Book Review: Gilgamesh
Experiencing the oldest story in the world. Gilgamesh: A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell.
I will fully admit I bought this on a complete whim. I’ve heard a lot in passing about the Epic of Gilgamesh variously as a piece of ancient literature and the progenitor of the Great Flood myth in the biblical book of Genesis, but I didn’t know the story, and I fancied reading it for myself. This version by Stephen Mitchell seemed to be the most accessible to someone like myself with zero knowledge of ancient languages. As soon as I got it, I dived right in. This is going to be a longer review because there’s so much to unpack here.
Blurb
Vivid, enjoyable and comprehensible, the poet and pre-eminent translator Stephen Mitchell makes the oldest epic poem in the world accessible for the first time.
Gilgamesh is a born leader, but in an attempt to control his growing arrogance, the Gods create Enkidu, a wild man, his equal in strength and courage. Enkidu is trapped by a temple prostitute, civilised through sexual experience and brought to Gilgamesh. They become best friends and battle evil together.
After Enkidu's death the distraught Gilgamesh sets out on a journey to find Utnapishtim, the survivor of the Great Flood, made immortal by the Gods to ask him the secret of life and death.
Gilgamesh is the first and remains one of the most important works of world literature. Written in ancient Mesopotamia in the second millennium B.C., it predates the Iliad by roughly 1,000 years. Gilgamesh is extraordinarily modern in its emotional power but also provides an insight into the values of an ancient culture and civilisation.
Review
First of all, this version of the Epic of Gilgamesh is very accessible. Stephen Mitchell has done a wonderful job transmitting the story in English poetic verse. The prose is beautiful and evocative, and—looking at the extensive translation notes at the back—not very far off from the original texts. This version is a cobbling together of the various forms the nearly 5000-year-old Epic has taken, mostly from what’s known as the Standard Version but filling the gaps with passages from the Sumerian, Hittite, and Old Babylonian versions.
The introduction to the book by Stephen Mitchell is unusual in that it is much longer than the Epic itself (in word count, at least), and it summarises the entire story with additional analyses and explanations for what’s going on. I thought that was very helpful. Then the text itself is split into eleven ‘books’ and was a joy to read due to the aforementioned accessibility of the language. Following this, at the back, are copious explanatory notes on the author’s creative choices, as well as example passages of more literal translations, and finally, a glossary.
I loved reading this; it was an utterly fascinating read and gives incredible insight into the attitudes of the ancient world towards storytelling, masculinity, sexuality, and spirituality. As someone deconstructing from a faith tradition, there was a lot in here that, if I had read this a long time ago, would have caused some discomfort in terms of my religious beliefs. Now being able to look at this text, and the biblical texts, through a less dogmatic lens, it becomes a lot more interesting to see the connections, developments, and cultural through-lines.
A lot of people focus on Gilgamesh’s Great Flood narrative being very similar to the story of Noah’s Ark in Genesis, even down to sending out the birds from the Ark to find dry land (and, Gilgamesh being the far older text, is the likely origin for the biblical version). While that’s certainly the case and it’s very interesting on its own, I hadn’t seen anyone mention that the verse Ecclesiastes 4:12, ‘A threefold cord is not quickly broken’ is also present here in an older form in Gilgamesh. Not only that, but the expression is given more context here than it is in the Bible, which simply gives it as an idiom (a lot of priests in wedding sermons have interpreted the threefold cord as symbolising the marriage relationship between man, woman, and God). But in the ancient Mesopotamian tale, Gilgamesh and Enkidu are psyching each other up to go fight the monster, Humbaba. Enkidu is afraid and wants to turn back but Gilgamesh says he cannot do it alone and that they will prevail if they fight side-by-side. He says then they will be as strong as two boats lashed together [because] a three-ply rope is not easily broken. The expression here becomes less about invoking the presence of the deity within a marriage (which isn’t supported by the biblical text either), but more about the value of teamwork and the strength of the bonds of intimate friendship. I had to look this up, but it seems that the scholarly consensus is that the author of Ecclesiastes was either quoting from Gilgamesh directly, or that by the time the biblical author was writing, the line had become a common expression, dropping the metaphor of the two boats. I like to think of it akin to modern idioms like, ‘the customer is always right,’ where we commonly omit, ‘in matters of taste’. The further we get in time from the full formulation of an expression, the easier it is for people to forget what it originally meant.
Gilgamesh is also far more homoerotic than I had expected. It shows a vast difference in attitudes towards sexuality and masculinity in the ancient world. And that does make sense if you think about it, because the ancient world didn’t hold the same ideas about sex and attraction that we have today. It was far more hierarchical, far more about social dominance. Sex in Gilgamesh is also treated as a civilising act, rather than a sin of the flesh, as sex with the priestess of Ishtar draws out Enkidu’s humanity from his prior animalistic nature. It’s natural, normal, and good, and the text is very blunt about it without an ounce of shame. There is clear implication in the text, and made even more explicit in contemporaneous supplementary material, that Gilgamesh and Enkidu were intimate companions. I guess in today’s verbiage you might say they’re pansexual and polyamorous, because they enjoy the company of women (mainly the priestesses in the temple of Ishtar, and Gilgamesh’s tyrannical behaviour before meeting Enkidu shows him having first dibs on every new wife in the city) but their friendship is so close that they are also lovers. Gilgamesh is distraught at the death of Enkidu and mourns him intensely and rather melodramatically. Masculine courage is also not stoic in nature, as Gilgamesh, though he is a strong giant and a great and mighty and tyrannical king, is utterly terrified of the monster Humbaba, and his fear of death is what drives him to seek after fame and immortality before he truly grows as a person.
Overall Gilgamesh is an astounding read for anyone interested in ancient literature, in the history of storytelling, and in archetypal quest narratives. Even though this does take the form of a quest tale, the Babylonian editor still manages to subvert the tropes of that style in some ways. It’s a thoroughly fascinating tale, made all the more digestible by the excellent prose work of Stephen Mitchell. I’d highly recommend it.
