Gilgamesh the King

  “But all things end.”

  “Do they?” I asked.

  He looked close at me as though he must surely be seeing into my soul with his milky sightless eyes and said, “When we build a house, do we expect it to stand forever? When we sign a contract, do we think it is binding for all time to come? When the river floods, do the waters not recede? Nothing is permanent. The dragonfly lives in a shell when it is young; then it comes forth, and it beholds the sun a little while; and then it is gone. So it is with mankind. The master and the servant both have their little moment, their glance at the sun. It is the way.”

  Those words again! They made me despair.

  “It is the way!” I cried. “You tell me that too, father?”

  “Can it be otherwise? The same destiny is decreed for us all.”

  Before I knew what I was saying I replied, “Even for you, father?”

  It was a crass and foolish remark, and my cheeks blazed as I said it. But he was unperturbed. “Let us talk of me some other time,” said the Ziusudra calmly. “Today we talk of you. I think this of you, Gilgamesh of Uruk: that you are not frightened of death so much as you are angry at having to die.”

  “It is the same thing,” I said. “Call it fear, call it anger—I see no difference. What I see is that the world is full of joy and wonder, and I have no wish to leave it. But soon I must.”

  “Not soon, Gilgamesh.”

  “Why, do you know the number of my days?”

  “I? No, not at all: I would not deceive you on that score. But you are still young. You are very strong. You have many years ahead of you.”

  “However many they be, they are too few. For their number is set and limited, father.”

  “Which angers you.”

  “Which distresses me greatly,” I said.

  “And in your distress you have come to me.”

  “I have.”

  “Do you come seeking life from me, or wisdom?”

  “I can conceal nothing from you. I come seeking life, father. Wisdom is another matter. I hope time will bring it; but what I must have is time.”

  “And you think that by coming here you may win more time for yourself?”

  “So I hope, yes.”

  “Then may the gods grant you all that you seek,” the Ziusudra said. There was a long silence. His head sank forward on his breast and he seemed lost in brooding: he frowned, he pursed his lips, he sighed. I felt that I had wearied him; I dared not speak. The moment was endless. Come, I thought, reach out to me, give me your blessing, teach me the secret of your eternal life. But still he sighed, still he frowned.

  Then he lifted his head and peered at me with such intensity that I could not believe he was blind. He smiled. Softly he said, “We must speak of these things again, Gilgamesh. I will send for you another day.” And he made the smallest of gestures: it was a dismissal. I felt an invisible curtain descend between us. Although the Ziusudra still sat before me, unmoving, he was not there. Lu-Ninmarka, who had waited all this while by my side, came forward and touched me by the elbow. I rose; I offered a salute; I took my leave. I followed Lu-Ninmarka through the dark maze to the upper world like one who walks in sleep.

  36

  I WORKED IN THE FIELDS and I went to the temple to hear them telling and retelling their tale of the Flood, and I took my meals of lentils and goat milk, and one day flowed into the next. I wondered vaguely about events in the world beyond the shores of this island, but I gave no thought to departing. Occasionally I saw the streets of Uruk in my mind, or the face of my wife or my son, or some man of the court: but they seemed like scenes out of a dream. Once I imagined I saw Enkidu before me, and I smiled at him but I did not go toward him. Another time Inanna slipped into my dreams, radiant, magnificent, more beautiful than she had ever seemed: seeing her, I felt no hatred for her scheming, only some mild regret that such beauty had been in my arms once and no longer could be mine. So the days went by. Uruk and all its concerns had drifted away from me. And in the ripeness of time I found myself in that winding passageway once again, descending to the lair of the Ziusudra.

  He sat as he had sat before, staunchly erect on his little wickerwork stool as though it were a throne. I felt the power of him. It surrounded him like a wall. In his own way he was a king; he was almost a god. It seemed to me that he dwelled on some plane beyond my understanding; I wanted instinctively to kneel before him the moment I came into his presence. I think I have never known another man who aroused such awe in me.

  As soon as I entered he began to speak; but I could not make sense of what he was saying. Words rose from him as a column of thick smoke rises from a fire of green wood; and the words were as impenetrable as the smoke, so that I was unable to see through the sound to the meaning. His voice circled round and round me. He spoke the language of the Land, or so I believed, and his words were calm and self-assured, as though he were presenting some closely reasoned argument; but no word followed upon the last in any manner I could comprehend. I knelt and stared. Then out of the murky flow I began to perceive a glimmer of understanding, as one sees sparks flying upward within the smoke. He was speaking, so it seemed, of the time the gods had sent the Flood as a punishment upon mankind and he had led his people to the high ground to wait the waters out. But I was not sure. There were moments when I thought he might be talking about the proper design of chariots, or about the places one goes to find deposits of rock-salt in the desert, or other such things far removed from the table of the Flood. I was lost in the tangled skein of his discourse; I was altogether baffled.

  Then he said suddenly with perfect clarity, “There is no death, if only we do the tasks the gods appoint for us. Do you understand me? There is no death.”

  He turned toward me, and seemed to be waiting.

  I said, “And so it was your task to resettle the Land when the waters receded; and for that the gods spared you from death. Then what is my task, Ziusudra? You know that I also would be spared from death.”

  “I know that.”

  “But the Flood will not come again. What shall I do? I would build a ship like yours, if there were need. But there is no need for one.”

  “Do you think there was a ship, Gilgamesh? Do you think there was a Flood?”

  By the faint flickering light of his little lamp I tried and failed to read the mysteries of his face. His mind was too agile for me; he danced away from my comprehension. I was losing hope that he would help me find what I sought. “I have heard what they say in the temple here,” I said. “But what am I to make of it? They tell a different tale in the Land.”

  “Trust it as we tell it. The rains came; in Shuruppak the king gathered his people, and they put provisions aside and carried them to the high ground, and remained there until the fury of the storm was spent. Then they returned to the Land and rebuilt all that had been destroyed. That is what happened, those many hundreds of years ago. All the rest is fable.”

  “Including,” I said, “the part where Enlil came to you and blessed you and sent you to Dilmun to live forever?”

  He shook his head. “The king of Shuruppak fled to Dilmun in despair. He went there when he saw that it was folly to have saved mankind, since all the old evils still thrived. He left the Land; he gave up his realm; he sought virtue and purity on this island. That is as it was, Gilgamesh. All the rest is fable.”

  “The tale has it that the gods gave you eternal life. Was that only a fable too? There is eternal life here, so it would seem.”

  “There is no death,” said the Ziusudra. “Have I not told you that?”

  “You have told me, yes. We must do the tasks the gods decree for us, and then there is no death. But I ask you again: What is my task, Ziusudra? How am I to know it? What secret must I learn?”

  “Why do you think there is a secret?”

  “There must be. You have lived so long. You saw the Flood: that was ten lifetimes ago, or twenty; and yet you still sit here. All about you are men and women who seem as
ageless as you. How old is Lu-Ninmarka? How old is Hasidanum?” I looked at the Ziusudra long and earnestly. My hands were trembling, and I felt within myself the first beginnings of the god-aura, the buzzing, the crackling and hissing, all those strange things that come upon me in the times when I am most coiled upon myself with need. “Tell me, father, how I too can defeat death! The gods in assembly conferred life on you: who will call them into assembly for me?”

  “You are the only one who can do that,” said the Ziusudra.

  I could barely draw breath. “How? How?”

  He replied in the most offhand manner, “First show me that you can master sleep, and then we will see about a mastery of death. You can slay lions, O greatest of heroes; can you slay sleep? I invite you to a test, a trial. Sit here beside me for six days and seven nights without sleeping; and then perhaps you may find the life you seek.”

  “Is that the path, then?”

  “It is the path to the path.”

  The buzzing in my soul subsided. A new calmness came over me. He meant to guide me after all.

  “I will attempt it,” I said.

  The test was severe indeed: six days, seven nights! How could any such thing be done by mortal man? But I was confident. I was more than mortal; so had I believed since my boyhood, with good reason. I had slain lions and even demons; I could slay sleep also. Had I not gone day after day with no more than an hour or two of sleep in the seasons of war? Had I not marched through the wilderness by night and by day as though sleep were no need of mine? I would do it. I was sure of that. I had the strength; I had the zeal. I crouched on my haunches next to him and fixed my eyes on his pink smooth serene face, and set myself to the task.

  And to my shame sleep came upon me in a moment, like a whirlwind. But I did not know that I slept.

  My eyes were closed, my breath came thickly; as I say, it had happened in a moment. I thought I was awake and that I sat staring at the Ziusudra; but I slept, and I dreamed. In my dream I saw Ziusudra and his wife, who was as old as he; and he pointed to me and said to her, “Behold this hero, the strong man who seeks eternal life! Sleep came upon him like a whirlwind.”

  “Touch him,” she said. “Wake him. Let him return in peace to his own land, through the gate by which he left.”

  “No,” said Ziusudra in my dream. “I will let him sleep. But while he sleeps, wife, bake a loaf of bread each day, and set it here by his head. And make a mark on the wall to keep count of the days he sleeps. For mankind is deceitful; and when he wakes he will try to deceive us.”

  So she baked bread and marked markings on the wall each day, and I dreamed that I slept on, day after day, thinking I was awake. They watched over me and smiled at my folly; and then at last Ziusudra touched me and I awakened. But this too was still in my dream. “Why do you touch me?” I asked, and he replied, “To awaken you.” I looked at him in surprise and told him hotly that I had not slept, that only a moment had passed since I had crouched down beside him and my eyes had not closed for so much as a moment of that moment. He laughed, and gently he said that his wife had baked bread each day while I slept and had set the loaves before me. “Go, Gilgamesh: count them, and see how many days you have slept!” I looked at the loaves. There were seven of them: the first was like a brick, the second was nearly as stale, the third was soggy. The fourth had gone white about the crust with mildew; the fifth was covered with mold. Only the sixth loaf was still fresh. I saw the seventh baking over the coals. He showed me the markings on the walls, and there were seven, one for each day. So I knew that I had fallen asleep despite myself; and I understood that I had failed in my undertaking. I was unworthy. I would never be able to find my way along the path to eternal life. Despair engulfed me. I felt death coming upon me like a thief in the night, entering my bedchamber, seizing my limbs in his cold grasp. And I gave a great groan and awakened; for all this was still in my dream.

  I looked to the Ziusudra and I put my hand to my head as if to free it from a shroud. I was lost in my confusions. To sleep, believing I was awake, and to dream, and to wake within my dream, and then to awaken in truth—and still not to know whether I dreamed or waked, even now—ah, I was lost, I was lost!

  I pressed the tips of my fingers uncertainly to my eyes. “Am I awake?” I asked.

  “I think you are.”

  “But I slept?”

  “You slept, yes.”

  “Did I sleep long?”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps an hour. Perhaps a day.” He made it seem as if to him the one was the same as the other.

  “I dreamed I slept six days and seven nights, and you and your wife watched over me, and each day she baked bread; and then you awakened me and I denied that I had slept, but I saw the seven loaves before me. And when I saw them I felt death take hold of me, and I cried out.”

  “I heard your cry,” said the Ziusudra. “It was a moment ago, just before you awakened.”

  “So I am awake now,” I said, still unsure.

  “You are awake, Gilgamesh. But first you slept. You were not aware of it: but sleep came upon you in the first moment of your test.”

  “Then I have failed,” I said in a hollow voice. “I am doomed to die. There is no hope for me. Wherever I set my foot, there I find death—even here!”

  He smiled a tender loving smile, as one might give a babe. “Did you think our mysteries could save you from death? They cannot even save me. Do you see that? These rites we observe: they cannot even save me.”

  “It is the tale they tell, that you are exempt from dying.”

  “It is the tale, yes. But it is not the tale we tell here. When did I say that I was exempt from dying? Tell me when I spoke those words, Gilgamesh.”

  I looked at him, bewildered. “There is no death, you said. Only do your task, and then there is no death. You said that.”

  “So I did. But you failed to take my meaning.”

  “I took the meaning that I thought was there.”

  “So you did. It was the easy meaning; it was the meaning you hoped to find; but it was not the true meaning.” Again the tender smile, so sad, so loving. Gently, he said, “We have made our pact with death here. We know his ways, and he knows our ways; and we have our mysteries, and our mysteries defend us for a time from death. But only for a time. Poor Gilgamesh, you have come so far for so little!”

  Understanding flooded me. I felt my skin prickling; I shivered with the chill of perception as the truth made itself manifest. I caught my breath sharply. There was a question I must ask now; but I did not know if I dared to ask it, and I did not think I would have an answer from him. Nevertheless after a moment I said, “Tell me this. You are the Ziusudra: but are you Ziusudra of Shuruppak?”

  He answered without hesitation. And what he told me was that which I had already come to comprehend.

  “Ziusudra of Shuruppak is long since dead,” he said.

  “The one that led his people to the high ground when the rains came?”

  “Dead, long ago.”

  “And the Ziusudra who came after him?”

  “Dead, also. I will not tell you how many of that name have sat in this chamber; but I am not the third, nor the fourth, nor even the fifth. We die, and another comes to take the place and the title; and so we continue in the observance of our mysteries. I am very old, but I will not sit here forever. Perhaps Lu-Ninmarka will be the Ziusudra after me, or perhaps someone else. Perhaps even you, Gilgamesh.”

  “No,” I said. “It will not be me, I think.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “Return to Uruk. Resume my throne. Live out my days to their allotted number.”

  “You know that you may remain with us if you wish, and take part in our rites, and receive training in our skills.”

  “And learn from you how to keep death at bay—though not to defeat him altogether. For that is impossible.”

  “Yes.”

  “But if I give myself to you, I can never again leave this island. Is that s
o?”

  “You will not want to, if you become one of us.”

  “In what way would that be different from death?” I asked. “I would lose all the world, and have only a small sandy island in exchange for it. To dwell in a small room, and work in these fields, and say prayers at night, and eat only certain foods—to live like a prisoner on an isle so little I can walk from shore to shore in an hour or two—”

  “You would not be a prisoner. If you remained, you would remain of your free choice.”

  “It is not the life I would choose, father.”

  “No,” he said. “I did not think you would.”

  “I am grateful for the offer.”

  “Which will not be withdrawn. You may come to us any time, Gilgamesh, if so you choose. But I do not think that is what you will choose.” He smiled yet again and held forth his hand; and as he had done the first time he touched his fingertips to my face for a blessing. His hand was very cold. His touch had a sting. When Lu-Ninmarka led me back to the surface, I still felt the places where he had touched me, like white imprints against my skin.

  37

  I MADE READY TO LEAVE the little island. By orders of the Ziusudra I was given a fine new cloak, and a band to place around my head, and I bathed until I was clean as fresh snow. The boatman Sursunabu would take me across to Dilmun; there I would arrange for my journey home. My mood was somber, dark and subdued, and why should it not have been? The Ziusudra had said it all: I had come so far for so little. Yet I was not distraught. I had gambled and I had lost, but the odds had been great. Only a fool will weep when he asks the impossible of his dice and they do not provide it for him.

  The time was nearly at hand for my departure when the old priest Lu-Ninmarka came to me and made a little speech, saying, “The Ziusudra feels deep sorrow that you have undergone such long hardship and have wearied yourself so greatly without attaining any reward. By way of comforting you he has decided to disclose a hidden thing to you, a secret of the gods. He offers it as a gift, to carry back to your own country.”