He swaggers through His city, arrogant, his head raised with pride, crushing his subjects under heel like a wild bull.*
He is King.
He takes what he will, takes the father’s son to crush, takes the mother’s girl to use, and the warrior’s daughter, even the young man’s bride—he uses her.
No one dares deny Him.
The people of Uruk prayed so that their lament was heard in Heaven, where the gods are not entirely cruel. The hearts of the gods were touched. They went to their father, Anu, to whom Uruk was sacred, and spoke to him of the lament of its people:
“Father of Heaven, Gilgamesh—excellent though he is—has broken trust with the people who suffer his lusts. The people wail that he takes the father’s son and crushes him, takes the mother’s girl to use, and the warrior’s daughter, even the young man’s bride—he uses her.”
“No one dares deny Him.”
“Father, is this rule you approve of, your shepherd* ravaging his own flock?”
“Act swiftly, before we are overcome with mortal sorrow wafting up with their wretched wails.”
Anu heard their plea, agreed, and called upon the Mother of Creation, “Aruru, you created humans. Now create a match for Gilgamesh, a true counterpart, an equal in courage and in strength, a man who rivals him in passion and wrath. Breathe life into such a man, so that neither may overthrow the other, and Uruk may be at peace.”
Notes
*The reader may take these passages as indications that Gilgamesh was a nomadic conqueror who had settled down to rule an agrarian people. There is a suggestion that the lesser gods—the demoted deities of a subjugated folk—identify with the people more than with Gilgamesh, and that Gilgamesh is the agent of Anu, suggesting that Anu is a sky god. Taken together with earlier passages about Gilgamesh forcing the mountain passes down into the lands of Sumer, a Eurasian, and possibly Indo-European, origin for Anu is likely.
