Where are they? Are they conscious? What is their fate? The purely didactic and speculative character of the closing tablet is thus evident. It embodies some of the speculations of the theologians of ancient Babylonia on the basis of popular beliefs, which assumed that all the dead were huddled together in a great subterranean cave, conscious, but helpless. Gilgamesh appeals to the goddess Ninsun to help him find the way to the nether world and there to interview his companion Engidu in order to ascertain the fate of the dead. The goddess enjoins a large number of precautions that must be carried out in order to obtain this end. He must be careful not to arouse the dead by too much noise, nor to frighten them. He must abstain from living with his wife and from showing affection for his children. "A clean shirt thou must not put on; With fine oil thou must not anoint thyself; Otherwise, they (i.e., the dead) at the door will gather around thee. Do not place the bow on the ground, or those slain by the bow will surround thee. Do not take a scepter into thy hand, or the shades of the dead will tremble before thee. Do not put shoes on thy feet; Make no noise in treading. The wife whom thou lovest, thou must not kiss. Thy wife whom thou dost not like, thou must not strike. The child that thou dost not like, thou must not strike." Apparently Gilgamesh fails in carrying out all of these precepts, though on account of the fragmentary condition of the tablet we are unable to say exactly what happened except that Gilgamesh did not attain his end. The second scene follows, in which Gilgamesh appeals to the great gods, to Enlil, the head of the old Babylonian pantheon, to the Moon-god Sin, and to the god Ea, the friend and benefactor of mankind. To each in turn he appeals to tell him how he can reach Engidu. Enlil and Sin do not even offer a response, but Ea, moved with pity, intercedes on behalf of Gilgamesh with Nergal, the god of the lower world. A hole is opened and the spirit of Engidu appears "like a wind." Gilgamesh recognizes his friend and asks him the question that he has so long desired to put. "Tell me, my friend, Tell me, my friend, The law of the earth which thou hast experienced, Sadly the answer comes back: "I will not tell thee, my friend, I will not tell thee. If I told thee the law of the earth which I have experienced, Thou wouldst sit down and weep all day, As I sit down all day and weep. Behold the friend whose hands thou hast clasped, rejoicing thy heart, The worms eat him like a worn-out garment. Endigu, whose hand thou didst once clasp, rejoicing thy heart, Is like .. full of earth dust: Into the dust he has sunk; into the dust he has sunk." Nothing could be gloomier than this outlook given toward the end of the twelfth tablet. The dead are conscious of their misery, which only intensifies the sadness of their state. There is only one faint ray of light illuminating the darkness. If the living revere the dead by providing them with food and drink and by recalling their presence on earth, the dead will at least not suffer the pangs of hunger or experience the pain of neglect and of being forgotten. Furthermore, to die the hero's death on the battle-field is a distinction, since it at least furnishes a greater assurance that the dead will not be neglected. The Gilgamesh Epic closes as follows: He who dies by death through the sword, as you have seen and I have seen, He rests on a couch, pure water he drinks; He who dies in battle, as you have seen and I have seen, His father and mother hold his head and his wife bends over him. But he whose corpse is thrown into the field, as you have seen and I have seen, Whose shade does not rest in the ground, That shade has no one to care for it, as you have seen and I have seen; What is left in the pot, what is thrown into the street, He is obliged to eat. That is, a decent burial and proper provision for the nurture of the dead are all that the living can do for those who have passed beyond our vision. COMMENTARY While, as several times pointed out, there are many features in this remarkable production which, owing to the fragmentary condition of so many of the tablets, remain obscure, yet the general course of the narrative is clear and, above all, its composite character is evident. Various attempts have been made to assign an astral or astro-mythological character to the episodes in the epic. It has been supposed that the adventures of Gilgamesh represent in reality phenomena in the heavens associated with the fanciful constellations, and again, it has been supposed that the adventures of Gilgamesh in the twelve tablets symbolize the yearly course of the sun, each tablet corresponding to the position of the sun in one of the twelve constellations. It can not, however, be said that any of these endeavors have met with much success. Certainly they have not received the general approval of scholars. It seems more natural to assume, as is taken for granted throughout this analysis, that there is at the bottom of the tale some faint historical reminiscences associated with an early semi-mythical ruler of Uruk. The one episode which appears to belong to Gilgamesh without much question is the conflict with Khumbaba, who dwells in the forest of cedars. This incident may well reflect the successful resistance of an invasion of Babylonia from the north. The association of Gilgamesh with Elam to the east of Babylonia also rests on some historical basis. The figure of Engidu is merely the type of the first man together with traditions of a purely fanciful and speculative character regarding the beginnings of man's existence on earth which are artificially brought into association with the favorite hero. The mythical element, we have seen, is also introduced, which brings Gilgamesh into close association with the Sun-god on the one hand and, on the other, attaches to him myths that clearly symbolize the change of seasons. Incidents illustrative of the great strength of Gilgamesh are also introduced, and no doubt other exploits in the missing portions of the epic. The story, finally, was taken up by the theologians attached to the temples of Babylonia and made the medium for speculations on immortality and the fate of the dead. These speculations, full of naïve symbolism, have colored, as we have seen, the second part of the epic and are responsible for the addition of the twelfth tablet. The story of Gilgamesh must have traveled beyond the region in which it arose. Echoes of it are found among the Greeks, in the adventures of Hercules, and in the fanciful tales attached to Alexander the Great. But while such influences must be recognized, a warning is in place against exaggerating their extent. A very distinguished German Assyriologist, in publishing a volume on "Gilgamesh in World Literature," has endeavored to find traces of the epic in almost all parts of the Ancient World and in almost all the fables and myths that have circulated from India to the Atlantic Ocean. The endeavor has failed, despite the learning and ingenuity of the author.28 For all that, it may be said that there is no production of ancient Babylonia which has exerted so wide an influence as this remarkable tale. 28 Professor Peter Jensen (University of Marburg), "Das GilgameshEpos in der Weltliteratur (Strassburg, 1906). |