Tonight
we must begin with the first story
the myth written before all myths
the myth that we have the oldest record of
the story
of Gilgamesh
so when I say Gilga, you say Mesh
Gilga ?
Gi.. oh no ok we'll work on that
at the dawning of civilizations
there was a great king in the ancient city of Uruk
in the land of Sumer
which will be later be known
as Babylon
he was so mighty
none could stand before him
for he was 2/3 god
and 1/3 man
I don't quite know how the maths
plays out there but that's besides the point
his name was Gilgamesh
and wherever he went he slew his enemies
and cast them down before him
but his might
made him a tyrant.
Bored
he would force young men of Uruk
into contests of endurance until they dropped from exhaustion,
and of the women, he claimed their marriage bed.
No daughter of Uruk was safe from his lust.
So the people of Uruk cried out to the gods,
and the gods heard them, and conferred on what to do.
At last, they decided to fashion
a being to match Gilgamesh's strength.
so the two of them might exist as
equals, and exhaust Gilgamesh's boundless energy,
and so
they fashioned a wild man
out of water and clay
They placed him in the wilderness
and named him
Enkidu.
His body was matted with hair like an animal's,
and the hair on his head grew thick like barley
and was long as could be.
He ate grass with the beasts of the wild, and cavoided with the
Gazelles at the watering hole. Like this
He was happy. But then one day
a trapper came to the watering hole, and
and saw Enkidu dancing with the beast and was afraid,
because he could see the savage strength in Enkidu.
And so he came back again and again to observe him and finally realized
This was the man who had been troubling him.
Because for some time now,
The trapper had been presented with a mystery.
He would dig pits to catch the animals and they would get filled in
He would lay snares for the beast
and they would get taken apart, so
he could not catch any game.
Now, though, he knew that it was Enkidu
saving the animals
The trapper went to his father to ask for advice,
and his father told him
to get the priestess Shamhat
to seduce this wild man.
So the trapper traveled to Uruk,
to ask Gilgamesh for priestess' aid
Gilgamesh agreed,
and Shamhat accompanied the trapper
back to Enkidu's watering hole.
When Enkidu saw Shamhat, he was smitten with her charms,
and for 6 days and 7 nights,
they made love. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
At last, Enkidu turned back to his herd,
but they rejected him, for he had traded the ways of
the wild for the ways of humankind. And so
he returned to Shamhat, and she spoke
kindly to him,
and offered to take him back to Uruk
where he could be with other people
but on the way, Shamhat took him to a shepherd's camp,
and there, set before him, were bread and ale.
But Enkidu knew not how to eat bread
or drink from a cup, and so at the camp, they taught him
of the human things. And their barber combed his hair,
put oils in it,
and he, for the first time, wore clothes,
and took up arms.
And he took over the watch for the shepherds,
fighting off wolves and lions who came too near.
Then, one day, he was invited to a wedding,
and he asked what such a thing was.
And as the shepherds explained to him,
they also told him of Gilgamesh,
and how it was his custom to sleep with the bride
before the husband.
Enkidu was appalled by this,
so he strode off to Uruk,
to change this custom his way.
meanwhile
Gilgamesh walked down the streets of Uruk,
but when he got to the door of the marriage house, he found that
someone had the impudence to stick their foot out
and block his way.
Looking up, he saw Enkidu standing before him.
Without a word, they lunged at each other.
They wrestled in the street
their titanic frames making the houses
shake as they threw one another into walls,
and pummel each other into buildings.
After a long battle,
exhausted, they each rolled aside,
and lay panting in the street.
But GIlgamesh recovered first, and offered a hand to Enkidu
to help him up.
His anger had cooled. He was impressed by Enkidu's strength,
and as Enkidu stood,
Gilgamesh offered him not just his hand, but his friendship.
They swore friendship to one another,
which reads to me that the power of friendship is
actually enough to stop a brutal dictator.
Thanks, mythology!
Soon,
Gilgamesh proposed to his friend an adventure he long had in mind
The fierce giant Humbaba,
whose words are fire and whose breath is death,
stalks the forest of cedars,
where the gods dwell.
So to his newfound friend,
Gilgamesh said,
"Dude, to immortalize our names and make them known,
wherever people linger,
we should totally slay this demon! *laughs*"
But Enkidu had known Humbaba from his days in the wild
and said,
"Why would you wanna do such a thing ?
he can hear for, like, like sixty leagues,
and his force is like the deluge.
When warriors
wanna refer to an unwinnable battle
they call it a 'Humbaba's ambush', man!"
but Gilgamesh
was not swayed.
He replied
"Like all things mortal,
our days are numbered.
so,
let us write our epic upon
the SKY! *laughs*
And with that,
he grabbed his new friend's hand,
and dragged him into the forge,
where together, they cast great axes of war,
and daggers sharp and swift.
At last, Gilgamesh gathered the people of Uruk
and proposed to them what he was to do.
And the wisest of them cried out and implored him not to go.
Because remember, he's totally a good dude now, and
everybody loves him now, because of friendship!
Humbaba
so
would not Gilgamesh
for he
had a demon to kill
bro