As for you, Gilgamesh, let your belly
be full,
Make merry day and night.
Of each day make a feast of rejoicing.
Day and night dance and play!
Let your garments be sparkling fresh,
Your head be washed; bathe in water.
Pay heed to a little one that holds on to your
hand,
Let a spouse delight in your bosom.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary
Siduri, the veiled barmaid, keeps a tavern by the edge
of the sea. Gazing along the shore, she sees a man coming toward
her. He is wearing animal skins, and his face is wind-bitten and
battered. He looks like he has been traveling for a long time. Concerned
that he might be dangerous, Siduri closes and bars her door against
him. The traveler pounds on the door and threatens to smash it down.
He says he is Gilgamesh, and Siduri asks him why he looks like a
tramp and a criminal. Gilgamesh says that he is grieving for his
companion who helped to fight the lions and the wolves and slay
the demon Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven. He says that Enkidu has
been overtaken by the fate that awaits all humankind—he’s turned
to clay. Gilgamesh asks Siduri if that is what will happen to him.
Siduri unlocks her door and tells Gilgamesh that only
the gods live forever. She invites him into her tavern to clean
himself up, change his clothes, and eat and drink his fill. But
Gilgamesh no longer cares for earthly pleasures and refuses to be
distracted from his mission. He asks her how to find Utnapishtim.
Siduri tells Gilgamesh that Shamash the sun god crosses
the sea every day, but from the beginning of time, no mortal has
ever been able to follow him, because the sea is too stormy and
treacherous. Siduri says that even if he miraculously survived the
crossing, he would then face the poisonous Waters of Death, which
only Urshanabi, Utnapishtim’s boatman, knows how to navigate. She
tells him that Urshanabi lives deep in the forest, where he guards
the Urnu-snakes and the Stone Things. When Siduri sees that she
cannot sway Gilgamesh from his purpose, she gives him directions
to Urshanabi’s house and tells him to ask Urshanabi to take him
to Utnapishtim. She instructs Gilgamesh to return to her if Urshanabi
refuses.
Gilgamesh sets off to find Urshanabi. When he arrives
near the place where the Urnu-snakes and the Stone Things reside,
he attacks them with his axe and dagger. Then he introduces himself
to Urshanabi. Urshanabi studies Gilgamesh’s face and asks him why
he looks like a tramp. He observes that Gilgamesh’s face is worn
and weathered and that sorrow rests in his belly. Gilgamesh tells
him about Enkidu, his grief, his fear, and his implacable determination
to go to Utnapishtim.
Urshanabi says he will take Gilgamesh to Utnapishtim,
but that Gilgamesh has made the journey immeasurably more difficult because
he smashed the Stone Things and the Urnu-snakes, which propelled
and protected his boat. Urshanabi orders Gilgamesh to go back into
the forest and cut sixty poles, and then another sixty poles. (In some
versions of the story, Gilgamesh must cut as many as 300 poles.) Each
pole must be exactly sixty cubits in length (approximately ninety feet).
Urshanabi instructs him to fit the poles with rings and cover them with
pitch, and then they will attempt the voyage.
Gilgamesh cuts the poles, and they sail off together across
the perilous sea. In three days they sail as far as an ordinary
boat would have sailed in two months. When they arrive at the Waters
of Death, the boatman tells Gilgamesh to use the punting poles but
to be sure his hands don’t touch the water. Gilgamesh poles the
boat through the Waters of Death. His great strength causes him
to break all one hundred and twenty poles. When the last pole is
ruined, he takes off the skin he wears and holds it up as a sail.
