Reading from Stephan Mitchell’s New English Version of Gilgamesh, I have no wish to give away his good work or adulterate it. I have worked from other translations of Gilgamesh, and I think one day will do my own version. For now I would like to utilize the encapsulating artifice of the ‘prologue as summary’ that begins this ancient story. Reproducing these 22 lines of verse as rendered by Mister Mitchell, I will use these alone as points of departure to discuss the allegorical subtext and encourage the readers to access Stephan Mitchell’s beautiful work for themselves, my review of which may be found in the appendix Beyond The Garden Of Ishtar.
Our first Epic Poem and most ancient literature to have survived, Gilgamesh, is in many ways more focused on the plight of civilized man than any of the other major verses of antiquity. Although it was first, in many ways it carried the last word—the most far reaching message. I will—so long as I can avoid eating the grill of that city bus in the sky—attempt to render my own version of Gilgamesh from direct translations, as soon as my impressions of Moby Dick are complete, a tale which ironically has more in common with Gilgamesh than does the other poems of antiquity.
Prologue
Ascendant Man
He had seen everything, had experienced all emotions,
from exultation to despair, had been granted a vision
into the great mystery, the secret places,
the primeval days before the flood.
He is Man, mankind from his earliest origin too his present plight.
The Transcendent Hero’s Plight
He had journeyed
to the edge of the world and made his way back, exhausted
but whole. He had carved his trials on stone tablets,
had restored the holy Eanna Temple and the massive
wall of Uruk, which no city on earth can equal.
The hero has retraced the steps of his forefathers seeking for the meaning of life and the key to his plight and this has brought him penitently back into the fold of the civilization he had defied and sought to transcend. His society is the greatest on earth and draws the prodigal son back, weary of defying it, but having at least defined himself in the attempt.
Garden of Emasculation
See how its ramparts gleam like copper in the sun.
Climb the stone staircase, more ancient than the mind can imagine,
approach the Eanna Temple, sacred to Ishtar,
a temple that no king has equaled in size or beauty,
walk on the wall of Uruk, follow its course
around the city, inspect its mighty foundations,
examine its brickwork, how masterfully it is built,
observe the land it encloses, the palm trees, the gardens,
the orchards, the glorious palace and the temples, the shops
and marketplaces, the houses the public squares.
Behold your unmatched nation, marvel at its unfathomable rise to greatness, this is your sacred motherland, the unmatched land of your master, consider the expanse of your nation, its might, its matchless basis, its bounty, it plenty and glory, its teaming places.
This is an ancient version of My Country Tis Of Thee; what the kingly sponsor of this poem paid the poet for. Of the 22 lines of the prologue 12 [including these 10] extol the greatness of the political order and of the mother civilization of which Uruk is the gleaming erect phallic symbol.
As with other epic poems the artist subverts his patron where possible. It seems to this reader that the poet’s ego and need to fathom ‘the mystery’ is vested in the quest of Gilgamesh to defy the gods, partner with his wild ‘other self’ represented by Enkidu, and consult The Distant One. Gilgamesh’s battle with the Stone Men may be an allegory for the poet’s struggle to carve his spiritual agency in stone, in this poem of his, composed for his master and extolling his master’s ancestor, but imbued with his own yearning to transcend the stifling embrace of the Goddess Ishtar, which is a metaphor for the emasculating nature of civilization itself.
Gilgamesh is the mythic figure that precedes and predicts the grim fates of Samson and Herakles in their furious struggle to retain their masculine agency in the face of the stifling embrace of a Garden World. The most telling passages in the epic are Gilgamesh’s resistance to the seduction of the Goddess Ishtar, who actually threatens to unleash an undead zombie plague! Gilgamesh spurns her love and details the fates of her past husbands, 6 in number. With 7 the sacred number of the hero in ancient Mesopotamia [of antiquitous Ice Age origin] and 12 the number of the gods, it is clear to the astute reader that 6 is the number of submission and emasculation, and that Gilgamesh is doomed to an eternity of compromise as the ill-fated and compromised Seventh Husband of The Goddess.
Plumb the Mystery
Find the cornerstone and under it the copper box
that is marked with his name. Unlock it. Open the lid.
Take out the tablet of lapis lazuli. Read
how Gilgamesh suffered all and accomplished all.
Examine the key to your nation and find its secret, exemplified by the hero’s struggle. Decode this tale, open to truth. Consider the gross document. Understand the suffering and accomplishments of Man.
In the tradition of Homer and the anonymous bard of Beowulf, I see the shadowy figure that composed perhaps our oldest cautionary tale as something of a Merlin to Gilgamesh’s Arthur; overtly telling the tale the master has compelled him to tell, while subtly telling the back story of the mastered, of that primeval age when they were still men. The author of Gilgamesh, in these four sly lines, invites the reader to dream of emulating Gilgamesh, in hopes perhaps that one eventually shall, and fair better than the primal man whose hopes for transcendence where finally buried in the Garden of His Demise.
Read Gilgamesh.
Incubus of Your Sacred Emasculation is completed with this installment. The entire book—not written strictly in order—is available through the Man Cave tag, and should be in print and available through Create Space under the PunchBuggyBooks imprint before 2015. I would like to thank the reader for his and her indulgence.
Sincerely,
James LaFond, 9:12 a.m. 12/21/14
