With a favorable dream, they journeyed, rested and camped as they had before, on a mountaintop, digging a well, building a shelter, beseeching the mountain for a blessing, tracing a magic circle of flour, and then surrendering to sleep, which overtakes all men.

Upon each mountaintop, at midnight, Gilgamesh awoke, having had a dream more terrible than the last, fearfully consulting Enkidu about each:

…Shinning and Handsome was the young man who rescued dreaming Gilgamesh from the looming mountain who had thrown him down.

Enkidu declared that the young shinning man was the Sun, chief of the gods, who would rescue Gilgamesh and grant his heart’s desire.

…Heaven Roared and Earth Heaved, enveloped by silence and darkness, broken by light and fire, leaving the forest in ash.

Enkidu declared these elements to represent Humbaba attempting to kill Gilgamesh and failing, the forest he was set to guard being ruined in the process.

…A Fierce Lion-Headed Eagle, as large as a cloud, soared earthward and breathed fire. But a young man with an otherworldly glow stood beside him and throttled the monster.

Enkidu declared the dragon to symbolize Humbaba and the youth another incarnation of the Sun, who favored him and would save him. This dream, in particular, was a sign that the Sun would stand beside them when they faced Humbaba.

…A Gigantic Bull, with a bellow that sundered the earth, whose hooves raised clouds that brought darkness, pinned and crushed Gilgamesh, its breath rank in his face. Then a man pulled Gilgamesh to his feet and nourished him.

Enkidu declared this dream to be the confirmation of their divine blessing, as the bull stood for the Sun himself, and the man was Lugalbanda, his “own personal god,” his great ancestor, whose intercession would ultimately lead to Gilgamesh surpassing all men in his achievements.

They had reached the fringe of the Cedar Forest, over which echoed Humbaba’s terrifying roar.

Gilgamesh stopped and trembled, tears wetting his cheeks and cried, “Oh, Sun, protect me from danger, remember me, help me, hear my prayer.”

They stood, listening as a moment passed.

Then, from heaven, came the voice of the Sun: “Quickly, attack Humbaba now, while the time is right, before he treads deep into the forest, before he cloaks himself in his seven radiant glares. He wears but one glare now—attack!”

They stood beneath the looming trees at the Cedar Forest fringe, alert, silent. It was not the time for words.

Book Four is the least avidly read of the books of Gilgamesh, due to its severe repetition and the lack of civilized artifice. Book Four is—this reader suspects—the most ancient of the books, preserving the hazy tribal recollection of five migrations, five homelands, and the passing of five ages. In an epic packed with notions of the life of peoples as cyclic, and mirroring a hidden reality, Book Four is the most cyclic of the eleven books.

The camping sequence mirrors the rise and fall of cities, which was the salient theme in the Land Between the Rivers, from the time of Gilgamesh down to the last carving of his legend into baked clay tablets, for, like the American Southwest, the region was prone to failed agricultural efforts, with dead cities dotting the region.

Humbaba, envisioned as a demon by translators, also Huwawa, the guardian of the forest, may be an allegory for nature and its grip on Man. The fact that the dragon was said to symbolize Humbaba may indicate a case of syncretic adoption of the myths of conquered or amalgamated tribes. The “seven paralyzing auras” or “radiant glares” of Humbaba indicate that he is, in fact, “The Dragon,” the personification of the link between Man and Divinity, his seven “glares” the mind-shattering boundaries of mortal knowledge. Little does Gilgamesh and Enkidu know, but the very object of their quest—the killing of Humbaba—, if accomplished, amounts to the severing of Man’s relationship with God, his self-denial of access to the transcendent.

A shaman without a mystery is like a chief without a tribe. If Humbaba is killed, then Enkidu must die, for he will no longer have a sacred purpose.