King of kings, broad and tall, unequalled among men, He was both fierce and excellent like a raging bull.
Matchless chief and front-line-fighter, loved by his soldiers; He was their protective shield and raging torrent, smasher of walls.
Two-thirds divine and one third mortal, son of King Lugalbanda ascendant, and the goddess Ninsun, He forced the mountain passes, dug wells on their flanks, sailed to the rising son across the Ocean, journeyed to World’s End in search of immortality where he found Utnapishtim—the immortal who survived The Flood.
From beyond He returned, restoring the forgotten ancestral rites, rebuilding the temples destroyed by The Flood, renewing the idols and prayers, relieving the people and restoring the sacred land.
Who equals Gilgamesh?
What king has evoked such awe?
Can any other man say, “Only I rule supreme, the top ma?”
Aruru, Mother of Creation, willfully wrought him to be superior to all men—towering and radiant with perfection.
The semi-divine nature of Gilgamesh, taken together with much of the substance of his story, has led numerous scholars to suggest that the later mythic figure of Herakles was adapted or borrowed by Hellenic poets from a Near Eastern source. This author sees the connection, but attributes the shared themes and possible derivation, to a common Indo-European origin for both myths. For it is obvious from this passage that Gilgamesh was an invader, having descended from the high plains of Asia and conquering this garden of a land. His story is, in effect, a tale of how a barbarian conqueror of a civilized slave nation, might recover his primal identity in the face of the character-eroding ease of urban life.
