Into the dark of night Gilgamesh wept for his taken friend. At the first radiance of Dawn, when the Sun takes her, his lover, Gilgamesh knew he was forever gone.

“Enkidu, dear brother-companion, you came out of the wild, your mother a gazelle, your father a wild ass, raised on the milk of antelope and dear, learning from the wandering herds of the best pastures.

“May the paths to the Cedar forest mourn you day and night.

“May the elders of great-girded Uruk, who blessed us at departure, mourn you.

“May the hills and mountains we traversed mourn you.

“May the pastures mourn you as their son.

“May the Cedar Forest we defiled in our fury morn you.

“May the bear, hyena, panther, leopard, deer, jackal, lion, wild bull and gazelle mourn you. [1]

“May the rivers Ulaya and Euphrates, whose sacred waters we offered to the gods, mourn you.

“May the young men of great-girded Uruk, who cheered our slaughter of Heaven’s Bull, mourn you.

“May the farmer, who praised you to the skies, mourn you in his harvest song.

“May the shepherd, who brought you milk, mourn you.

“May the brewer, who brought you beer, mourn you.

“May Ishtar’s priests, who massaged you with sweet smelling oils, mourn you.

“May the wedding guests mourn you like their own brother.

“May the close-coifed priests of the temple mourn you with loosened hair.

“Hear me elders, hear me young men, my brother-companion is dead. My beloved brother is dead. I will mourn him as long as I live, will sob for him like a woman who has lost her only child.

“Enkidu, you were the heavy axe, trusted at my side, the sure knife in its sheathe, the stout shield I bore, the wide belt at my waist, the robe I wore.

“Hard fate has ripped you away, forever lost.

“Beloved friend, fierce stallion, alert stag, prowling leopard ranging in the wild—Enkidu, my friend, man of many beast powers, ranging in the wild, together we crossed the mountains, together we slew Humbaba, who guarded the Cedar Forest, together we slaughtered the Bull of Heaven—Enkidu, what of this sleep that has gripped you, that has darkened your face and taken your breath?”

Enkidu did not answer. Gilgamesh touched his friend on the heart that no longer beat the song of life.

1. This is evidence that the Middle East was once capable of supporting animal life on the order of the African Savannah. The tone of Gilgamesh mourns, in this way, through the poets, for the land that Man altered out of its natural state as he transformed himself into domestic creature.

2. The mourning of Gilgamesh is clearly a metaphor for the loss of the primal lifeway. Legends of ancient ties abounded of long-lived ancestors and giant ancestors as well. This may well have stemmed from the fact that civilized life was shorter, more disease prone and more agonizing than the more varied and less labor intensive and less coercive hunting gathering lifeway, and also of the nomadic lifestyle enjoyed by their immediate ancestors. Living in close proximity to livestock in crowded conditions, as opposed to moving across a broad range, bred disease. Most human diseases were acquired from living in close proximity to animals. Agricultural work was brutally tough, with men suffering ruptures from heavy work and women severe arthritis from repetitive processing tasks.

Most agricultural workers suffered from protein and vitamin deficiencies up into the modern era. British troops drawn from modern laboring populations were dwarfed both by the primitive enemies they fought and the well-fed officers who commanded them. Across the colonial world of the mid 1800s men of the American Indian Plains tribes, Polynesian islanders, and Africa tribesman were generally of the same stature as European nobility, with line soldiers from the poor European classes stunted by the civilized life.

The reader must understand that the excessive consumption of the nobility and royalty stems from their attempt to emulate their god-ancestors and live lives of meat-eating plenty with a varied diet, not simply dinning on bread and alcohol like their slaves. The current “paleo” diet trend amongst upper scale amateur athletes is a manifestation of this same impulse to return to our roots. One must not think of the varied produce of the modern American farmer as an example of the ancient urban larder. Rather, what most ancients, and most laboring class people of the industrial era, lived upon, was nothing more than bread and dirty water, little different from the feed of ancient cattle, just not as nutritious.