Achilles and the Caucasus - Université de Montréal

Achilles and the Caucasus (K. Tuite) — août 17, 2007 — pg. 41
curses Shamḫat for having lured him away from his garden of
Eden (Gilgamesh VII.88-121). The god Shamash, however,
rebukes him:
“Enkidu, why are you cursing the harlot, Shamhat,
she who fed you bread fit for a god,
she who gave you wine fit for a king,
she who dressed you in grand garments,
and she who allowed you
to make beautiful Gilgamesh your comrade?” (VII.122-128)
whereupon Enkidu relents and changes his curse into a
blessing. But the most eloquent summing-up of the ancient
Mesopotamian ideology of human destiny, of ‘family values’, one
might say, come from the mouth of Siduri, the tavern-keeper
whom Gilgamesh encounters on his search for the secret of
immortality:
“Gilgamesh, where are you wandering?
The life that you are seeking all around you will not find.
When the gods created mankind,
they fixed Death for mankind,
and held back Life in their own hands.
Now you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full!
Be happy day and night,
Of each day make a party,
dance in circles day and night!
Let your clothes be sparkling clean,
let your head be clean, wash yourself with water!
Attend to the little one who holds onto your hand,
Let a wife delight in your embrace.
This is the (true) task of mankind(?)” (X.iii.1-14)
[from the Old Babylonian version (Kovacs 1989: 85, note 1)]
In terms of their portayals of the human condition — and
specifically that of the male half of humanity — the Mesopotamian