the Epic of Gilgamesh
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the title character's companion Enikdu undergoes a transformation from beginning to end of his life, first as a wild man of the forest who lives as an animal and eventually becomes the king's equal. His influence on the imperious king of the ancient city of Uruk is one of great impact and result in the Mesopotamian tale of friendship and coming-of-age.
As we first meet Enikdu as a hairy, beast-like being who drinks from the streams of the forest alongside animals as if he were one of them and frees them from traps of area hunters, we find him to lack much contemplation in the way of his daily life. However, upon a hunter's request that Gilgamesh send a prostitute from the temple of Anu to awaken the human desires of the animal-man, we behold the first change in the man of the forest: "His friends had left him to a vast aloneness he had never felt before. The lions returned to the mountains, the water buffalo to the rivers, the birds to the sky"(18). In this, the first step in his removal from the forest begins, as his animal family rejects him as a repercussion in laying with a woman and leaves a want in him to find a community that will accept him.
Promptly after this realization of humanity, the prostitute persuades Enikdu to clothe in part of her dress and accompany her to the house of the shepherds, where he learned to eat bread and drink spirits. Again he finds himself changed: "His soul felt new and strange, and his face was hot with sweat, and somehow gay."(21) This leads him to be shaved to look more human, to adorn himself with perfumes and oils to appear more civilized. Finding himself as brethren to the shepherds, he utilized his brute strength in catching his once-kinsmen wolves as food, earning the title of Protector. He became prepared to enter the city of Uruk as he began to understand the ways of a civilized people; he prepared to meet his match.
Upon entering Gilgamesh's city, Enikdu is immediately perceived as threatening to the king in the king as a duel ensues. Much as men who are jealous of one another's stature compete, so did Gilgamesh and Enikdu. As they eventually became exhausted by their equaled strength, the would-be rivals "clutched each other in breathless exaltation"((24) and thus began the companionship of two men who recognized the other as both worthy opponents but more importantly as a complementary comrade. It is here too that Gilgamesh realizes that more is in store for him as a king and also a friend than the tyannical rule that had so far defined his character.
As the two narrowly defeat Humbaba in the forbidden Cedar Forest, Gilgamesh is humbled by Enkidu who puts a check on the king's powerful narcissism, which allows for the ruler to identify with the interests of his constituents. While Gilgamesh finds a new passion in caring for his people, Enkidu recognizes his capability to love his fellow man though he is part-beast. This is a pivotal moment in the epic as the two friends find themselves enlightened. . The love the friends have for each other makes Gilgamesh a better man in the first half of the epic, and when Enkidu dies he realizes just how essential companionship is in life, and more importantly that death is an inescapable and inevitable fact of human life; this is the greatest lesson that Enkidu's influence imparts on the ruler. While Enkidu is consoled by Shamash, the sun god, that his life has been one of rich experience and wonder Enkidu finally succumbs himself to his fate, Gilgamesh is terrified by the thought of his own.
After grieving the death of his friend in the forest for days upon days, Gilgamesh finally recognizes the best place to honor his friend is here on Earth, and as Enkidu travels to the underworld, Gilgamesh returns to Uruk to resume his kingship. After a long journey through the twin-peaked mountain Mashu, to Urshanabi to find Utnapishtim, with Urshanabi across the sea and through the sea of death, only to return to Uruk in his quest to honor his friend by becoming a better man himself.
Gilgameshs many journeys portray his internal pilgrimage to become a king devoted to the good of his people. This is Enkidu's influence on a man who once enforced his birthright to sleep with virgin brides before their husbands and who enslaved his people to build great walls which he then allowed to lay in ruin. While we first see Gilgamesh as a dishonorable man who sought only to please himself, by the end of the epic we find a wise king Gilgamesh, a man who has experienced love and hardship and learned to appreciate deeply all that life has awarded him and the corresponding responsibilities which ensue.
As Gilgamesh returns to the city with much humility and insight in the way that only a sorrowful man can be, he finds the city to be a thriving one of much accomplishment and grandeur. While it saddens him that it seems only he remembers his good friend Enkidu, he marvels at Uruk: "He looked at the walls, awed at the heights his people had achieved, and for a moment-just a moment- all that layed behind him passed in view." At this moment we find the most enlightened Gilgamesh whose adventure with Enkidu in the flesh and in spirit had imparted upon him the values of friendship and honor. In this enlightenment he is grateful for the sacrifice which may have been necessary to achieve real appreciation of his beloved city.
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