Gilgamesh the King

  “Now,” I said, and we raised the cedar stake.

  I bore the brunt of the weight, though Enkidu with his one good hand offered more force than any other man could have provided whole and healthy, and seven or eight of my other men ran alongside us, giving support. We carried that tremendous stake at a dead trot until we were poised over the smoking hole, as close to it as we could manage, with our eyes running tears and our faces red from holding our breaths; and then we rose up on the tips of our feet and we thrust the stake forward and downward and rammed it into the opening.

  We leaped back, thinking the earth might erupt. But no: the demon was weakened or drowned by the water, and he could not force the wooden plug. I saw some coiling strands of smoke break from the earth a little distance away; but then they were gone, and we heard nothing more.

  All was deathly still. The blaze and the glory that had been Huwawa was quenched. There was no smoke, there was no fire, only the afterstench that stained the air and assailed our nostrils, and even that was quickly beginning to dissipate in the cool sweet cedar forest. I think they will say of Enkidu and me, when the tellings and retellings of the story begin to change it as these stories always are changed with time, that we rushed upon Huwawa and cut off his head; for the harpers of the days to come will not understand how we could slay a demon with nothing more than a dammed stream and a sharpened stake. So be it; but that was what we did, whatever they may tell you when I am not here to testify to the truth.

  “He is dead,” I said. “Come, let us purify the site, and get ourselves onward.”

  We cut cedar boughs and laid them over the demon’s tomb, and made the offerings, and said the words. Afterward we chose fifty fine cedar logs to bring back with us to Uruk, and we stripped them and loaded them; and when we were done with that, we returned to the wall that the Elamites had built and scattered it apart as though it had been made of straws, though for beauty’s sake we left intact the splendorous gate that the traitor Utu-ragaba had fashioned for the mountain king.

  When we were taking our leave of the place, a hundred Elamitish warriors came upon us, and asked us in the name of their king why we were trespassing here. To which I replied that we were not trespassing at all, but merely coming to gather a little wood for our temple, which had required us to slay the demon of the place. They found this insolent of me. “Who are you, man?” their leader demanded.

  “Who am I?” I asked of Enkidu. “Tell him.”

  “Why, you are Gilgamesh king of Uruk, greatest of heroes, the wild bull who plunders the mountains as he pleases: Gilgamesh the king, Gilgamesh the god. And I am Enkidu your brother.” He clapped his belly and laughed and said to the Elamite, “Do you know the name of Gilgamesh, fellow?” But the Elamites were already in flight. We followed after them and slew about half, and let the others go, so that they could bring word back to their king that it was unwise to build walls about the forest of cedars. I think he came to see the wisdom of that, for I heard no more of such walls, nor of Huwawa the dreadful, and in years afterward we had all the cedar we required from that forest without hindrance.

  23

  IT WAS A TRIUMPHANT TIME. We marched into Uruk as joyous as though we had conquered six kingdoms. There was a kind of madness in our pride, I think, but I think it was a pardonable pride. One does not kill a demon every day, after all.

  So we celebrated our exploits in the Land of Cedars and our safe return with feasting and laughter. But there was a touch of discord at the outset of that night of glorious revelry, and there was another before it ended.

  As we approached the city walls in late afternoon with our booty the Royal Gate swung open, and through it rode a welcoming party of many chariots, led by Zabardi-bunugga. Trumpets sounded, banners waved; I heard my name shouted over and over. We halted and waited. Zabardi-bunugga, riding up to me, hailed me with upraised hands and presented me with the bundle of barley-sheaves that is the customary salute to a returning king. He made his thanksgiving offering for my safety, and then together we poured out a libation to the divine ones. Good loyal flat-faced Zabardi-bunugga: what a worthy prince!

  When these ceremonies were done we embraced in a less formal way. He nodded graciously also to Enkidu, and smiled his greetings to Bir-hurturre. If there was any envy about Zabardi-bunugga because he had not taken part in our grand adventure, I did not see it. I told him how the journey had gone; but he already knew that, for runners had gone ahead bearing news of our victory. Then I asked how things had fared in Uruk during my absence, and a shadow passed across his eyes, and he looked away as he said, “The city prospers, O Gilgamesh.”

  It was not hard to perceive the uneasiness about him, the hesitation, the discomfort. I said, “Does it, in all truth?”

  In a restless way he replied, “May I ride with you into the city?”

  I beckoned him into my chariot. He glanced toward Enkidu, who rode beside me; but I shrugged as though to say, whatever you have to say to me, it is fitting that my brother hear it as well. Which Zabardi-bunugga understood without my needing to say it. Lightly he stepped up into the chariot, and Enkidu gave the signal for the procession to continue through the city’s great gate.

  “Well?” I said. “There is trouble, is there? Tell me.”

  In a low voice Zabardi-bunugga said, “The goddess stirs. I think there is danger, Gilgamesh.”

  “How so?”

  “She broods. She frets. She feels that you have cast her into eclipse, that you overreach yourself. She says that you ignore her, that you fail to consult her, that you go your own way as though this is not at all the city of Inanna, but has become only the city of Gilgamesh.”

  “I am king,” I said. “I bear the burden.”

  “She would remind you, I think, that you are king by grace of the goddess.”

  “So I am, and I never forget it. But she must remember that she is not the goddess, but only the goddess’ voice.” Then I laughed. “Do you think I speak blasphemy, Zabardi-bunugga? No. No. It is the truth: we must all remember it. The goddess speaks through her; but she is only a priestess. And I bear the burden of the city each day.” As we came near the gate of the city I said, “What evidence do you have of this wrath of hers?”

  “I have it from my father, who says she visited him in the temple of An to consult ancient tablets, writings from the time of Enmerkar, the annals of your grandfather’s reign, the record of his dealings with the priestess of his time. She has been to the archives of the priests of Enlil also. And several times she summoned the assembly of elders to meet with her while you were away.”

  Lightly I said, “Perhaps she is writing a book of history, eh?”

  “I think not, Gilgamesh. She seeks ways of bringing you in check: she looks for precedent, she searches for trustworthy strategies.”

  “Do you merely suspect this or do you know?”

  “It is certain knowledge. She has been speaking out, and many have heard her. Your journey angered her. She said so to your mother, to my father Gungunum, to some of the assembly of elders, even to her acolytes: she made no secret of her fury. She says it was presumptuous of you to undertake the venture without first seeking her blessing.”

  “Ah, was it? But we needed the cedar. The Elamites had built a wall in the forest. It was not only a sacred quest, Zabardi-bunugga: it was a war. Decisions concerning warfare lie in the province of the king.”

  “She sees it otherwise, I think.”

  “I will educate her, then.”

  “Be wary. She is a troublesome woman.”

  I laid my hand upon his wrist and smiled. “You tell me nothing new, old friend, when you tell me that. But I will be on my guard. And you have my thanks.”

  We rode through the gate. I turned from him and lifted my shield high, so that it caught the last glow of the waning day and sent lances of golden light into the crowd that lined the grand processional highway. Half the city had turned out to welcome me. “Gilgamesh!” they cried, till their voices were h
oarse. “Gilgamesh! Gilgamesh!” And they used the word that means divine, which is not used ordinarily of a king while he still lives. “Gilgamesh the god! Gilgamesh the god!” I felt abashed; but only a little, for it would have been folly to deny the godhood within me.

  Zabardi-bunugga’s warnings had darkened my homecoming somewhat. But I had not been greatly surprised to hear them: Inanna had been quiescent too long, and I had for some while been expecting difficulties from her. Well, we would see; but I chose not to brood on these matters just now. It was the night of my homecoming; it was the night of my triumph.

  At the palace I oiled and polished my weapons and put them in their storehouse, and said the laying-to-rest prayers over them. Then I went to the palace baths and opened my braid so that my hair streamed down my back, and the handmaidens rinsed the grime of the journey from it. Afterward I chose to leave my hair loose and long. I wrapped a fine fringed cloak about me and fastened a scarlet sash at my middle and even put on my royal tiara, which I did not wear often. When all that was done I called my fifty heroes about me, and Enkidu, and we gathered in the great hall of the palace for a feast of roasted calves and lambs, and cakes of flour mixed with honey, and beer both of the strong and the mild kinds, and royal palm-wine, the thickest and the richest in the Land. We even drank the wine made of grapes, which we bring in from the territories in the north, dark purple stuff that makes the soul soar upward. We sang and told tales of the warriors of old, and we stripped and wrestled by firelight, and we enjoyed the maidens of the palace until we felt sated; and then we bathed and dressed ourselves in our finery again and paraded out into the town, playing on fifes and trumpets and clapping our hands as we strutted about. Ah, it was a fine time, a splendid time! I will never know another like it.

  In the silver-gray hours of the dawn slumbering heroes lay sprawled in heaps all about the palace, snoring forth their wine. I felt no need of sleep; and so I went to bathe at the palace fountain. Enkidu was with me. His robes reeked of drink and the juice of meat, and I suppose mine must have been no better. Bits of straw and charred twigs from the fire were in our beards and hair. But the cool fresh water refreshed and cleansed us as though it were a font of the gods. As I emerged I looked about me for a slave to bring us clean robes, and I caught sight of a slender figure at the far side of the courtyard, a woman, wearing an ashen-hued robe of some thin shimmering fabric, and a shawl pulled up around her face so that her features could not be seen. She appeared to be heading in my direction.

  “You, there!” I called. “Come here and do us a service, will you?”

  She turned to me and lowered the shawl, and I saw her face. But I did not believe what I saw.

  “Gilgamesh?” she said softly.

  My breath went from me in astonishment. This could only be some apparition. “A demon!” I whispered. “Look, Enkidu, she wears Inanna’s face! It must be Lilitu come to haunt us, or is it the ghost Utukku?” Fear and awe struck me like the clangor of a brazen bell, and I shuddered, and groped in my discarded clothes for the little amulet of the goddess that the young priestess Inanna had given me so long ago.

  In the same soft voice she said, “Have no fear, Gilgamesh. I am Inanna.”

  “Here? In the palace? The priestess never leaves the temple to see the king: she calls the king to wait on her in her own domain.”

  “This night it is I who comes to you,” she said. She was close beside me, now, and it seemed to me she was telling the truth: if this was some demon, it had more skill at mimicry than any demon I knew. And what demon, anyway, would dare to put on the guise of the goddess within the walls of the goddess’ own city? Yet I could not understand the presence of Inanna in the palace precinct. It was not right. It was not done. My loins grew cold and there was a chill at the back of my neck, and I picked up my robe and draped it about me, soiled and sweaty though it was. Enkidu was staring at her as though she were some ravening beast of the fields, all fangs and teeth, making ready to spring.

  I said hoarsely, “What do you want with me?”

  “Some words. Only some words.”

  My throat was dry, my lips were cracking. “Speak, then!”

  “What I have to say, I would rather say in privacy.”

  I glanced at Enkidu, who was scowling now. It displeased me to send him away; but I knew Inanna well enough to realize she would not be moved on this point. Sadly I said, “I ask you to leave us, friend.”

  “Must I go?”

  “This time you must,” I said, and slowly he went from the courtyard, looking back several times, as if he feared the priestess would pounce on me the moment he was gone.

  She said then, “I saw you from the temple portico, when you paraded through the town this evening with your heroes. You have never looked more beautiful, Gilgamesh. You were as radiant as a god.”

  “The joy of my victory put that glow upon me. We slew the demon; we obtained the wood; we cast down the wall the Elamites had raised.”

  “So I have heard. It was a wondrous victory. You are a hero beyond compare: they will sing of you in ages yet to come.”

  I stared into her eyes. At this hour, by this pale gray dawn-light, they seemed a color I had never seen before, darker even than black. I studied the flawless arches of her eyebrows; I made scrutiny of her fine straight nose and the fullness of her lips. There was heat coming from her, but it was a cold heat. I could not tell whether she stood before me as goddess or as woman; the two seemed mixed in her even more than usual. I thought of the warnings I had had from Zabardi-bunugga, and I knew from what he had said that she was my enemy; but she did not appear to be an enemy at this moment.

  “Why are you here, Inanna?”

  “I could not help myself. When I saw you in the evening I said, I will go to him when his feast is done, I will come to him before the dawn comes, I will offer myself.”

  “Offer yourself? What are you saying?”

  Her eyes were shining strangely, like silvery suns rising at midnight. “Marry me, Gilgamesh. Be my husband.”

  I was altogether dumbfounded at that.

  In a halting way I said, “But it is not the proper season, Inanna! The new year festival is still some months away, and—”

  “I am not speaking now of the Sacred Marriage,” she said crisply. “I speak of the marriage between man and wife, who live under the same roof, and bring forth children, and grow old together in the manner of husbands and wives.”

  Had she spoken in the language of the people of the moon I could not have been more bewildered.

  “But such a thing is impossible,” I said, when I found the use of my tongue again. “The king—the priestess—never since the founding of the city—never in all the time of the Land—”

  “I have spoken with the goddess. She gives consent. It can be done. I know that it is new and strange. But it can be done.” She took a step toward me, and put her hands to my hands. “Hear me, Gilgamesh. Be my husband, give me the gift of the seed of your body, not one night out of the year but every night. Be my husband and I will be your wife. Listen, I will bring splendid gifts to you: I will harness for you a chariot of lapis lazuli and gold, with wheels of gold, and brazen horns. You will have storm-demons to draw it for you, in place of mules. Our dwelling will be fragrant of cedars, and when you enter it, the threshold and dais will kiss your feet.”

  “Inanna—”

  There was no halting her. As though chanting in a trance she went on: “Kings and lords and princes will bow down before you! All the yield of mountains and plains will they bring you as tribute! Your goats will bear triplets, your sheep will drop twins! The ass that carries burdens for you will outrun the swiftest of mules; your chariots will prevail in every race; your oxen will be without rivals, if only you let me bring my blessings upon you, Gilgamesh!”

  “The people would not allow it,” I said numbly.

  “The people! The people!” Her face became harsh and dark; her eyes turned cold. “The people could not prevent us!??
? Her grip on my hand grew tighter: I imagined I could feel my bones moving about. In a low strange tone she said, “The gods are angered with you, Gilgamesh, for the killing of Huwawa. Do you know that? They mean to take revenge on you.”

  “It is not so, Inanna.”

  “Ah, do you walk with the gods as I walk with the gods? I tell you, Enlil grieves for the guardian of his forest. They will have a blood-price from you for the death. They will make you grieve as Enlil grieves. But I can shield you from that. I can intercede. Give yourself to me, Gilgamesh! Take me as your wife! I am your only hope of peace.”

  Her words fell upon me like an icy torrent that knew no mercy. I wanted to run from her; I wanted to bury my head in some soft dark place and sleep. All this was madness. Marry her? There was no way that could be. I thought for a wild moment of what it would be like to share her bed night after night, to feel the fire of her breath against my cheek, to taste the sweetness of her mouth. Yes, of course, what man would refuse such joys? But marriage? To the priestess, to the goddess? She could not marry; I could not marry her. Even if the city would permit it—and the city would not, the city would rise up instantly against us and give our corpses to the wolves—I could not bear it. To go humbly to the temple with my wedding gifts, kneeling before my own wife because she was also the goddess, the Queen of Heaven—no, no, it would be my ruin. I am the king. The king must not kneel. I shook my head as though to sweep away a gathering fog that grew thick in my spirit. I began to understand the truth. Her scheme became clear to me: a compound of greed and lust and envy. Her aim was to ensnare me in her trap, and bring me down. If she could not break the power of the king any other way, she would break him through marriage. Because she was a goddess she would make me kneel for her as no man, certainly no king, ever kneels to his wife. The people would laugh at me in the streets. The dogs themselves would howl at my heels. But I would not let her make me subservient to her. I would not let her buy me into this slavery with her body. And all her talk of the anger of gods, which she alone could avert from me—no, that must be some silly lie meant to frighten me. I would not let myself be threatened, either.