The Creation and Temptation of Gilgamesh

Part I of the Epic of Gilgamesh Series

Jul 03, 2024

(For those of you who are students of ancient literature, this series will follow the basic structure of the surviving texts of the epic, though the details will vary from the original in some cases. I use the ancient Sumerian versions of the gods’ names, even though the oldest surviving text of the epic sometimes uses the Babylonian forms. Some of the descriptions of clothing, weapons, and other objects are drawn from archaeological finds and reconstructions. It is possible I may also draw on some other Gilgamesh stories and other literature. Sometimes, I supply motives where the epic gives none. For instance, the reasons the gods created Gilgamesh is not described in the original epic. Nor is the original epic prefaced with Nisaba’s visit to the scribe.)

Shutterstock AI (which compensates artists for use of their work in training)

Long had I labored as a scribe, diligently pressing my reed stylus into the still damp clay tablets, etching into them the stories of gods and mortals. My fingers ached enough that I longed to put down that stylus.

But I could not retire so easily, for the very night that the thought formed in my mind, Nisaba, scribe of the gods, appeared to me. Deities can look however they wish to mortal eyes, and the goddess took the form of a tall and dignified woman, her high rank indicated by her long, flowing skirt in a purple shade more vibrant that any mortal dye could produce. She was as alluring as any woman I had ever seen, though I had lived too many years to fully appreciate such beauty. Her dark hair had been braided so elaborately that a man might seek to trace its pattern and lose himself in the attempt. In her right hand, she held a tablet of the finest lapis lazuli, so intensely blue that it glowed like a small star in her hand. In her left hand, she held a golden stylus that glittered as if sunlight constantly shone upon it.

“You may not yet put down your stylus,” she said to me in a voice that was both kind and strict at the same time. “For it falls to you to record the story of the greatest of Uruk’s kings, Gilgamesh.”

“I have not the strength nor the tools to etch in lapis lazuli,” I replied, bowing my head. “I am not worthy.”

“I have etched the copy for the gods,” said Nisaba. “You need only preserve the record for humans, and for that, clay will suffice. “Here,” she added, pushing her own tablet in my direction. “You need not copy my words, for some of them could be easily understood only by the gods. I give it to you so that you may refer to the details of the story. You will need to write of some events witnessed by no mortal.”

I took the tablet. It was almost too heavy for my old hands to hold. It felt cool to the touch, but I could also feel, in a different way, the magic with which it was infused.

I bowed again, “I will not fail you, Goddess.”

She smiled at me, and her eyes glittered like the tablet she had given me. “I know. That is why I chose you.”

Then she was gone. The comings and goings of gods are not easy for men to see. If not for the cool weight in my hand, I might have been tempted to dismiss the experience as a hallucination. But the tablet I could not ignore.

My fingers throbbed. However, I knew I had to begin at once. I dared not disappoint the goddess.

Inanna stood before some of the members of her family, attired magnificently as always. She appeared in her preferred human form, wearing a headdress covered with gold leaves that pointed down toward the earth, the abode of mortals. Two strings of lapis lazuli and carnelian beads held the leaves in place. The lapis beads looked as if they had been fashioned from bits of sky, but the carnelian ones looked as if someone had managed to string drops of blood into a necklace. Above the beads hung flowers made of precious stones. From her ears dangled earrings as gold as the leaves.

The goddess’s upper body was covered with similar beads and stones. Her lower body was covered by a skirt made of wool sheered from the sheep of the gods and shaped like leaves that projected outward. These coverings hung closer to her skin than similar mortal garments, accentuating the sensuous curves of her body. No mortal queen could ever hope to compare with her.

“My city, Uruk, needs a successor to Lugulbanda, who cannot be king forever,” said Inanna, looking at each of the other gods in turn. “I call upon you to fashion for me a son who will be even greater than his father.”

“There is danger in giving a man too much power,” said Anu, his voice like a wind. He seldom bothered to adopt a human shape. Instead, he looked down at Inanna, his great-granddaughter, as the bright blue expanse of the sky, making her human form seem tiny by comparison. But she was not so easily intimidated as she stared unflinchingly upward at the clouds that he had shaped into a rough face.

“There is also much danger in having a weak king,” she replied. She had meant that as a comment on mortal kings, but a casual listener might have taken it as a comment on Anu’s style of rule. He was king of the gods, but he was often more of a figurehead, transmitting power to mortal kings, blessing this enterprise or that, but seldom giving anything like an order to another god.

The clouds that were Anu’s face darkened, but if he disagreed, he didn’t say so.

“How much power is necessary?” asked Enlil, son of Anu and lord of the air. Enlil had been powerful enough to separate his father, the sky, from his mother, Ki, the earth, so that there would be enough space for mortal life to flourish. Such accomplishments caused some to regard him as the true ruler of the gods. He had assumed a huma form, somewhat larger than Inanna’s and with a conical crown such as kings at the time wore. But turbulent winds blew all around him, and his voice was louder and more forceful than his father’s. His word would carry great weight with the others.

“He must be the greatest king to ever live,” said Inanna, as if she were making an ordinary request. The others, however, squirmed quite a bit. They also had cities that they patronized and might well have wondered why Inanna’s city should be raised above theirs.

“Up until now, you mean,” said Enki. “You cannot expect us to commit ourselves regarding future kings.”

Brother to Enlil, Enki ruled fresh water and was also a master of magic, more crafty and subtle than the others. Like Enlil, he had taken a human form, closer to Inanna’s in size, but with eyes that darted back and forth as if looking for schemes—or plotting them. His conical crown had slight horns, a claim to power that Enlil seemed not to notice. To emphasize the importance of fresh water, Enki caused the Tigris River to flow from one of his shoulders and the Euphrates to flow from the other. No mortal could easily see his connection to Abzu, the water that lay beneath the ground, but a god would notice moisture sparkling in the soil beneath his feet.

“The greatest king ever to live—up until now,” said Inanna, nodding.

Enlil was about to speak, but Enki started a second earlier. “Who are to be the parents?”

“Of course, Lugulbanda must be the father,” replied Inanna. “Only his son would have a unassailable claim to the throne. His mother will be Ninsun.”

“What says she to this?” asked Enlil. “You cannot expect another goddess to father your king without consent.”

“She has given it already, “ replied Ninsun. “And given it gladly, for though she is the patron of Ur and other cities, she loves Uruk as well and sees an opportunity to bring peace to the cities.”

“So he will be half god, then?” asked Enki. His eyes looked distant, as if he were running calculations in his head.

“Two thirds god,” said the goddess. “He must be two thirds god and one third man.” She was the goddess of both love and war—but not of mathematics.

“I am in favor of granting the request,” said Enki, again managing to speak before Enlil.

The lord of the air contemplated Inanna for a moment. Though she was deliberately dressed to emphasize her connection to love—always wise when dealing with the male gods—the curved blade of a sickle sword seemed to flicker momentarily in her hands, a reminder that she was as formidable on the battlefield as in the bedroom. No one would lightly dismiss any request of hers.

“If he proves too powerful, you must accept the responsibility for your error,” said Enlil slowly.

“Done,” said Inanna without a moment’s hesitation.

Enlil nodded, though an observer might have detected little enthusiasm in the gesture. “Let it be as you have said. Aruru, come forth.

The goddess sometimes called the mother of birth stepped forward. Unlike Inanna, she was clothed in much more humble garments, but she glowed with the life-shaping power within her.

“I will make his body,” said Aruru without being asking, for that could be the only possible reason to summon her. “I will make him almost perfect, as befits the son of a goddess and a king.”

Enlil opened his mouth, but once again, Enki spoke. “I will make his mind, so that it may be endowed with perfect wisdom.”

Inanna smiled warmly enough to melt snow. And why not? She had gotten everything she asked for—as she typically did.

By the time Gilgamesh became a man, he was taller than anyone in Uruk and could move more than thirteen feet in one stride. His full beard looked as magnificent as that of a god. The hair on his head grew like grain in a fertile field. He was universally regarded as the handsomest of men, and all the husbands kept their wives indoors for fear that they would see Gilgamesh and give their hearts to him.

When Lugulbanda died, Gilgamesh became king, just as Inanna had planned.

Unfortunately for everyone, that was the only part of her plan that worked.

Gilgamesh was physically superior to every other man—and he knew it. Though his subjects at first celebrated his accession to the throne, it was not long before they noticed how he strode around the city, looking down on them as if they were worth no more than the dust beneath his feet. No, not strode. Though he moved swiftly, his feet kicked up dirt in the same way a bull does when it paws the ground right before charging.

Gilgamesh raised a great army, but in the process, he took every son from his father. Where was the threat that would have justified such universal conscription? The most far-sighted men could look from the tallest towers in the city and never see even a a single man advancing against Uruk, much less a conquering army.

Even had there been such an army, one would have to wonder how it could have broken through the thick new walls, made of the most expensive materials, that surrounded the city. All of them had been built by the order of Gilgamesh, who could hardly have been unaware of their existence.

The common people whose taxes paid for those walls were certainly aware of their existence—and of how much coin they had sacrificed to build them.

Yet Gilgamesh’s love of armies and building projects, emotionally and financially draining as they were, seemed like small irritations indeed after Gilgamesh announced his new marriage law. Just as the king had conscripted all the young men, he began conscripting the young women as well, though for a different purpose. He made it the law that no woman could marry before she had first slept with the king.

The citizens dared not protest to Gilgamesh, who would at best have ignored them and at worst watered their gardens with their own blood. Instead, they prayed with fanatical intensity to the gods. Those who could offered sacrifices. Those who could not afford even the smallest sacrifice lamented ceaselessly. Surely such displays of piety and misery would motivate the gods to do something.

At first, the only change people noticed was the sound of distant laughter in the wind. They had no way of knowing it was Anu laughing at his fellow gods.

However, the gods were not ignoring the situation. They just didn’t know how to solve it.

“You have accepted responsibility for Gilgamesh,” Enlil told Inanna. “You must relieve the people of his tyranny.”

“Kill him!” suggested Ninurta, Enlil’s fierce son, a war god whose sword evoked as much fear as the gaze of a hungry crocodile. “Kill him, chop up his body, and send a piece to every city, that all mortals may realize the folly of arrogance.”

All mortals and even some gods would have trembled at the look in Ninurta’s eyes, but Inanna faced him without a single tremor. Her headdress become instead a golden helmet form fit to her head. The beads and fabrics of her dress became well crafted bronze armor.

“I cannot kill him, for he does not yet have an heir,” said the goddess. “Uruk would be thrown into chaos.”

“It seems to be in chaos already,” said Enlil.

“Even so, leaving it without a king is not the best solution,” said Utu, Inanna’s brother, god of the sun and of justice, his glow so bright that even the gods could barely look at him. Anu, father of us all—”

“I was right,” said Anu. “One man should not have so much power.”

“You were indeed right,” replied Utu. “But you have heard the cries of the people, just as we have. They need to have a king, but they also need a just king.”

“Such a change would not be easily wrought,” said Enki.

“You are the one who gave Gilgamesh wisdom,” said Enlil. “Why is he not wise enough to mend his own ways?”

“He is not fully utilizing his gifts.”

“Then he must be encouraged to utilize them,” said Anu, his voice carrying further than usual. “Aruru, we need you once again.”

“It would be a shame to destroy a man in whom I invested so much planning,” said Aruru as she moved to stand before Anu.

“Then let up hope it does not come to that,” said Anu. “Make for us a man who will be the equal of Gilgamesh.”

“Will such a man not simply become another oppressor?” asked Enlil.

“I said equal, not the same as,” replied Anu. “Aruru, you need to create someone who will be strong enough to challenge Gilgamesh without being arrogant enough to fall into the same errors Gilgamesh has.”

“Wild creatures can be strong, yet they know not arrogance,” said Ninkilim, the goddess who watched over non-domesticated beasts. Mice ran around near her feet as she spoke. “Make him human in form, but animal at heart. Just as Gilgamesh is out of harmony with his fellow mortals, make Enkidu in harmony with his fellow creatures.”

“How will a beast man ever meet a king?” asked Enlil. “Will this new man not be out in the wilderness?”

“The city and the wilderness nearby have different interests,” said Ninkilim. “The one wishes to restrain nature, the other to keep it free. Gilgamesh and the beast man will inevitably be drawn into conflict.”

“It seems worth trying such a plan,” said Anu. “Proceed. But all of you must know this—you, especially, Inanna. Gilgamesh cannot go on as he is. If the plan to create his equal fails to check him, he will have to die.”

Enlil and Enki both nodded—though they also looked unsettled by Anu’s sudden assertiveness. Inanna nodded with her head, but her heart remained unmoved.

Gilgamesh did need to be contained in some way. Even she had to admit that. But she had no confidence in this plan. And if it failed, Gilgamesh’s story would end in blood.

Part 2 will appear in a week or so.

Meanwhile, both of my novelizations of Greek mythology are currently on sale.