Books Nine, Ten and Eleven concern the quest of Gilgamesh, he who was the last of the semi-divine children of the gods and the first to realize his eternal confinement to the mortal sphere. What follows is, in effect, the hero quest of civilized man, of we domesticated humans. This is a very different and separate story from that of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, as demonstrated by the hero’s need to recount their fate to the Breweress.

Over the course of this adaptation of our most ancient tale I have employed rather intrusive footnotes, interpretations gleaned from comparative mythology to assist in the reader’s appreciation of the primal messages imbedded in that story. I am convinced that the story of Enkidu is our most ancient tale and was later woven into the story of Gilgamesh as its foundation, as a preservation of and goodbye to, a previous worldview.

The story of Gilgamesh alone [1] should stand alone. I will only include brief footnotes on terminology and period details for the remainder of the text. Just as books 1-8 served as a preservation of the Primal Age of the Hunter and an introduction to the Settled Age of the King, books 9-11 appear to be an ancient message in a bottle [actually carved and baked in clay] from the ancient mind, at the Dawn of Civilizated Time, to whomever might reside at the End of Civilized Time with the means to comprehend.

The editor of the Babylonian version of Gilgamesh that has come down to us, and to whom I owe apologies for attempting to restore some of its more ancient tone, who put his imprint on this story about 3,200 years ago, was Sin-leqi-unninni, or, in English: Moon-Father-Is-the-One-Who-Accepts-a-Prayer.

The pious old scribe deserves credit where it has been long overdue.

1. The modern hero quest under civilized conditions is typically a lonely journey of self-discovery conducted against the alienating backdrop of a hierarchal society that does not recognize—indeed denies—the unknown, where primal, tribal societies often feature sibling and companion heroes and sacred bands–reflecting ancestral explorer groups—who seek the unknown on behalf of the group, that reemerge into myth via the story teller in such epics as: Gilgamesh [Enkidu and Gilgamesh], The Iliad [Achilles and Patroclus] [2], Roman myth [Romulus and Remus], The Song of Roland [Roland and Charlemagne] [3], The Grail Romances [Lancelot and Arthur] and even in Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and was most recently done by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Tarzan series, with one hero transforming in a largely environment-dependent fashion from civilized lord to ape man and back again.

2. Yes, the Odyssey is essentially a civilized tale of an alienated hero journey, very comparable to the lone quest of Gilgamesh in books 9-11, and serves the same narrative returning purpose within the context of the chronologically incomplete Iliad.

3. Beowulf is in many ways the primal hero tale of the sacred band, yet has much of the domesticated-wild dichotomy of the Song of Roland and Gilgamesh, with an impotent civilized king having to send for a primal type hero. Likewise, The Song of Roland echoes the insubordination of the primal band-leading hero [Achilles] in the face of the machinations of army-managing hero kings. All of these epics build on Gilgamesh, or at least the pattern set down by the early poets in presenting this heroic dichotomy. However, the naive loyalty and affection of Gilgamesh and Enkidu are never again present [though The Song of Roland Comes close, with teh heroes severed from each other by the plot] in the open-hearted innocence present in both of these youthful, even childish, heroes in the face of a world which looms ever larger and more terrible.