gilgamesh tablets 6-10

Last week we discussed the tablets of Gilgamesh 6-10. After Gilgamesh and Enkidu return from their heroic journey of killing Humbaba, Ishtar tries to seduce Gilgamesh and make him sleep with her. Gilgamesh refuses to be Ishtar's plaything. Ishtar is the goddess of war and love. She becomes furious and enraged and sets out to harm Gilgamesh for refusing to sleeping with her. Gilgamesh refuses to sleep with Ishtar because he knows what happens to the men that sleep with her, some end up in the underworld. Gilgamesh and Enkidu are faced with another battle, this time the battle is to protect themselves and the city of Uruk because Ishtar released the bull onto Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the bull and toss it to Ishtar. The actions of Gilgamesh and the language that Gilgamesh uses when he speaks to Ishtar seems, misogynistic because of the patriarchal society in which they lived in. In the next tablet, Enkidu becomes ill and he curses the prostitute for taming him and blames her for falling ill for if he would have been left alone, he would still be living in the forest with the animals. I think that there is something interesting about when Enkidu curses the prostitue because he curses her then after a while he reasons and takes back the curse and instead hopes for her good and thanks her for taming him and clothing him. After Enkidu's death, Gilgamesh sets out to find Utanapishtim because he is scared of death and he wants to find a way to overcome death and be immortal and young forever. I think that Gilgamesh's journey to find Utanapishtim is like another heroic journey in which he engages in by himself because his friend is dead. I think that this part of the story is similar to the last part of Beowulf when he fights the dragon. Beowulf realizes that he is not invincible as he though when he was younger and so he uses a shield and sword to fight the dragon. Gilgamesh becomes aware that he isn't invincible after the death of Enkidu so he sets off to try to become invincible, but fails to do so. At the beginning of the epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh seems to be invincible and he treats his people bad and really doesn't care of what happens because he is king and can do whatever he wants. But now the tables are turned around and Gilgamesh experiences fear, which he hadn't experience in the epic.  After traveling through forests and waters, Gilgamesh reaches Utanapishtim and asks him how to become invincible. Utanapishtim tells Gilgamesh that death is our destiny, even if we don't know when it is going to happen and that nothing lives forever. I think that the moral or point of the story is to demonstrate that no matter what someone does to try to avoid death, ebventually it will happen. But that people die and another generation of other people are born and the human race continues. The test that Utanapishtim does on Gilgamesh illustrates this point, Gilgamesh tries to not fall asleep as hard as he can, but eventually he does because it is natural to fall asleep because it is something that our body needs.


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