Penguin Classics Epic Of Gilgamesh [Paperback]

This was my first reading of the Gilgamesh epic and what surprised me most about this story was its humanistic focus, especially considering that most of the literature at that time focused on the gods and how they created the universe and mankind. We learn about the superhuman heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu, who openly spited the gods by performing deeds that ran counter to their interests. After Enkidu dies, however, Gilgamesh gets a reality check and attempts to avoid a similar fate by searching for the secret of immortality. Instead, he only discovers that even a powerful king like himself will never be able to escape death. But he also learns that instead of performing silly quests like searching for immortality, Gilgamesh should "seize the day" and actively use his time among the living to perform actions that will make a king great to his people. In this way, he will be able to ensure that his name lives on among future generations. Now this is great literature!

As other reviewers have commented, Andrew George's translation of the Gilgamesh epic is very approachable and makes for very entertaining reading, even for the general reader (like me) who is not a serious student of ancient history. However, if you want to study the history of the Western literary canon, you have to start here in Mesopotamia.

This is a 5,000 year old poem, the first traces of which were discovered in 1839 by a young Englishman, Austen Layard, who was
intent upon working in Ceylon but on the way there he and a friend stopped at Nineveh, on the Tigris River, and began an excavation hoping to find inscriptions. They
found a library of clay tablets! What was to have been a few days excavation became
years. He subsequently brought back to London thousands of clay tablets with their wedge shaped cuneiforms, which were eventually
deciphered, including part of The Epic of Gilgamesh.

New finds in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by others, and their laborious interpretation followed. One of the results was this ancient epic poem, which contains,
among other things, one of the earliest tales of a great deluge and flood which is eerily similar to the flood described in the Hebrew Bible. The perpetrators of the flood,
though, were not the solitary God of the Hebrews, but one of the multiple Gods worshipped in those days, Enlil, god of earth, wind and air, and counselor to the other
Gods, of which there were a multitude.

Gilgamesh was the king of Uruk, a great city in Mesopotamia (present day Iraq.) Although blessed with remarkable beauty ("a perfect body") and great strength, he was
but two-thirds god and one third mortal--which does present some serious questions! The poem was his epic, and there was indeed an historical figure of the same
name.

This is an interesting artifact for its insight into human history, if nothing else. This particular translation is more bland in the explicit ... references, etc., than others,
but it faithfully retains the story.

A valuable piece of literature.

Although very old, his story is forever new. Gilgamesh is - as stated in the introduction - emblematic of our concern with mortality, the struggle for knowledge and escape from the common lot of man. As a mortal, Gilgamesh is condemned to death, but he doesn't take his fate lying down. So, like all good mythologies, he sets out on a great adventure to rectify his problem, encountering gods, monsters and his best friend, Enkidu, the "savage man", who is at home with the animals, until enticed by the civilized Gilgamesh with a woman - something he never saw before. Perhaps a symbol of man's complications when leaving his natural state.

Most interestingly Gilgamesh reaches "where the sun rises" to meet Upnapishtim. Upnapishtim is by now famous for saving "the seed of all living creatures" on a boat, whose dimensions are given by a rogue god friendly to man, all before a great worldwide flood sent by other capricious gods because humans were making too much noise, keeping the gods from sleep. (That Noah mimics the Upnapishtim myth should be no surprise as Sumer influenced the Levant for thousands of years after its passing.)

When Enkidu dies Gilgamesh morns, "How can I rest when Enkidu, whom I love is dust and I too shall die and be laid in the earth forever." In the end Gilgamesh is "mocked by fate, lost opportunities, wasted hopes and swallowed by death". Apparently, no matter how many gods you have - and the Sumerians had hundreds, one even for the pick-axe - death remains a mystery and confidence of reward a hunch.

A wonderful journey into the mind of humanities first civilization, greater understanding of scriptures to follow and a clear signal that the deepest concerns of our human condition remain unaltered no matter where or when.