Enkidu

Enkidu appears in Sumerian mythology as a mythical wild-man raised by animals; his beast-like ways are finally tamed by a courtesan named Shamhat. Later he adventures with Gilgamesh until his death in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

First Tablet

Enkidu is the quintessential savage man in the beginning of the epic. He roams around with the beasts of the wilderness. He protected the animals, destorying various traps, and lurked around the watering holes to protect the game. These action were much to the chagrin of the trapper. A trapper goes to King Gilgamesh to ask for help. Gilgamesh offers the advice "Trapper, go back, take with you a harlot, a child of pleasure...he will embrace her and the game of the wilderness will surely reject him." The trapper does what he is told, and hire Shamhat to corrupt the wild man. Enkidu is immediately taken with the harlot and beds her. After six days, Enkidu is stained by the harlot in the eyes of the animals, and no longer have a bond with him. After the abandonment of his animal brethren, Enkidu is introduced to semi-nomaditic way of life. He works for the trapper and shephers, hunting and killing the animals he once served. Soon he grows restless, looking for a greater challenge.

Shamhat tells of a great king in the city Uruk and that he would be a worthy challenge to Enkidu. Gilgamesh, planning on sleeping with a bride, is instead surprised by Enkidu. They wrestle fiercely for sometime, suddenly Gilgamesh gains the upper hand and throws Enkidu to the ground. Knowing his defeat, Enkidu praises Gilgamesh and both swear a bond of friendship.

Enkidu later in the Epic of Gilgamesh

Enkidu assists Gilgamesh in his fight against Humbaba, the monster of the Cedar forest, then killed by the gods for slaying the "Bull of Heaven". The reason begin that the goddess Ishtar demand that the pair should pay for its destruction. Shamash argued the gods to spare both of them, but could only save Gilgamesh. The gods pass judgment that Enkidu had no "reason" to fight the Bull and was interfering with the will of the gods. Enkidu then is struck by a serve illness, and near death has visions of the gloomy afterlife. Before he actually dies he curse the trapper and the harlot for leading him down this doomed path.

Gilgamesh mourns over the body of Enkidu for several desperate days, and then allows his friend to be buried after a maggot falls out of Enkidu's nose. Gilgamesh's close observation of rigor mortis and the slow decomposition of Enkidu's body provides the hero with the impetus for his quest for eternal life, and his visit to Utnapishtim.

There is another non-canonical tablet in where Enkidu journeys into the underworld, but many scholars consider the tablet to be a sequel or add-on to the original epic.

Historical Analysis

In many ways, Enkidu's transformation may represent the seductive power of the Mesopotamian city-states. His origins upon the steppe, and his life as a companion of the wild beast, suggests the hunter-gathers living on the fringes of the territory of southern Iraq's early farmers. His subsequent transformation, and acceptance of life in Uruk, becomes a mythologized account of their slow approach to, and assimilation within, the boundaries of early agricultural civilization.

Literary Analysis

Enkidu acts as a foil to Gilgamesh, and a sidekick in other stories. The author is expressing to reader the main character of the epic is Gilgamesh and not Enkidu. Enkidu acts a form of balance and dialogue opportunity for Gilgamesh.

Themes of Existentialism

Both character suffer ennui, although primarly in Gilgamesh. He and Enkidu journey to prove that they just not mere mortals, but god-men. This leads to the conflict involving the other diety who believe the pair have over stepped there bounds.

Enkidu, at the moment of his death and the vision of the afterlife, recates wishing he had never slept with Shamhat and ever adventuring with Gilgamesh. This could be interperted as a form of angst.

Bibliography

The Epic of Gilgamesh, Foster, Benjamin R. trans. & edit. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. ISBN 0–393–97516–9

See also

• Epic of Gilgamesh