the first half of the 11th century. BC. The poem "Babylonian Theodicy" appears. Unlike most ancient Eastern literary works, which are anonymous, we know the author of this poem. He was a certain Esagil-kini-ubbib, who served as a priest-exorcist at the royal court. It sets out in a vivid form the religious and philosophical ideas that worried the Babylonians. “Theodicy” is built in the form of a dialogue between an innocent sufferer and his friend. Throughout the entire work, the sufferer denounces unrighteousness and evil, sets out his claims to the gods and complains about the injustice of social orders. Friend seeks to refute these arguments. The author of the work does not express his attitude to the essence of the dispute and does not impose his opinion on the reader or listener. 10th century BC dated interesting work entitled “Slave, Obey Me,” permeated with a pessimistic attitude towards life and its vicissitudes. It contains a dialogue between a master and his slave. Bored from idleness, the gentleman lists a variety of desires that he would like to fulfill. The slave first supports the master's intentions and expresses his arguments in favor of their implementation. Then, when the master refuses to implement them, the slave always argues that all human actions are useless and meaningless. The slave inspires the master that one should not do good to people, because after death, villains, righteous people, nobles, and slaves are equal and no one will distinguish them from each other by their skulls. At the end of the work, the slave convinces his master, fed up with life, that the only good lies in death. Then the master expresses a desire to kill his slave. But he is saved by pointing out the inevitability of the imminent death of the master himself. .
The “Poem on the Creation of the World”, created on 7 tablets, is of great artistic value. The purpose of the poem: to justify the exaltation of something almost unknown before the 19th-18th centuries. BC. the city of Babylon and its local deity Marduk. The time of creation of the poem is no earlier than the 18th century. BC. .
3. History of the Epic of Gilgamesh
One of the most famous works of Sumerian literature is the Epic of Gilgamesh. Twelve cuneiform tablets from Assurbanipal's library encapsulate the national epic of the hero, later translated into Akkadian.
The epic tells the story of the legendary king of Uruk Gilgamesh, his savage friend Enkidu and the search for the secret of immortality. One of the chapters of the epic, the story of Utnapishtim, who saved humanity from the Flood, is very reminiscent of the biblical story of Noah's Ark, which suggests that the epic was familiar even to the authors of the Old Testament.
According to Epic researchers, the first songs about Gilgamesh were created at the end of the first half of the third millennium BC. e. The first tablets that have reached our time were created 800 years later. The creation of the Akkadian version of the poem, which probably finally took shape in the last third of the third millennium BC, dates back to around this time. e. In the second millennium BC. e. in Palestine and Asia Minor, another version of the Akkadian poem was created - the “peripheral” one. The translation of the Epic into the Hurrian and Hittite languages also dates back to this time...
From the end of the second millennium to the 7th-6th centuries BC. the final version of the Epic was created - “Nineveh”, which was found in the library of Ashurbanipal.
The oldest texts are written in Sumerian. However, the most important is the Akkadian version, which is a huge artistic achievement. .
The Epic was based on both mythological motifs based on the religious beliefs of the Sumerians and historical legends. Gilgamesh was a historical figure - a lugal of the Sumerian city of Uruk around 2800-2700 BC. e. His name, which in Sumerian is conventionally rendered as “Bilgames,” is mentioned in a Sumerian tablet with a list of Sumerian rulers of the early 2nd millennium BC. e. But quite early on, Gilgamesh began to be deified. From the 18th century BC. e. his name in the form "Bilgemes" or "Bilgames" is mentioned among the Sumerian deities. Numerous legends arose around him, in which he was presented as a divine hero, the son of the goddess Ninsun and the hero Lugalbanda. .
Later, the name Gilgamesh became very popular in Babylon, the Hittite kingdom and Assyria; he was associated with the image of a hero fighting animals, his companion being a half-bull, half-man hero. Later it was believed that Gilgamesh was a deity who protects people from demons and a judge of the underworld. His images were placed at the entrance to the house, because it was believed that in this way he was protected from evil spirits.
Several Sumerian tales and songs have survived to this day in which Gilgamesh is mentioned: the poem about Gilgamesh and Akka, the king of Kish, “Gilgamesh and the Mountain of the Living,” “Gilgamesh and the Heavenly Bull,” “Gilgamesh and the Willow.” The exact time of their creation is unknown. At the time of their creation, Gilgamesh was no longer remembered as a historical figure. At the same time, these works, belonging to the genre of epic poem, are primitive in content and archaic in form, which is very different from the Akkadian poem about Gilgamesh.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, the famous king of Uruk in Mesopotamia, was written in a time that was completely forgotten until archaeologists began excavating the ruined cities of the Middle East in the 19th century. The discovery of the epic is due, firstly, to the curiosity of two Englishmen, and then to the work of many scientists who collected, copied and translated the clay tablets on which the poem was written. This work continues in our time, and many gaps are filled from year to year.
3. The Epic of Gilgamesh
writing Akkadian language epic
The epic tells the story of the demigod Gilgamesh, a mighty warrior and king of Uruk. No one could compare with him in strength, and he brought countless troubles to people, “raging in the flesh.” They prayed to the gods to appease the king of Uruk. And so the goddess Aruru, heeding them, “plucked off the clay, threw it to the ground, blinded Enkidu, created a hero,” who could curb the fury of Gilgamesh. His body was covered with wool, he lived among animals, “he knew neither people nor the world.” By protecting the animals from the hunters, he caused them to hate him, but they could not do anything with him. .
In despair, the hunters went to Uruk and fell at the feet of King Gilgamesh, begging to be delivered from their hated enemy. Gilgamesh resorted to cunning, advising the hunters to take the harlot Shamhat to Enkidu - let her seduce him. That's what they did. And “the harlot gave him pleasure, the work of women.” When he had had enough of Enkidu’s affection, he discovered that his body had weakened and “his understanding had become deeper.” The animals abandoned him, and then Shamhat reproached him, saying why he was walking with the beast: “I will take you to Uruk, where the mighty Gilgamesh lives.” Enkidu agreed and declared that he would fight Gilgamesh. Shamhat began to exhort him to show prudence, for in prophetic dreams the king of fenced Uruk was destined to have a friend appear, and he, Enkidu, would be that friend.
On the way to Uruk, Shamhat teaches Enkidu to wear clothes, eat bread, and, having arrived in Uruk, Enkidu blocks the entrance to the marriage chamber, where only Gilgamesh had the right to enter. The people of Uruk recognize him as their hero. The heroes grappled in battle, but were equal in strength, and Gilgamesh took him to his mother Ninsun, where they fraternize, but Enkidu cries because he has nowhere to apply his strength. .
Gilgamesh invites him to go on a campaign against Humbaba, the guardian of the cedar forests in Lebanon. Enkidu tries to dissuade Gilgamesh, telling him how dangerous Humbaba’s forest and Humbaba himself, whom the gods endowed with strength and courage, are dangerous, but Gilgamesh convinces Enkidu that human life is already short, and it is better to die as a hero, who will be remembered for centuries, than in obscurity. The elders of Uruk also try to dissuade him, but then they bless him and ask Enkidu to take care of the king. Before the campaign, they visit Queen Ninsun, who is also worried about her son and makes a sacrifice to the god Shamash.
On the way to the cedar forest, Gilgamesh has dreams that Enkidu interprets as predictions of victory over Humbaba, but in the end they turn to the god Shamash for guidance, and he tells them to immediately attack Humbaba while he is wearing only one of the seven terrible robes. The heroes are afraid to enter the forest, but Gilgamesh encourages Enkidu, and they enter the domain of Humbaba and begin to cut down cedars, the appearance of Humbaba frightens them, but the support of Shamash causes the friends to attack the guardian of the forest and kill him and his seven robes-rays.
The goddess Ishtar invites Gilgamesh to become her husband, but he refuses, saying that she had many husbands, and now they are all either killed or bewitched. The embittered Ishtar asks Ana to create a bull capable of killing the hero, but Gilgamesh and Enkidu defeat the bull with coordinated actions. Enkidu has a dream that the gods Anu and Enlil want to kill him, although Shamash intercedes on his behalf. Gilgamesh wants to pray to Enlil, but Enkidu dissuades him, and he turns to Shamash, cursing the hunter and harlot Shamhat, but Shamash points out to Enkidu what Shamhat gave him, and he cancels his curse, replacing it with a blessing. .
Enkidu falls ill and soon dies. Gilgamesh is sad and orders a statue of his brother to be made. Gilgamesh goes into the desert, on a journey, realizing his mortality after the death of his friend, he is afraid of death. Traveling, he reaches the edge of the world, where he meets a scorpion man and tells him about his sadness and that he wants to find Utnapishtim, the only person who received immortality (according to some sources - the ancestor of Gilgamesh), and ask him about life and death. The scorpion man says that the path to the country of Dilmun, where the gods settled Utnapishtim, which lies through a long cave, is terrible and not walked by people - only the gods walk this way. Gilgamesh is not afraid, and the scorpion man blesses him.
Gilgamesh did not master the difficult path the first time - he got scared and returned; on the second attempt, he passed the cave and found himself in a beautiful garden of precious stone trees. There he meets the mistress of the gods Siduri, who, frightened, closes herself in the house from him, and at first does not believe that he is Gilgamesh, since he is dirty and thin, he has to tell his story.
She tries to convince him that immortality is not due to a person, there is no need to waste time searching - it is better to enjoy life, but Gilgamesh asks her how to find Utnapishtim, and she says that, except for Shamash, no one will be able to cross, and only Urshanabi, the shipbuilder Utnapishtim, who has idols in the forest, can help.
Urshanabi helps Gilgamesh reach Utnapishtim. Gilgamesh tells him about his grief and asks how Utnapishtim managed to become equal to the gods.
Utnapishtim tells the story of a flood in which only he survived, and the gods took him to themselves, but for Gilgamesh the gods cannot be gathered for council. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that there is a flower at the bottom of the ocean that gives eternal youth, he gets it and decides to first test it on the elders of Uruk. But on the way back, the snake steals the flower and Gilgamesh returns empty-handed.
Some interpretations also include a continuation in which Gilgamesh meets his brother Enkidu, who has emerged from the afterlife, and tells about the hard life in the world of the dead (the ancient Sumerians had a rather gloomy idea of the afterlife, unlike, for example, the Egyptians). After which Gilgamesh resigns himself to the fate of a mortal.
Conclusion
The ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia created a high culture, which had an exceptionally strong influence on the further development of all mankind, becoming the property of many countries and peoples. On the territory of Mesopotamia, many features of material and spiritual culture arose and took shape, which for a long time determined the entire subsequent course of world history.
The prestige of Mesopotamian culture in writing was so great that in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. BC, despite the decline in the political power of Babylonia and Assyria, the Akkadian language and cuneiform writing became a means of international communication throughout the Middle East. The text of the agreement between Pharaoh Ramesses II and the Hittite king Hattusili III was drawn up in Akkadian. The pharaohs even write to their vassals in Palestine not in Egyptian, but in Akkadian.
Scribes at the courts of the rulers of Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine and Egypt diligently studied the Akkadian language, cuneiform and literature.
Sumerian and Akkadian ritual, "scientific" and literary texts are copied and translated into other languages throughout the range of cuneiform writing.
The Sumerians created the first poems in history - about the “Golden Age”, and wrote the first elegies. They are the authors of the world's oldest medical books - collections of recipes
The civilization of Ancient Mesopotamia had a huge influence on the ancient one, and through it - on medieval culture Europe, the Middle East, and ultimately to world culture New and Contemporary times.
Literature
1. Dyakonov I.M. History of the ancient east. - M.: Nauka, 1983.
2. Kramer S.N. The story begins in Sumer. M., 1991.
3. Oppenheim A. Ancient Mesopotamia. M., 1990.
4. Turaev B.A. History of the Ancient East. - Mn.: Harvest, 2004. - 752 p.
5. Afanasyeva V., Lukonin V., Pomerantseva N. The Art of the Ancient East (Small History of Arts). M., 1976.
6. Afanasyeva V.K. Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Epic images in art. - M.: Nauka, 1979. - 219 p. - (Culture of the peoples of the East).
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Table one
About the one who saw everything to the end of the universe,
Who knew the hidden, who comprehended everything,
Tested the fate of earth and sky,
The depths of knowledge of all the sages.
He knew the unknown, solved mysteries,
He brought us news of the days before the flood,
He walked far, and got tired, and returned,
And he engraved his works in stone.
He surrounded blessed Uruk with a wall,
Pure Temple, Saint Eanna
Gilded the base, copper is stronger,
And the high walls from which the priests do not leave,
They contained an inscription on a stone that had been there since ancient times.
He is beautiful, he is strong, he is wise,
He is two-thirds deity, only one-third man,
His body is as bright as a big star,
But he knows no equal in the art of torment
Those people who are entrusted to the authorities.
Gilgamesh, he will not leave his son to his mother,
He will not leave the bride to the groom,
Daughter to the hero, husband to the husband,
Day and night he feasts with them,
He is their shepherd, he is their guardian,
He is beautiful, strong, he is wise.
Their prayer reached the high sky,
The heavenly gods, the lords of Uruk, said to Arur:
“Behold, you have created a son, and he has no equal,
But Gilgamesh is cruel, you feast day and night,
The groom will not leave the bride and his wife's husband,
He to whom blessed Uruk is entrusted,
He is their shepherd, he is their guardian." Aruru listens to their requests,
They approach the great Arur again:
“You, Aruru, have already created Gilgamesh,
You will be able to create his likeness,
Let them compete in strength, and Uruk rest."
He listens to Aruru and gives birth to the likeness of Anu in his heart,
Apypy washes his hands and throws in a handful of clay.
And creates Eabani, the hero, the power of Ninib.
His body is in his hair, he wears a braid like a woman,
Strands of curls fall like ripe ears,
He knows neither the land nor the people, he is dressed like Gira,
Together with the gazelles, he plucks the grass,
He goes with the cattle to the watering hole,
With the water creature the heart rejoices.
One hunter, a skilled hunter,
I spotted him at the watering hole,
Again and again at the watering hole.
The hunter was frightened, his face darkened,
I was very sad, I cried bitterly,
My heart sank, and sorrow penetrated to my belly,
He and his flock hurried towards the house.
The hunter opens his mouth and announces to his father:
“My father, the man who came down from the mountain,”
He roams freely throughout our lands.
He is always in the pasture among the gazelles,
His feet are always at the watering hole,
I wander around and don’t dare approach him.
He drove away the beasts of the desert from me,
He does not allow me to work in the desert."
The father opens his mouth to teach the hunter:
“Find King Gilgamesh in blessed Uruk -
His power is great throughout the country,
Great is his strength, like the army of Anu -
Tell him what you know, ask him for advice.”
The hunter listens to his father's word,
Sets off on his journey, slows down his steps in Uruk,
He comes to the feast and says to Gilgamesh:
“O king, the man who came down from the mountain,
Roams freely in your domain,
I dug traps, he filled them,
I set up the nets, he tore them out,
He doesn’t let me work in the desert.”
Gilgamesh opens his mouth, and the hunter listens:
“Come back, my hunter, and take the harlot with you,
And when that man comes to the watering hole,
Let her take off her clothes, and he will take her maturity.
He will approach her as soon as he sees her,
And the hunter went and took with him the harlot,
Both set off on the straight road
And on the third day they came to that field.
The hunter sat down, and the harlot sat down,
Day and another they wait at the watering hole,
The animals come and drink cold water,
The herd comes running, their hearts rejoice.
And he, Eabani - his homeland is the mountains -
She plucks grass together with gazelles,
He goes with the cattle to a watering hole,
With water creatures the heart rejoices.
A harlot saw him, a passionate man,
Strong, destroyer, in the middle of the desert:
It's him, harlot, open your breasts
Open your womb, let him take your maturity.
Give him pleasure, it's women's business.
As soon as he sees you, he will rush towards you
And he will leave the beasts that grew in the middle of his desert.”
The harlot bared her breasts and opened her womb,
She was not ashamed, she breathed in his breath,
She threw off the cloth and lay down, and he lay on top,
He directed the power of his love towards her.
For six days, seven nights Eabani came and played with the harlot
And when he had satisfied his thirst,
He addressed the animals as before.
They saw him, Eabani, and the gazelles rushed off,
The beasts of his desert retreated from him.
Eabani was ashamed of himself, his body became heavy,
His knees stopped when he chased the herd,
And he could not run as he had run until now.
But now he feels a new mind,
He returns and sits at the feet of the harlot,
The harlot looks into his eyes,
And while speaking, his ears are attentive:
“You are strong and beautiful, you are like a god, Eabani,
What are you doing among the beasts of the desert?
I will lead you to high Uruk,
To the sacred house, the dwelling of Ishtar and Anu,
And he reigns over people like a wild buffalo.”
He speaks, and these speeches are pleasant to him,
He wants to look for a friend after his heart:
"I agree, harlot, take me to the city,
Where lives Gilgamesh, perfect in strength,
I want to challenge him and argue with him;
I will scream in Uruk - I am the mighty one,
It is I who rule people's destinies,
He who was born in the desert, great is his strength,
Before his face your face will turn pale,
And I know in advance who will be defeated.”
Eabani and the harlot enter Uruk,
They meet people in magnificent clothes,
Here in front of them is the palace of Gilgamesh,
A place where the holiday never ends,
The young men feast there, the harlots feast,
Everyone is full of lust, full of fun,
The elders are forced to come out with shouts;
And again the harlot says to Eabani:
“Oh Eabani, you are now wise,
Here is Gilgamesh before you, the man who laughs,
Do you see him? Look into his eyes!
His eyes are shining, his appearance is noble,
His body excites desires
And he is more powerful than you,
He who does not lie down either day or night.
Calm down, Eabani, your vain anger,
Gilgamesh, Shamash loves him,
Anu, Bel and Ea breathed wisdom into him;
Even before you came down from the mountain,
Gilgamesh in Uruk saw you in a dream;
He woke up and told his mother the dream:
“My mother, I dreamed last night
The sky was full of stars
And, like the army of Anu, he fell upon me
A man born on the mountain;
I grabbed him, but he was stronger
I threw it but it didn't budge
The whole region of Uruk rose against him,
But he stood like a pillar, and they kissed his feet;
Then, like a woman, I jumped on him,
I overpowered him and threw him at your feet,
It was you who wanted us to measure strength."
Rimat-Belit, who knows everything, says to the master,
Ramat-Belit, who knows everything, says to Gilgamesh:
“He who is among the stars in the vast sky,
Like the army of Anu, he fell upon you,
The one whom you defeated and threw at my feet,
An honest and strong comrade, always helping a friend,
His power is great throughout the country,
Great is his strength, like the army of Anu.”
From the throne Gilgamesh Eabani noticed,
Gilgamesh speaks to Eabani,
And they sit down like brothers, next to each other.
Table two
Gilgamesh became sad when he heard Eabani's story:
“Listen, young men, listen to me, old men,
For my Eabani, for my friend I cry!
I, like mourners, scream lamentations,
My ax and my wrists
My sword from the belt and from the curls of the decoration,
Robes of festival, signs of greatness
I lay down and cry for my Eabani,
For him, the man of the desert, I cry!”
The hunter discovered a high heart in himself,
He brought a harlot to Eabani so that he could curse her maturity:
"I will assign you a destiny, harlot,
It will not change in the country forever.
Behold, I curse you with a great curse,
Your house will be destroyed by the power of the curse,
They will drive you into a house of debauchery like a beast!
Let the road become your home,
Only under the shadow of the wall will you find rest,
Both the libertine and the drunkard will torment your body,
Because you, Eabani, deprived me of my strength,
For taking me, Eabani, away from my desert!”
Shamash heard him and opened his mouth,
Calls to him from the high sky:
“Why, Eabani, do you curse the harlot so much,
Who gave you food worthy of God,
What wines worthy of a prince gave you,
Dressed your body in lush fabrics,
Brought to Gilgamesh, your wonderful friend?
Now, Gilgamesh is your brother, your comrade,
He lays you down for the night in a luxurious bed,
In a comfortable bed he lays you down for the night;
You are sitting in an easy chair, to the left of the throne,
And the rulers kiss your feet,
The people of Uruk sing your praises.
To please you, the harlot gave you servants,
And at your request I clothed her body with shameful clothing,
I clothed him with the skin of a dog, and he ran through the desert.”
The dawn shone a little, the word of the great Shamash
flew to Eabani, and the angry heart was humbled:
“Let the one who ran away return, her path will be easy,
Let princes and rulers ask for her love,
The mighty leader will untie his belt over her,
He will give her gold and lapis lazuli.”
Thus Eabani humbled his sorrowful heart.
Night has come and he lies down alone,
And he told his friend his nightly alarm:
“Last night I had visions,
The heavens cried out and the earth answered,
And an unknown man stood before me,
The eyes were burning, and the face was dark,
The head was similar to the head of an eagle,
And eagle claws were visible on his fingers.
High, high, between the clouds he ascended
And he raised me high, high,
The flight made my head spin
Instead of hands I had the wings of a bird.
Follow me down into the house of darkness, the dwelling of Negral,
To a house from which no one who enters can leave,
The path of no return
To a house where they see no light,
Where they feed on dust, where dirt serves as food,
Dressed as birds in a robe of wings, -
To the abode of dust where I descended,
I saw a tray with a terrible tiara,
From all the tiaras that reigned in the world.
The servants Anu and Bel are preparing a roast,
They offer boiled food and cold water.
There lives a priest and a warrior,
Prophet and oathbreakers,
Abyss-casters, great gods,
Etana lives, and Gira lives,
Ereshkigal lives there, queen of the earth;
The maiden scribe, Belit-seri bowed before her,
Everything she wrote down is read in front of her.
She raised her eyes and saw me,
And she asked the counselor not to disturb her.”
As soon as the dawn flashed, Gilgamesh opened the hidden peace,
He took out a huge table that was made of linden,
He filled a jasper vessel with honey,
Oil vessel made of lapis lazuli,
Cups of wine, and at that moment the sun appeared.
“Friend, Humbaba does not spare people,
No babies in the wombs of women."
Open the mouth of Eabani, he says to Gilgamesh:
“My friend, the one we are going against is mighty,
It’s Humbaba, the one we’re going after, he’s scary!”
Gilgamesh opens his mouth and says to Eabani:
“My friend, today you have spoken the truth.”
Table three
The people of Uruk said to King Gilgamesh:
“Next to you is Eabani, faithful friend,
Against you is Humbaba, guardian of the cedar,
You have chosen a great job for yourself.
We will honor you with this meeting, sir,
And for the meeting you will honor us, lord!”
Gilgamesh opens his mouth and says to Eabani:
“My friend, let's go through the high door
To the maidservant Ninsun, the great queen,
To my mother, who knows secrets."
Rimat-Belit listened for a long time
With sadness the speeches of my son Gilgamesh.
She entered the temple of the goddess hastily,
She placed her jewelry on her body
And jewelry on your chest too,
She crowned her curls with her tiara,
She walked up the wide steps to the terrace.
Got up. And she laid incense before Shamash,
She laid down the sacrifices and raised her hands to Shamash:
“Why did you give Gilgamesh a vigilant heart,
Why did you conquer my son?
You touched him and he goes away
To Humbaba on a distant road,
He enters into a battle that is unknown to him,
Now I have started an unknown business.
Until the day he leaves and comes back,
Until the day he reaches the cedars,
Smite the mighty, smite Humbaba
And the evil that hates you will destroy you,
You, when he turns to the sky,
He will turn to you, Aya, bride, remember!”
She extinguished the incense burner, took off her tiara,
She called Eabani and addressed him
“Eabani, strong, my joy; listen to me:
Now you and Gilgamesh will defeat Humbaba,
With an offering for Shamash, with a prayer for Aya.
Table four
Crowds of people among the streets of Uruk,
He is plotting a matter of power,
The whole country rose up against the ruler,
The whole country gathered at the walls of Uruk,
Does not allow King Gilgamesh to leave.
But he jumped on them like a wild buffalo,
Knocked over the people blocking the exit,
And he cried over the fallen like a weak child.
Then wonderful person Eabani,
Eabani, worthy of the goddess's bed,
Before Gilgamesh, like a beautiful god,
Locked the gate leading to the field,
Gilgamesh is prevented from leaving them.
Together they approach the gate,
They quarrel loudly among the noisy streets,
But Gilgamesh pacifies the rebels,
He makes the stones crumble
He makes the wall shake.
Here is Gilgamesh with Eabani in the field,
Together they go to Humbaba's forest,
They reproach each other bitterly.
Eabani does not have the same strength,
Strands of curls are soaked with sweat,
He was born in the desert and is afraid of the desert.
He slows down, Eabani,
His face has darkened, and he himself is trembling,
Salty tears come to my eyes.
Now he lies down on his side without any strength,
I can’t move my arm or my leg,
He opens his mouth and says to Gilgamesh:
“To keep the cedars unharmed,
Bel intended him to frighten people,
Destined for Humbaba, whose voice is like a storm,
Whose larynx is like that of a god, whose breath is like a storm.
He listens to screams and footsteps in the thicket,
And everyone who comes into his thicket,
Whoever enters under the cedars suffers from illness.”
Gilgamesh says to his wonderful friend, says Eabani:
“Like the army of Anu, great is your strength,
You were born in the desert and you are afraid of Humbaba!
My heart is not afraid of the keeper of the cedars.”
“My friend, let’s not go under the cedars,
My hands are weak, my limbs are taken away.”
Gilgamesh speaks to his friend again, says Eabani:
“My friend, you are crying like a little child,
God did not pass here, he did not throw you to the ground.
There is still a long way ahead of us,
I will go alone, experienced in battle,
You will return home and you will no longer be afraid,
Drums and songs will delight your ears,
And weakness will leave your arms and legs.
But I see you're up, we'll go together
Your heart wanted a battle: forget about death and don’t be afraid!
A careful, decisive, strong person
Saves himself in battle, saves his friend!
And for distant days they will keep their name!
So they reach the green mountain,
They lower their voice and stand next to him.
Table five
They stand nearby and look into the thicket.
And they see huge cedars, And they see forest paths,
Where Humbaba wanders with measured steps,
The roads are straight, the paths are excellent,
And they see the cedar mountain, the dwelling of the gods, the temple of Irnini.
The cedar rises before the mountain, grows magnificently,
His supportive shadow is full of rejoicing,
Horsetails lurked in it, and mosses lurked,
Fragrant herbs lurked under the cedar.
The heroes contemplate the thicket for a double hour
And they also contemplate two double hours.
Eabani opened his mouth and said to Gilgamesh:
“Truly, now is the time for us to show our strength,
Humbaba lives in a beautiful place."
Gilgamesh heard the words of Eabani,
He quickly stands next to his friend:
“Well, let’s enter this thicket and find Humbaba,
In seven garments he clothed his mighty body,
But he prepares for battle and seduces six,
Like a wounded buffalo, he goes into a rage.”
Here Gilgamesh shouts, his voice is full of threat,
He calls the ruler of the forest: “Come out, Humbaba!”
Once he screams, he screams another time and a third time,
But Humbaba does not come to meet him.
Eabani lies down on the ground and indulges in sleep,
And, waking up, he tells Gilgamesh about his dream:
"The dream I had was terrible,
You and I stood on the top of the mountain,
And suddenly the mountain collapsed below us,
And we both rolled off her like bugs
You, beautiful and strong, Lord of Uruk,
I, born into the world in the desert."
Gilgamesh says in response to Eabani:
“My friend, your dream is beautiful for both of us,
Your sleep is precious, it heralds happiness.
This is Humbaba - the mountain that you saw
Now I know that we will defeat Humbaba,
We’ll throw his corpse into a thicket of cedars.”
The dawn flashed, and the heroes began to pray,
Twenty hours later they made sacrifices to the dead,
Thirty hours later they finished their lamentations,
They dug a deep ditch in front of Shamash,
Gilgamesh ascended to the altar of stone
And with a prayer he threw the grain into the ditch:
“Bring, O mountain, a dream to Eabani,
Help him, God, to see the future!”
The prayer was accepted and the rain fell,
And with the rain a dream came to Eabani,
He bowed him down like a ripe ear,
Gilgamesh fell to his knees, holding his friend's head.
He finished his dream in the middle of the night,
He stood up and said to the Lord of Uruk:
“Friend, did you shout at me? Why did I wake up?
Did you touch me? Why am I worried?
Has God passed here, my body is trembling.
My friend, I new dream saw,
The dream I had was completely terrible.
The heavens cried out, the earth lowed,
There was no light, darkness came out,
Lightning flashed, darkness spread,
Death fell like rain on the ground,
She quickly extinguished the flame,
Turned lightning into stinking smoke.
Let’s go down, friend, to the plain and there we’ll decide what to do!”
Gilgamesh opens his mouth and says to Eabani:
Your sleep is precious, it heralds happiness,
I know now that we will destroy Humbaba!”
Now the cedars are shaking, and Humbaba comes out,
Scary, he comes out from under the cedars.
Both heroes rushed, competing in courage,
Both grappled with the ruler of the cedars.
Fate helped Eabani twice,
And Gilgamesh shakes Humbaba's head.
Table six
He washed the weapon, he polished the weapon,
Will spread fragrant curls down your back,
He threw off the dirty, threw the clean over his shoulders,
He placed a tiara on the head and pulled himself into the tunic.
And Lady Ishtar fixed her eyes on him,
She fixed her eyes on the beauty of Gilgamesh:
“Hey, Gilgamesh, from now on you are my lover!
I want to enjoy your lust.
You will be my husband, I will be your wife,
I will lay for you a chariot of lapis lazuli
With wheels of gold and spokes of rubies,
And you will harness huge horses to it;
Enter our monastery, into the incense of cedar,
And when you enter our abode,
Those who sit on thrones will kiss your feet,
All will fall before you, kings, princes and rulers,
The people of the mountains and plains will bring you tribute,
The herds will become fat, the goats will give birth to twins for you;
The mule will perform under a heavy burden,
Your mighty horse will propel your chariot
And be proud that he has no equal.”
Ginlgamesh opens his mouth and speaks,
Ishtar addresses the mistress:
"Keep your wealth for yourself,
Body and clothing decorations,
Save food and drink for yourself,
I eat your food, which is worthy of God,
And your drink is worthy of a ruler.
After all, your love is like a storm,
A door that lets rain and storm through,
The palace where heroes die,
Resin that scorches its owner.
Fur that waters its owner.
Where is the lover you would always love,
Where is the hero you will like in the future?
Here, I’ll tell you about your desires:
To the lover of your first youth, Tammuz,
You have appointed groaning for years and years!
You fell in love with a motley bird, shepherdess,
You beat her, you broke her wings,
And she lives in the thicket and shouts: wings, wings!
You fell in love with a lion, perfect in strength,
You dug traps for him seven and seven times again!
I fell in love with a horse famous in battle,
And she gave him a whip, a bit and spurs,
You gave him seven double hours of running
You judged him to be exhausted and then just get drunk,
Silili, his mother, you judged the sobs!
You loved the shepherd, the keeper of the flock,
He always offered incense before you,
Every day I killed a kid for you,
You beat him up, turned him into a hyena
And his own shepherds are chasing him,
His dogs are tearing his skin!
And your father’s gardener was dear to you, Ishullan,
Bringing you the jewels of the garden,
Every day you decorated your altar with flowers,
You raised your eyes to him and reached out to him:
My Ishullanu, full of strength, let us revel in love,
To feel my nakedness, stretch out your hand.”
And he said to Ishullan: “What do you want from me?
Didn't my mother bake? Have I not eaten?
And I must eat the food of shame and curses,
And the thorns of the bush serve as clothing for me.”
And as soon as you heard these speeches,
You beat him up, turned him into a rat
You told him to stay in his house,
He will not go up to the roof, he will not go down to the field.
And, having loved me, you will also change my image!
Ishtar heard these speeches,
Ishtar got angry and flew to the sky,
Ishtar appeared before her father Anu,
She appeared before Antu's mother and said:
"My father, Gilgamesh just cursed me,
Gilgamesh told my crimes,
My crimes, my spells."
“Truly, you have caused many disasters,
And so Gilgamesh told your crimes
Your crimes, your spells."
“My father, let the bull of heaven be born,
The bull of heaven that will kill Gilgamesh.
If you do not fulfill this request,
I will break the gates that enclose the waters,
I will send all the winds across the earthly space,
And there will be fewer alive than dead.”
Anu opens her mouth, and Lady Ishtar answers:
“What do you want from me?
Can you rest on straw for seven years?
Can you gather ears of grain for seven years?
And have you eaten nothing but roots for seven years?”
Ishtar opens her mouth and answers her father, Anu:
“I will rest on straw for seven years,
I will collect ears of grain for seven years
And for seven years there are only roots,
If the bull of heaven kills Gilgamesh!
Anu listened to her requests, and the heavenly bull appeared,
Anu took him by the tail and threw him into Uruk from the sky.
He crushed a hundred people in his heavy fall,
He rose to his feet and killed five hundred people with his breath,
He saw Eabani and rushed at the hero,
But, grabbing the horns, Eabani bowed his muzzle,
He killed two hundred people in total with his second breath.
His third breath swept over the earth in vain,
Eabani threw him, and he gave up the ghost.
Eabani opened his mouth and said to Gilgamesh:
“My friend, we have defeated the heavenly beast,
Shall we now say that we will have no glory in our posterity?
And Gilgamesh, like a beautiful god,
Mighty and brave lord of Uruk,
Cuts the bull between the horns and the neck,
You cut the bull, takes out the bloody heart,
He places it at the foot of Shamash.
Heroes go to the foot of Shamash
And they sit down like brothers, next to each other.
Ishtar climbed the high wall of Uruk,
She climbed onto the ledge and said her curse:
“Curse Gilgamesh, who clothed me in mourning,
He and his Eabani killed my bull.”
And when Eabani heard this,
He pulled out the bull's leg and threw it in the goddess's face.
“Now I’ll catch you and do the same to you,
I’ll wrap your bull’s tripe all over you.”
Ishtar gathered both harlots and dancers,
Over the bull's leg she raised a lament with them.
And Gilgamesh called the joiners and carpenters together,
So that they admire the length of the bull's horns.
Thirty minutes of azure stones, their mass,
They are two double cubits deep,
And six measures of oil capacity for both.
He dedicates them to his deity Lugal-banda,
He carries them and hangs them in the temple of his lord.
Gilgamesh and Eabani wash their hands in the Euphrates,
And they set off and come to Uruk Square.
The people of Uruk gather, they are contemplated,
And Gilgamesh says to the maids of the house:
“Who is brilliant among the people?
Who is powerful among the people?
Gilgamesh is brilliant among the people,
Gilgamesh is powerful among the people!
People have learned the severity of our anger,
There is no one merry at heart,
I will direct the path of their hearts!”
Gilgamesh held a feast in his house,
People lie down on beds at night and doze off,
Eabani lies down and sees visions,
And he gets up and tells Gilgamesh.
Table seven
Eabani opened his mouth and said to Gilgamesh:
“Friend, why have the great gods gathered in council,
And in an alarming dream I saw a door,
And he touched her, and then he got scared?”
Raises the battle ax Eabani,
Addresses the door as if it were a person:
"The door from the forest, devoid of reason,
Whose mind doesn't exist
I praised your tree for twenty hours of travel in the area,
Even the exalted cedar that I saw in the forest of Humbaba,
Rarity cannot compare with you.
You are seventy-five cubits wide and twenty-four long,
He made you a ruler, he reigned in Nippur.
But if I knew, O door, that you were blocking my way,
That your beauty adorns my prison,
I would pick up an ax and split you into pieces.”
Eabani then turns to his friend, Gilgamesh:
“My friend, with whom we have done so much work,
Decay is everywhere, wherever I look,
My friend, the dream that foreshadowed my destruction is coming true,
The day that the dream told me about is now coming.”
Eabani lies down on her rich bed
And she doesn’t get up for a day, or a second, or a third,
Day four, and five, sixth, and seventh, and eighth, and ninth,
Eabani's illness leaves him in bed for all twelve days.
He then calls Gilgamesh and says to his wonderful friend:
“My friend, some fierce god cursed me,
Like the one who lost his courage in battle.
I'm afraid of the fight and won't go out into the field,
My friend, the one who is afraid is cursed!
Table eight
As the dawn began to shine a little, Eabani said to Gilgamesh:
“Death has conquered me, I am now powerless.
The gods love you and will make you strong,
All the maidens of Uruk will proclaim your glory,
But you won’t escape your destiny, beautiful!
Day and night you worked, you entered the cedar thicket,
Reigned in blessed Uruk, and they gave you honor,
How many spaces have we covered, both flat and mountainous?
And I’m tired, and I’m lying down, and I won’t get up again.
Cover me with magnificent clothes like your mother wears,
Moisten my curls with cedar oil,
The one under whom Humbaba died from our anger,
He who protects the animals of the desert,
The one who played by the water with the herd,
He will never sit next to you,
He will never drink water in the Euphrates,
The blessed one will never enter Uruk!”
And Gilgamesh wept over his friend:
"Eabani, my friend, my brother, desert panther,
We wandered together, climbed mountains together,
They defeated Humbaba, the guardian of the cedar thicket,
And the heavenly bull was killed;
What kind of sleep has taken possession of you now,
Why are you darkened and don’t listen to me!”
But Eabani didn’t look up at his friend,
Gilgamesh touched his heart, and his heart did not beat.
Then he fell on his friend as if on a bride,
Like a roaring lion, he rushed at his friend,
Like a lioness whose cub has been killed,
He grabbed his motionless body,
He tore his clothes, shed copious tears,
He threw off the royal signs, mourning his death.
For six days and six nights Gilgamesh stayed with Eabani,
And when the dawn shone, the people of Uruk gathered to him
And they said to the lord, they said to Gilgamesh:
"You have defeated Humbaba, the keeper of the cedars,
You killed lions in mountain gorges,
He also killed the bull that came down from the sky.
Why is your power lost, why is your gaze lowered,
The heart beats so fast, wrinkles cut across the forehead,
The chest is filled with sorrow,
And your face is similar to the face of one leaving on a long journey,
Pain, sadness and anxiety changed him,
Why are you running into a deserted field?
And Gilgamesh said and answered the people of Uruk:
"Eabani, my friend, my brother, desert panther,
Together with whom we saw so many hardships,
The friend with whom we killed lions,
They killed the bull that came down from the sky,
They defeated Humbaba, the guardian of the cedar,
Now his fate has been fulfilled.
For six days and nights I cried over them
Until the day he was lowered into his grave,
And now I’m afraid of death, and of God in a deserted field,
My friend’s dying word weighs heavily on me.
How, oh, how will I be consoled? How, oh how will I pay?
My beloved friend is now like dirt,
And will I not lie down like him, so as not to rise up forever?
Table nine
Gilgamesh by Eabani, his friend,
He cries bitterly and runs into the desert:
"I will die! Am I not the same as Eabani?
My chest is filled with sorrow,
I'm afraid of death, and to God, I'm running away!
To the power of Ut-napishtim, son of Ubar-Tutu,
I have taken the path, I am walking hastily.
At night I came to the mountain gorges,
I saw Lviv, and now I’m scared!
I will raise my head and call upon the great Sin,
And my prayers will ascend to the assembly of the gods:
“Gods, I pray you, save me, save me!”
He lay down on the ground and was frightened by a terrible dream.
He raised his head and again called out to the great Sin,
And to Ishtar, the heavenly harlot, his prayers were raised.
The mountain was called Mashu,
And when he approached Mash,
Those who watched the sunny exit and return every day -
The vault of heaven touched their heads,
And below their chests reached hell, -
Scorpio people kept the doors,
Their appearance was death, and their gazes were horror,
Their terrible brilliance overturned mountains!
When they left and when they returned, they glared at the sun.
He saw them, Gilgamesh, and out of fear
And his face darkened with anxiety.
He gathered his thoughts and bowed before them.
The scorpion man shouted to his wife:
“The one who comes to us, his body is like the body of a god.”
The Scorpio woman answers her husband:
“He is two-thirds God, only one-third man.”
Gilgamesh says to the scorpion man:
“Do you know where Ut-napishtim, my father, lives,
He who grew up in the assembly of the gods and gained eternal life?
The scorpion man opens his mouth and says to Gilgamesh:
“There is no one, Gilgamesh, who would pass such a road,
There is no one who could pass through this mountain.
The darkness there is deep and there is no light there
Neither when the sun goes out, nor when it returns.
But go, Gilgamesh, do not tarry at the mountain gates,
May the gods keep you healthy and safe!”
The scorpion man finished, Gilgamesh entered the cave,
On the night road of the sun he passes a double hour,
The darkness is deep there, and there is no light there. He sees nothing behind him.
It's eight o'clock and the north wind is blowing,
Ten o'clock goes by, goes out towards the sun,
At the twelfth hour the radiance spread.
He saw the trees of the gods and directed the path towards them,
The apple tree bends under the fruits,
The grapes hang, which are gratifying to see,
The tree of paradise grew on the azure stone,
And on it the fruits are perfect to look at.
Among them are emeralds, rubies, yachts,
And a cat's eye and a moonstone.
Gilgamesh entered the blessed grove,
He looked up at the tree of paradise.
Table ten
Siduri Sabean sits on the throne of the sea,
She sits, the gods are favorable to her,
They gave her a necklace, they gave her a belt,
It is completed with a veil and hidden with a veil.
Gilgamesh rushed like a wild buffalo,
Shrouded in skin, his body is the body of a god,
The chest is filled with sorrow,
His face is similar to the face of someone leaving on a long journey.
The Sabaean woman sees him from afar,
He speaks in his heart, convinces himself:
“Perhaps the one who comes is a destroyer.
Where did he come to my domain from?
The Sabaean woman saw him and closed the door,
She closed the doors and bolted them.
Gilgamesh planned to enter these doors,
He raised his head, unhooked the ax,
Says the following word to the Sabaean woman:
“What did you see? You closed the doors!
I’ll knock down the doors and break the bolt.”
The Sabaean woman says to Gilgamesh:
“Why is your heart beating, your gaze downcast,
Why are you running across the field?
Gilgamesh addresses the Sabaean woman with a word:
Eabani, my brother, desert panther,
Now his fate has been fulfilled,
Am I not the same? Will the same thing happen to me?
Ever since I wandered as a bird of the desert,
Maybe there are fewer stars in the sky,
For so many long years I was asleep.
May I see the sun, be saturated with light,
From the abundant light there is darkness,
May the dead see the radiance of the sun!
Show me, Sabaean, the way to Ut-napishtim,
What is its sign, tell me this sign;
If possible, I will sail across the sea,
If it’s not possible, I’ll go to the field.
The Sabaean woman says to Gilgamesh:
“There is no way to get there, Gilgamesh,
No one has sailed across the sea since ancient times;
Shamash did it, and no one will dare again.
The transition is difficult, the road is difficult,
Deep are the waters of death that block the approaches!
Where will you, Gilgamesh, cross the sea?
What will you do when you enter the waters of death?
There is, Gilgamesh, Ur-Ea, the boatman of Ut-napishtim,
With them are the “brothers of the stones”, in the forest he collects herbs,
Let him see your face!
If you can, swim with them; You can’t, come back!
But why, Gilgamesh, do you wander so much?
You won't find the immortality you want!
When the human race was created by the gods,
They ordered death to the human race
And they saved life in their hands.
You, Gilgamesh, fill your stomach,
Have fun both day and night,
Have a holiday every day
Be happy and cheerful every day,
May your robes be magnificent,
The head is anointed, the body is washed,
Admire the child who grabs your hand
Let your wife fall to your chest!”
Gilgamesh heard the Sabaean word,
He hung his ax and went ashore,
Ur-Ea there was a story, the boatman Ut-papishtim,
Ur-Ea looks into his eyes,
Ask Gilgamesh:
What is your name? Tell it to me!
I am Ur-Ea, the boatman of Ut-napishtim!
Gilgamesh opens his mouth and answers:
"I am Gilgamesh! That's my name!
From the home of the gods I came here
A long way from the sunrise.
And now, Ur-Ea, when I see your face,
Show me the way to the hermit Ut-napishtim."
The boatman Ur-Ea answers Gilgamesh as follows:
Your hands, Gilgamesh, have accomplished a lot,
“The Stone Brothers” have been defeated by you;
Raise your axe, Gilgamesh,
Cut out sixty cubits of poles,
Rip off the bark from them and put them on the shore.”
And when Gilgamesh did this,
He and Ur-Ea boarded the ship,
The ship was pushed onto the waves and set off.
Their journey is for a month. On the third day we looked:
Ur-Ea entered the waters of death.
Ur-Ea says to Gilgamesh:
“Gilgamesh, move ahead, work as a pole,
May your hands not touch the waters of death!”
Gilgamesh broke the pole, one, and the second, and the third,
He broke a hundred and twenty poles in all,
Gilgamesh took off his clothes,
I erected the mast with my own hands.
Ut-napishtim looks from afar,
Speaks in his heart, pronounces the word,
He holds advice to himself:
“Why are the ship’s poles broken?
Someone beyond my control is standing on the ship.
He's not quite a man on the right side,
I look and see that he’s not entirely human!”
“What happened to your power? Why is your gaze lowered?
Why is your heart beating and wrinkles appearing on your forehead?
Gilgamesh answers Ut-napishtim:
“I said - I will see Ut-napishtim, about whom there is glory,
And I rose and went through all the countries,
I crossed difficult mountains,
Swam across all the depths of the sea,
No good wind blew in my face,
I plunged myself into poverty, filled my limbs with pain,
I did not enter the house of the Sabaean woman, my clothes were rotten!
Gorge bird, lion and jackal, deer and panther
They served as food for me, their skins pleased my heart.
Let the one who is satisfied lock the doors,
Joy flew away from me, I reached the border of sorrow.”
Ut-napishtim says to Gilgamesh:
“Are we building houses forever? Are we working forever?
Do brothers part with each other forever?
Does hatred enter the heart forever?
Do rivers forever flood the plains?
Have the birds seen the sun forever?
Since ancient times there has been no immortality on earth,
The dead and the sleeping are similar to each other,
Both do not know the face of death.
Master and servant are equal before her,
The Anunnaki, the great gods, hide it,
Mametu, mistress of fate, rules with them,
Life or death they indicate
They don’t let you guess the hour of death.”
Table eleven
“Oh Ut-write, I contemplate you,
Your appearance is not scary, you are like me,
You are like me, you are not different from me.
Your heart is fit to laugh in battle
Like everyone else, when you sleep, you lie on your back!
Why are you so exalted, have you gained life from the assembly of immortals?”
Ut-napishtim says to Gilgamesh:
I will reveal to you, Gilgamesh, a secret word,
I will tell you the secret of the gods:
Shurippak, the city you know
which stands near the Euphrates,
An ancient city, the gods live in it,
And their hearts, the great gods, pushed them to make the flood.
Among them was their father, Anu,
Bel warrior, their adviser,
Eniugi, their chief,
And Ninib, their messenger,
Ea the wisest sat with them;
He repeated their words to the reed hedge:
“Hedge, hedge! Fence, fence!
Listen, hedge! Understand, fence!
The man Shurippaka, son of Ubar-Tutu,
Destroy your house, build a ship,
Leave your wealth, think about life,
Hate riches for life's sake
Immerse the seeds of all life into the interior of the vessel.
Let them be measured, its dimensions,
The dimensions of the ship you will build are
Let width and length answer each other!
Then only you can lower it into the sea!”
I understood and said to Ea, my master:
"Oh my lord, everything you said
I listened with my heart and will do everything,
But what will I tell the crowd and the elders?”
He opened his mouth and answered me,
He answered his servant like this:
This is what you will tell the crowd and the elders:
- I am hated by Bel and will not live in your city
I won’t put my feet on Bel’s ground,
I will go down to the ocean, I will live with Ea, my master.
And he will send abundance of water upon you,
Prey birds and fish prey,
He will send unclean rain on you. —
As soon as the morning dawned, I began to work,
On the fifth day I finished the drawings:
The walls must be one hundred and twenty cubits long,
And the roof volume is also one hundred and twenty,
I outlined the outlines and drew them afterwards;
I covered the ship with planking six times,
I divided its roof into seven parts,
His insides were divided into nine,
He placed spacers in the middle,
I arranged the steering wheel and everything that is needed,
I poured six measures of resin into the bottom,
I poured three measures of tar into the bottom;
Bearers of three measures of oil:
I left one measure for the sacred sacrifice,
The boatman hid the other two measures.
I slaughtered bulls for the people,
Every day I killed a goat,
They brought me berry juice, wine and butter
I gave him water like plain water;
I arranged a holiday, like on New Year's Day,
He opened the pantries and took out the precious myrrh.
Before sunset the ship was finished,
The builders brought a mast for the ship.
I loaded everything I had onto it,
I loaded everything I had in silver onto it,
All that I had in gold I loaded onto it,
All that I had I loaded, all the seed of life
I imprisoned myself in the interior of the ship; relatives and family,
The cattle of the field and the beasts of the field, I loaded them all.
Shamash appointed an hour for me:
- In the evening of darkness the ruler will send unclean waters,
Enter the interior of the ship and slam the door.
- The destined hour has come:
In the evening of darkness the ruler shed unclean waters;
I looked at the images of the day
And I was scared of this weather,
He entered the ship and slammed the doors;
To steer the ship, the boatman Puzur-Belu
I entrusted the construction with everything loaded.
As soon as the dawn broke,
A black cloud rose from the depths of the sky,
Adad growled inside her,
Nabu and the Tsar stepped forward;
The messengers, they walked through the mountain and the field;
Nergal knocked over the mast.
He is coming, Ninib, he is leading the battle;
The Anunnaki brought the torches,
With their lights they illuminate the earth.
The roar of Adad filled the sky,
Everything that was brilliant turns into darkness.
Brother doesn't see brother anymore
People in the sky cannot recognize each other,
The gods are afraid of the flood
They run away, they ascend to the sky of Anu.
There they sit down like dogs, lying on their camps.
Ishtar calls out loudly like a charwoman,
With a wondrous voice the queen of the gods exclaims:
"Let that day crumble into dust,
Laziness, when I said something evil before the gods,
Because I said something evil before the gods,
To destroy people and bring about a flood.
Is it for this reason that I cherished my people?
So that, like a brood of fish, they fill the sea?
Because of the Anunnaki, the gods weep with her,
The gods are depressed and sit in tears,
Their lips are compressed and their body trembles.
For six days, six nights the wind and water roam, a hurricane rules the earth.
At the beginning of the seventh day the hurricane subsides,
He who fought like an army;
The sea calmed down, the wind calmed down, the flood stopped.
I looked at the sea: the voice was not heard,
All humanity has become dirt,
There was a swamp above the rooftops!
I opened the window, the day illuminated my cheek,
I went crazy, I sat and cried,
Tears streamed down my cheek.
I looked at the world, at the expanse of the sea,
Twelve days' journey away an island was visible,
A ship is approaching Mount Nizir,
Mount Nizir does not allow ships away from it,
The day, and the second, and the third does not let him in,
The fourth, fifth, sixth day he won’t let him in.
The seventh day caught fire,
I took the dove and let it out,
The dove flew away and returned,
I took the swallow and let it out,
The swallow flew away and returned,
As if she couldn’t find a place for herself, she returned.
I took the crow and let it out,
The raven rushed off, he saw the damage to the water:
He eats, he flutters, he croaks, he doesn’t want to come back.
I left it to the four winds, I poured out a libation,
I placed the victim on a mountain top.
I placed fourteen sacrificial urns,
Myrtle, cedar and reeds were spread under them.
The gods smelled it
The gods smelled a good smell,
The gods flocked like flies over those making sacrifices.
Only the queen of the gods rushed in,
She offered the jewelry that Anu had made for her:
"0 gods standing here, how I will not forget my necklace of lapis lazuli,
I won’t forget these days either, I will always remember them!
Let the gods approach the victim
But let Bel not approach the victim
Because he did not think twice, he caused a flood,
He has ordained death for my people.”
Only God Bel came rushing,
He saw the ship, Bel, and became angry,
Filled with anger against Igigi:
“Has any mortal escaped?
A person should not live among destruction!”
Ninib opens his mouth,
He says to the hero Bel:
“Who, besides Ea, is the creator of creation?
“Ea alone knows the whole matter.”
He opens his mouth,
He says to the hero Bel:
“You, a sage among the gods, a warrior,
Why didn't you realize that you caused a flood?
Place the sin on the sinner,
Place the blame on the culprit!
But retreat before he is destroyed!
Why did you cause the flood?
Let the lion come and devour people!
Why did you cause the flood?
Let the leopard come and devour people!
Why did you cause the flood?
Let famine come and devastate the land!
Why did you cause the flood?
Let the plague come and devastate the earth!
I did not reveal the secret of the great gods to people,
Wise one, I sent them a dream, and the dream told them a secret.”
The gods then asked Bel for advice;
Bel boarded the ship
He took me by the hand and lifted me high;
And he lifted up my wife and placed us side by side;
He touched our faces, stood between us, and blessed us:
“Before Ut-napishtim were mortals,
Now both he and his wife are like us, immortals:
Let him live, Ut-napishtim, at the mouths of rivers far away!
They took me and settled me at the mouths of rivers.
And you, Gilgamesh, who of the gods will introduce you into their assembly,
So that you can find the immortality you are looking for?
Here! Don’t lie down for six days, seven nights, try!”
As soon as Gilgamesh fell to the ground,
Sleep blew over him like a storm.
Ut-napishtim says to his wife:
“Do you see the strong one who wants immortality?
Sleep blew over him like a storm!”
The wife says to the hermit, Ut-napishtim:
“Touch him, let the man awaken immediately
And the way he came, he will return unharmed!
He will return home through the big gate from where he came out!”
Ut-napishtim says to his wife:
“Humanity is evil and rewards good with evil!
But bake him some bread and place it at his bedside!”
And while he slept on the deck of the ship,
She baked some bread and placed it at his bedside.
And while he was sleeping, knowledge told him:
“His first bread is leavened,
The second one is seasoned, the third one is seasoned,
The fourth one was fried, it turned white,
The fifth has become old,
Sixth brew,
Seventh!..." He touched him, the man woke up immediately!
Gilgamesh says to the hermit Ut-napishtim:
“I lay motionless! They spread sleep over me!
Suddenly you touched me and I woke up.”
Ut-napishtim says to Gilgamesh:
“Count, Gilgamesh, count your loaves!
Let the quality of the bread be known to you!”
Gilgamesh says to Ut-napishtim:
“What, what will I do, Ut-write? Where will I go?
I, whose joys the thief stole,
I, in whose bedroom lies destruction?
Ut-napishtim turned to Ur-Ea the boatman.
“Ur-Ea, let the sea rejoice with you!
Let him who wanders along the shore see!
The man you came before
Whose body is covered with dirty clothes
And whose beauty is covered by skins,
Take him, Ur-Ea, and take him to the bathhouse,
Let him wash his clothes in water until they are clean.
Let him throw off the skins from his shoulders, and let them be carried away by the sea,
Let his marvelous body arouse envy in the beholder,
Let it become new, his head bandage,
Let him be covered with a dress, with unshameful clothing!
Until the day he arrives in his city,
Until the day he finishes his journey,
His dress will not wear out, but will remain new.”
Gilgamesh and Ur-Ea boarded the ship,
They pushed the ship into the waves and sailed away.
His wife said this to the hermit Ut-napishtim:
"Gilgamesh traveled, he was tired, weary,
What will you give him when he returns?
Gilgamesh heard and raised the pole,
He brings the ship to the shore.
Ut-napishtim says to Gilgamesh:
“To you, Gilgamesh, I will reveal a secret word,
I will tell you the sacred word:
Do you see a plant on the ocean floor?
Its thorn, like a thorn, will pierce your hand,
If your hand can reach this plant.”
As soon as Gilgamesh heard this,
He tied heavy stones to his feet,
And they plunged him into the ocean.
He took the plant, it pierced his hand,
Then he untied the heavy stones
And he went upstairs with his prey.
Gilgamesh addressed Ur-Ea:
“Ur-Ea, this plant is very famous,
Because of him, a person receives the breath of life.
I will take it to strong Uruk, divide it among my fellow citizens,
His name is “the old man becomes young.”
I will eat it in Uruk and become a young man.”
Thirty hours had passed, they finished lamenting;
Gilgamesh saw a well of cold water,
He went down into it and washed himself with water.
The snake smelled the plant,
She crawled up and took away the plant.
Gilgamesh returned, shouted a curse,
Then he sat down and cried;
Tears are rolling down his cheek,
He says to the boatman Ur-Ea:
“For whom, O Ur-Ea, did my hands endure fatigue?
For whom did I waste the blood from my heart?
After all, I did not perform feats for myself,
I performed feats for the lions of the desert,
And my plant is swayed by the waves.
When I came ashore,
I saw a sacred sign: it’s time to land,
It’s time to leave the ship offshore.”
Twenty hours passed, they made a sacrifice to the dead,
Thirty hours have passed, they finished lamenting,
And then they saw blessed Uruk.
Gilgamesh addressed the boatman Ur-Ea:
“Ur-Ea, go for a walk on the wall of Uruk!
Contemplate the foundation, look at the masonry, isn’t the masonry beautiful?
Or was it not the seven wise men who laid the foundation here?
One sar of the city, one of the garden, one ruins of the temple of the goddess -
Three saras, and I’ll take the wreckage of Uruk and finish it.”
Table twelve
Gilgamesh opens his mouth, Ur-Ea asks:
“How can I descend into the abode of darkness,
How can I see my Eabani?
Ur-Ea says to Gilgamesh:
"O Gilgamesh, if you want to see Eabani,
Eabani, who lives in the kingdom of the dead,
Take off your clean dress, put on a dirty dress,
It’s as if you were a citizen in Ninazu’s palace!
Do not anoint yourself with incense oil from the urn:
When you hear the smell, the shadows will rush towards you!
Do not place your bow on the ground:
All those struck by the bow will surround you!
Do not hold the royal scepter in your hand:
The shadows will declare you a prisoner!
Let no shoes touch your feet:
Don't make any noise while walking on the ground!
Don't kiss your wife, whom you love,
And don’t beat your wife, whom you hate!
Don't kiss the child you love
And don't hit your child whom you hate!
Then you will hear the complaint of the earth!
Her chest doesn’t look like an urn!”
Three days have passed, and Gilgamesh breaks the law,
He kisses the wife he loves,
Hit a child he hates.
He cannot hear the complaint of the earth:
She who rests, she who rests, mother Ninazu, she who rests,
Her shiny thighs are not covered with clothes,
Her chest doesn't look like an urn.
Eabani cannot go to earth.
Namtaru did not take him, misfortune did not take him, the earth did not let him in,
Nergal's merciless guard did not take him, the earth does not let him in,
He didn’t fall at the place of the battle; the earth won’t let him in.
Ninsun cries for his servant Eabani,
She hurriedly comes to Bel's house alone,
Bel didn’t say a word to come to Sin,
Sin did not say a word, comes to Ea,
The father says to Nergal:
“Strong Nergal, open the hole of hell,
Let the shadow of Eabani come to his brother!
Strong Nergal listens to the command of Ea,
He opens the hole of hell,
And from there, like a breath, the shadow of Eabani emerges.
Gilgamesh speaks to his friend, speaks to Eabani:
"Tell me, my friend, tell me, my friend,
Tell me the law of the land that you know!” —
“I won’t tell, my friend, I won’t tell!
If the law of the earth had told me,
Then you would sit down and cry!” —
"What? Let me sit down and pay!
Tell me the law of the land that you know.” —
“The head that you touched and which you rejoiced in your heart,
Like old clothes, the worm devours them!
The breast that you touched and which you rejoiced in your heart,
It's like an old bag, it's full of dust!
My whole body is like dust!” —
“Have you seen the one who died the death of iron?” - "Saw!
He lies on the bed, drinks clear water.” —
“Did you see the one who was killed in battle?” —
"Saw! His mother and father are holding his head, his wife is bending over him.” —
Did you see the one whose body was thrown into the field? - "Saw!
His shadow finds no rest in the earth.” —
“Have you seen the one whose spirit no one cares about?” —
"Saw! He eats leftovers in pots and scraps from the street.”