Hearing of Gilgamesh, Enkidu, nodded knowingly.

A yearning stirred in his soul, a longing he had not known, an urge to find a soul mate. He said, “Shamhat, take me to great-girded Uruk, to the Garden of the Goddess, to the place where this Gilgamesh stalks—I shall challenge him, shouting, ‘I am the mighty one, the top man, the world shaker!’”

Shamhat took his hand and spoke, “We go to Uruk, to Gilgamesh the mighty, king of the great city behind its mighty wall.

“There young warriors wear striking clothes, the finest linen, embroidered wool, brightly colored, under fringed shawls and broad belts.

“Each day begins and ends with rites in Uruk. People sing and dance in the streets, musicians plucking lyres and beating drums, luscious priestesses beckoning from before the Garden of Ishtar, their voices musical, their breasts swelled, their loins wet, ready to know men for the Goddess, even arousing old spent men from their beds.

“You, who have seen so little, shall see so much, in the shadow of Gilgamesh, who is destined for glory and grief. You will wonder at his perfection, his virility, the pulsing erotic power of his form—taller and broader than you, so infused with life he does not sleep.

“Enkidu, cool your rage. The Sun God, loves him. The Sky God, chief of heaven, has expanded his mind, which was made large by the Earth God and by the God of Men and Cities of the Wise Waters.* Before you came down out of the hills, you had come to Gilgamesh in a dream.”

“He went to his mother, The Creator and asked of a dream, ‘I saw a bright star streak across the morning sky. Falling at my feet, it lay like a huge boulder.* I tried to lift, but it was too heavy. I tried to move it, but it would not move. The people of Uruk crowded in around me, pressing in to see it, anointing its feet with kisses like a newborn. This Boulder—once a star, a dream of the sky fallen to earth—I embraced and caressed as a man caresses his wife. Then I laid it before you, and you told me it was my second self.’

“The all-knowing Mother of Creation, of Gilgamesh, said to her child, ‘Favorite son, this bright, fallen star, this boulder you could not move, it represents a companion, a mighty man to stand loyally by your side against all. He will be your wild half, seeing you through the most terrible peril. Embrace him, caress him, love him as a man would a wife. Soon you shall meet him, your soul mate. So spoke your dream.’

“Gilgamesh said, ‘May this dream come to pass. May my soul mate appear, a companion to stand by my side against the perils that abide.’

When Shamhat had concluded her account, Enkidu turned to her, took her and knew the Goddess again.

As with the Hellenic and Roman mythos, the sky god is supreme in heaven, with the sun god, earth and sea gods subordinate to him. The key relationship is between the sky and sun, like Zeus and Apollo, demonstrating that Gilgamesh represents an invading steppes people who conquered a land already ruled by earlier invaders of the same type.

This section of Book One has been interpreted as the root of the story of Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus. It has also been interpreted as evidence of ancient alien astronauts coming to earth and having sex with humans.

This reader takes this passage as an allegory for the cultural assimilation of a warlike pastoral people by the agrarian community they seize control of. In so doing, a conquering race of nomads [sky god] will tend to identify with their successors [sun god] that they just displaced, perhaps keeping them on as advisors and henchmen. They would also, when their holy men looked into the mythos of the conquered farmers [earth god and goddesses] to identify common themes for the forging of a shared identity [syncretism] that would support the aspiration of the ruling class, identify origins myths [Enkidu] representing the ancestral hunting tradition of the conquered before they settled down to farm, and interpret them as providing a common mythic link. The root of many ancient polytheistic pantheons based in river valleys and peninsulas accessible from the hinterlands, was essentially this process of a warlike tribe under one god, conquering a larger conglomeration of less warlike tribes, and then seeking an accommodation, represented ritualistically by gathering the gods of the vanquished peoples under the authority of the conquering deity, mirroring in heaven what had occurred on earth.

The God of Men and Cities and of the Wise Waters was named Enki, who fashioned men, and had a hand in the making of Gilgamesh. Thus Enkidu could be regarded as being the "Created-one."