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The Epic of Gilgamesh: An English Verison with an Introduction

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The Epic of Gilgamesh is a fascinating tale of great historical importance. Composed 1500 years before Homer's epics, the story is one that modern man can readily understand and appreciate. Gilgamesh was the more than capable ruler of the ancient town of Uruk; his strength and physical beauty were unmatched by any in the land, and his subjects adored him. Although he possessed so much, Gilgamesh wanted desperately to live forever like a god. He was two-thirds god and one-third human, but he refused to accept his destiny to die. If it were his lot to die, he wanted to perform great deeds so that his name would never be forgotten.

The story opens with the story of Enkidu, a wild man of nature who was to become Gilgamesh's best friend and accompany him on his dangerous journeys. The first trip takes them to the Land of the Cedars where Gilgamesh sets out to kill Humbaba, the guardian of the forest. When he later slays the Bull of Heaven, the anger of the gods is turned upon him and Enkidu, leading to new suffering by Gilgamesh. In desperation, he seeks Utnapishtim in the land of the gods; Utnapishtim was granted eternal life after preserving mankind in the wake of a great flood. Gilgamesh again finds only heartache for his troubles. Returning to Uruk, he preserves the story of his journeys and deeds in writing, and it is, perhaps ironically, in this written record that Gilgamesh is recognized today for the great man he was.

One learns much about the ancient gods in this tale, and the story of the great goddess Ishtar's role in the related events is pretty amazing. When Ishtar invited Gilgamesh to be her husband, he issued forth a litany of former lovers whom Ishtar had turned out and cursed, boldly rebuffing Ishtar's advances. It is this brave act that led to most of Gilgamesh's later troubles. Even Enkidu, whose reported bravery is belied by his reluctance to aid his noble friend in several situations, is rather astonishingly disrespectful to the goddess.

N. K. Sandars does a remarkable job of putting the epic in its proper historical and literary perspective. A glossary of relevant gods and characters is particularly helpful. Along with providing a short history of the man, the gods, and the epic itself, she goes to great lengths to explain her method of producing this modern translation. There is no one extant copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh; a number of tablets, in varying degrees of condition and legibility and differing somewhat in the details of the story, have been compared and contrasted in order to produce the story as she presents it. Perhaps the most useful part of the introduction is an explanation of the form and style of the text. The text was originally told in verse, and Sandars explains that she chose to produce the text in narrative form in the interest of readability. As the order of events is not universally agreed upon, she explains why she chose the order she did for events. One annoying feature of the text, at least to the modern reader, is the constant word for word repetition of speeches between characters, and Sandars does the reader a great service by alerting him/her to this and explaining the rationale behind its use by the ancient writers.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest written texts in history, yet its theme is timeless, its characters all too human, and its appeal universal. Sandars' modern, narrative translation transforms the historically important epic into an eminently readable, quite enjoyable story. The tale of a great flood in this incredibly ancient tale has raised eyebrows ever since the text was discovered. The parallels to the Biblical tale of Noah are obvious, adding great strength to the argument that the legend or memory of a cataclysmic flood was common to diverse cultures in the ancient Near East. Those familiar with the ideas of Zechariah Sitchin will find this story especially fascinating and illuminating.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient story-- perhaps 4 thousand to 5 thousand years old. Originating in ancient Sumeria, it spread throughout the Near East and the version we have has been reconstructed from Akkadian, Babylonian, Hittite, and Hurrian translations inscribed on clay tablets. Its themes and motifs (including a divinely ordained Great Flood) influenced the development of other great poetic works and mythological traditions, including those of ancient Egypt, Israel, and Greece.

The story here is mythic and powerful. I won't try to summarize it other than to say that it raises truly timeless questions about what it means to be human-- questions about love sex and friendship, about nature and civilization, of the simple joys in life and about our desire to do great deeds, about our fear of death and the impossiblity of escaping it.

There is much about this story that may seem archaic, naive, and odd to first-time readers, ranging from the description of Gilgamesh as 2/3 god, 1/3 mortal (which may perplex folks who try to work out how that can happen hereditarily speaking), to the repetivite narrative voice that stem from the conventions of orally performed poetry (which does seem a bit odd when being *read* silently in a book). However, once one learns to see beyond these curious features, it is apparent that _The Epic of Gilgamesh_, as it has come down to us, is a brilliant and clever piece of poetic craftsmanship and storytelling. The use of recurrent images and motifs, the narrative symmetries and ironies (e.g. how, after Enkidu's death, Gilgamesh leaves the city, puts on animal furs, and goes off into the wilderness... becoming much like Enkidu was at the beginning of the story). In truth, I would not hesitate to say that the _Epic of Gilgamesh_ is, from a poetic point of view, as complex and sophisticated as any of Shakespeare's plays.

The Penguin edition of the poem, I should add, offers a loose prose translation that is quite satisfactory and extremely readable. Those who are more interested in the stylistic qualities of the original may prefer a more literal translation, while those more interested in the history of the poem and its sources, may prefer a more scholarly edition-- but for the general or first time reader, Sandars' edition should be more than suitable.

First off, I have never thaught I would give Gilgamesh anything less than five stars. However, I recently received Andrew George's translation (the more reccent translation in the Penguin Classics series) and earlier today got my hands on a copy of this edition and decided to compare them. I found this edition very incomplete (George's is currently the most complete form) and like another reviewer said an unneccisarilly long introduction (at least for a translation that short). So while I do recomend Gilgamesh to everybody I would not recomend this (N. K. Sandars) translation and would instead recomend the one by Andrew George (unless you want more myths from Babylon and that area in which case I would recomend Myths From Mesopotamia by Stephanie Dalley her translation while not as complete is still one of the best I've read).

This is a 5,000 year old poem, the first traces of which were discovered in 1839 by a young Englishman, Austen Layard, who was
intent upon working in Ceylon but on the way there he and a friend stopped at Nineveh, on the Tigris River, and began an excavation hoping to find inscriptions. They found a library of clay tablets! What was to have been a few days excavation became
years. He subsequently brought back to London thousands of clay tablets with their wedge shaped cuneiforms, which were eventually
deciphered, including part of The Epic of Gilgamesh.

New finds in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by others, and their laborious interpretation followed. One of the results was this ancient epic poem, which contains, among other things, one of the earliest tales of a great deluge and flood which is eerily similar to the flood described in the Hebrew Bible. The perpetrators of the flood, though, were not the solitary God of the Hebrews, but one of the multiple Gods worshipped in those days, Enlil, god of earth, wind and air, and counselor to the other Gods, of which there were a multitude.

Gilgamesh was the king of Uruk, a great city in Mesopotamia (present day Iraq.) Although blessed with remarkable beauty ("a perfect body") and great strength, he was but two-thirds god and one third mortal--which does present some serious questions! The poem was his epic, and there was indeed an historical figure of the same name.

Recently, in my home town, 8th-grade students were assigned the poem to study, in this very translation, but because of a rather innocuous passage referring to a "harlot" who used her blandishments, including a reference to her nakedness, to
influence a friend of Gilgamesh (Enkidu), the teacher was persuaded by an angry parent to black out the offending phrases, resulting a dispute over censorship which made headlines here.

Mountains out of molehills!

This is an interesting artifact for its insight into human history, if nothing else. This particular translation is more bland in the explicit sexual references, etc., than others, but it faithfully retains the story.

A valuable piece of literature.

Joe Pierre

Warning. Do not buy this edition. It is NOT the current Penguin edition translated by Andrew George, but the digitization of the elderly N.K. Sandars edition. The Kindle edition is missing all of the extra Babylonian and Sumerian texts. NOT WORTH IT. DON'T DO IT.

Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk (and in real life he was the king of Uruk), is the first tragic hero recorded by the human race. Though many of the epic's tablets were discovered in Assurbanipal's Assyrian library (7th century B.C), parts of this book appear to originate from around 3000 B.C. Long before the Assyrians, 1800 years before the Hebrews, and, in fact, before anybody as this story originated with the hard-bitten people of Sumer, the first civilization, who happened to have been utterly lost from history until the 19th century A.D. The very civilization to invent the wheel, the city, the sexigesimal system governing the sweep of hands on your watch and, most importantly, writing. Say "alcohol", and you speak Sumerian - as they apparently invented that too, while the word has not changed for over 5000 years. "Hard-bitten" because while the Egyptians would celebrate Nile floods, Sumerians cursed themselves for having deserved such punishment as a flooded Tigris or Euphrates. To Egyptians the sun was life. To Sumerians the sun was relentless. Suffering is an excellent source of creativity (though the Egyptians did well with less) and Gilgamesh reflects this in both its creativity and diagnosis.

Although very old, his story is forever new. Gilgamesh is - as stated in the introduction - emblematic of our concern with mortality, the struggle for knowledge and escape from the common lot of man. As a mortal, Gilgamesh is condemned to death, but he doesn't take his fate lying down. So, like all good mythologies, he sets out on a great adventure to rectify his problem, encountering gods, monsters and his best friend, Enkidu, the "savage man", who is at home with the animals, until enticed by the civilized Gilgamesh with a woman - something he never saw before. Perhaps a symbol of man's complications when leaving his natural state.

Most interestingly Gilgamesh reaches "where the sun rises" to meet Upnapishtim. Upnapishtim is by now famous for saving "the seed of all living creatures" on a boat, whose dimensions are given by a rogue god friendly to man, all before a great worldwide flood sent by other capricious gods because humans were making too much noise, keeping the gods from sleep. (That Noah mimics the Upnapishtim myth should be no surprise as Sumer influenced the Levant for thousands of years after its passing.)

When Enkidu dies Gilgamesh morns, "How can I rest when Enkidu, whom I love is dust and I too shall die and be laid in the earth forever." In the end Gilgamesh is "mocked by fate, lost opportunities, wasted hopes and swallowed by death". Apparently, no matter how many gods you have - and the Sumerians had hundreds, one even for the pick-axe - death remains a mystery and confidence of reward a hunch.

A wonderful journey into the mind of humanities first civilization, greater understanding of scriptures to follow and a clear signal that the deepest concerns of our human condition remain unaltered no matter where or when.

THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH : An English Version with an Introduction by N. K. Sandars. Penguin Classics Revised Edition. 128 pp. London : Penguin, 1972 (1964) and Reissued.

Although many perhaps don't realize it, we live in a truly great age of translations, being awash in an abundance of texts that would have been the envy of earlier readers. The classics of every age and every culture - or those that have survived the hazards of time - are freely available in all kinds of versions. These range from the productions of outstanding scholars learned in the ancient languages, all the way the way through to the adaptations and reworkings of non-specialist enthusiasts, some of whom can also be very scholarly in their approach.

I don't really know how many translations of Gilgamesh are currently available, but the newcomer could do worse than select that of Sandars. He freely admits that his "isn't a fresh translation from the cuneiform" because such a translation would require a detailed knowledge of Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite, a task which he tells us he is not competent to undertake (page 50).

He adds that extensively annotated and accurate scholarly translations exist in English, French, and German, but that these hardly suit the needs of the ordinary reader. He himself, however, has made full use of them in preparing his own version, a version which as an ordinary reader myself I've always found wonderfully readable.

His book falls into two parts. First we are given a 50-page Introduction which I personally found to be quite interesting and informative, although predictably conventional in its interpretations. Sandars accepts the standard definition of the Sumerian word DIN.GIR as meaning "god" or "gods," as do almost all others who write on Ancient Mesopotamia, though readers of Zecharia Sitchin will have their doubts (see Sitchin, 12th Planet, p.169).

Following the Introduction we are given the text of Gilgamesh, mainly in Sandars' lucid and sensitive prose, though with a few passages in verse. The book is rounded out with a 'Glossary of Names,' and an 'Appendix of Sources' which gives full bibliographical details of the scholarly sources utilized by Sandars. It also includes a useful map, and is printed in a large and easy-to-read type.

As a non-specialist Sumerophile I like Sandars' text and have re-read it several times. Here is an example of his verse, with my obliques added to indicate line breaks:

"Hear me, great ones of Uruk, / I weep for Enkidu, my friend, / Bitterly moaning like a woman mourning / I weep for my brother. / O Enkidu, my brother, / You were the axe at my side, / My hand's strength, the sword in my belt, / The shield before me, / A glorious robe, my fairest ornament; / An evil fate has robbed me..." (page 94).

Others may have rendered this passage better, but to me it effectively communicates the despair any man would feel at the loss of his closest friend. There are other similarly moving incidents in this strange and compelling story, a story which is essentially tragic though not unrelieved with an occasional bit of humor.

Here is an example of Sandars' prose:

"My friend, I saw a third dream and this dream was altogether frightful. The heavens roared and the earth roared again, daylight failed and darkness fell, lightnings flashed, fire blazed out, the clouds lowered, they rained down death. Then the brightness departed, the fire went out, and all was turned to ashes fallen about us. . . . (page 79).

Gilgamesh was sleeping when this experience occurred, but I wonder if "dream" here really means "dream"? Perhaps, but what this passage evokes vividly for me is an ancient man's experience of being very close to the site of the launching of a huge rocket (See Zechariah Sitchin, 'The Stairway to Heaven,' p.127). Everything seems to be there - the roarings, the flashings, the dark clouds of smoke from the exhaust, the fall of a residue of "ashes" from the firing. I wonder if a modern witness of a Cape Canaveral launch could do as well . . .

Gilgamesh's tragedy is that he was partly human : "... the great gods made his beauty perfect.... Two thirds they made him god and one third man" (page 61). But who were these "gods" whose lifespans were so much longer than those of humans? And how did they make Gilgamesh two thirds "god"? Did the Sumerians just dream all this up for purposes of 'entertainment' ? Or were they more accurate reporters than they are credited with being ?

The Sumerians were adamant in asserting that they themselves created nothing at all, neither agriculture nor irrigation nor architecture nor engineering nor astronomy nor mathematics nor writing nor anything else, but that their _entire_ civilization was given to them by the "gods."

Of this civilization we find Gilgamesh lamenting : "Here in the city man dies oppressed at heart, man perishes with despair in his heart" (page 72). But would human beings have deliberately created a system in which widespread despair was unavoidable? Or was something else responsible for establishing the civilizational patterns that, as a reading of Samuel Kramer's 'History Begins at Sumer' will convince anyone, are still ours? Is "civilization" a euphemism for a non-human system of exploitation?

There are many mysteries in this profound and moving tale of Gilgamesh's friendship with the wild man Enkidu, his frustration over the human lot, and his courageous attempt and failure to discover a solution. But whether you read his story in Sandars' version or in some other, make sure to read it. It's a story you will not easily forget.

One of the things I like best about this book is not the words but the layout and graphics. Reading it is pleasant and effortless.

Everyone should read The Epic of Gilgamesh and I highly recommend this "version" (not translation) as the best place to start. You will never be able to forget your trip back into the dawn of civilization, the Sumerian world of the ancient ruler Gilgamesh. He did achieve immortality through this Epic.

This epic from the Assyro-Babylonian culture (parts of which were probably written as early as 3000 B.C.) contains perhaps the earliest known example of man's quest for immortality (the version I read was the translation by N. K. Sanders). According to Samuel Kramer, the prologue has the oldest known reference to Lilith, who is an important female demon in Jewish legend. Apparently, a historical Gilgamesh actually existed and ruled Uruk in Mesopotamia in the first half of the third millennium B. C. (probably in the first dynasty of Uruk). In the epic, the god Anu attempts to curb the harsh rule of Gilgamesh, the son of the goddess Ninsun and a mortal priest of Uruk, by the creation of a strong and wild man named Enkidu (or, Eabani) (many scholars regard Enkidu as a symbol of primitive man). After a fight between the two, they become friends and have a number of adventures. In one tale, Gilgamesh is wooed by Irnina (or, Ishtar). But she is rejected by Gilgamesh and the bull sent by her father Anu to destroy him is killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu (some regard this story as a nature myth in which Gilgamesh represents the solar god of the spring season and the goddess is the goddess of love and fertility). Later in the epic Enkidu is stricken with disease and dies. Gilgamesh is devastated and wishes to avoid a similar fate. He goes in search of eternal youth and immortality (perhaps the earliest example of such a quest in literature). After more adventures, which includes him learning the Babylonian story of the great flood, he finds the answer to his quest; but, it is quickly lost. Even though this is probably the earliest epic, it has considerable allegorical significance. It is perhaps the earliest known description of man's quest for the meaning of life and the struggle to avoid death. What is learned is that death is inevitable and man should enjoy the life he has.

There are two different versions of this book being sold by Amazon.
The one version is the more current and is translated by: Andrew George

You can get that one here:

http://www.amazon.com/Epic-Gilgamesh-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140449191/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263331576&sr=8-1

Then there is the older version translated by: N.K. Sanders

You can get that one here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014044100X/ref=oss_T15_product

I needed the one by N.K. Sanders for my college class and bought the wrong one at first because I didn't know the difference.

To make it nice and easy...
The Andrew George Version has a pegasus (horse with wings) on the front
The N.K. Sanders Version has (Stone people with Beards or monkeys) on the front.

Be careful which one you buy so that you don't have to ship it back like I did.