EPIC KIDS SCARED AFTER READING FREE

At last Gilgamesh finds Utnapishtim and hears from him the story of the great flood that destroyed all of humanity except for him and his wife. This is the order that the gods have decreed.īut until the end comes, enjoy your life,īut the king will not listen. Humans are born, they live, then they die, She urges him to give up his futile quest for eternal life: On his long journey through the wilderness, Gilgamesh meets many characters who help him on his way, from scorpion beings who guard the passageway of the sun under the earth to the tavern-keeper Shiduri on the shores of the Sea of Death. If only he can learn the secret of Utnapishtim, he too might live forever. Overcome with grief and helpless before the inevitability of his own death, Gilgamesh abandons Uruk and begins a search for Utnapishtim, the man who survived the great flood and was granted immortality by the gods. The king who could conquer men and monsters could not stop his friend from perishing. His magnificent robes as though they were cursed. Like a lioness whose cubs are trapped in a pit, He paced in front of him, back and forth, Like an eagle Gilgamesh circled around him, Then he veiled Enkidu’s face like a bride’s. Gilgamesh watches helplessly as Enkidu passes into death: Gilgamesh and Enkidu finally kill the beast, but this prompts a council of the gods to declare that Enkidu must die in retribution. Hell hath no fury like a goddess scorned, so she appeals to her father to send the violent Bull of Heaven to wreak destruction on Uruk as punishment for Gilgamesh’s rejection of her. She seeks Gilgamesh as her husband, but is rejected by the king as an unreliable mate. These heroics catch the eye of Ishtar, the divine embodiment of sexual desire and procreation. Even as Humbaba is defeated and pleads for his life, Enkidu successfully urges Gilgamesh to slay him and take his head back to Uruk as a trophy. Together, Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel to the Cedar Forest of the far north to battle the monster Humbaba and gain everlasting glory. Indeed, the language used to describe the pair is more like that between husband and wife, though there is no sexual relationship implied. There he meets, fights, and becomes friends with Gilgamesh, so that soon the two are closer than brothers.

EPIC KIDS SCARED AFTER READING FREE

But when the trappers of the wilderness grow tired of having game set free from their snares by Enkidu, they call on Shamhat, a temple prostitute of Uruk to come and, using sex, tame the wild man.Īfter an epic seven nights with the priestess, Enkidu loses his ability to commune with animals and seeks instead the company of his fellow humans in the city. The people of the city cry out to the gods for relief from such an unstoppable force, prompting the rulers of heaven to create Enkidu, a wild man of the countryside who lives a life of Eden-like simplicity among the animals. He takes the young men of Uruk for his army and the young women for his bed. Gilgamesh is described as two-thirds god, one-third man, and he reigns over his city without rival. Gilgamesh suffered all and accomplished all. Hidden inside the walls is a treasure waiting to be discovered:įind the cornerstone and under it the copper box

The story begins with a narrator urging his readers to examine the fine walls of Uruk, the magnificent city in southern Mesopotamia where Gilgamesh ruled. Reading Gilgamesh will not only teach them to face the challenges that lie ahead, but also give them an appreciation for the idea that no matter how much our modern world might seem different from earlier times, the essence of the human experience remains the same. The answer I have given to hundreds of students is that almost every joy and sorrow they will face in life was revealed in Gilgamesh millennia before they were born.

Epic kids scared after reading