Performed by Peter Pringle

Gilgamesh was king of the Sumerian city of Uruk in Southern Mesopotamia, some 5000 years ago. According to legend, he was a ruthless despot, so the gods created a friend for him, a kind of wild man called Enkidu, who was able to challenge him successfully in battle. This took Gilgamesh’s mind off oppressing his people, and he and Enkidu became inseparable friends. The two of them shared many remarkable adventures together but they made a fatal mistake. They traveled to the great cedar forest, where they killed a sacred beast known as “The Bull of Heaven”. This angered the gods, so they sentenced Enkidu to death.

(Enkidu and Gilgamesh. Characters out of the earliest
Mesopotamian creation story cycle called the Enuma Elish)

Translation

“Listen, young men. Listen to me.
Listen, elders of great Uruk. Listen to me.
I weep for my friend Enkidu;
like a grief-stricken woman, I howl in despair.
The shaft at my side, the bedrock of my strength,
the sword at my belt, the shield before me,
the clothing for my festivals, the sash on my pleasure:
A fiendish force sprang up to snatch him from me.

“My friend, stubborn as a mule, nimble as a donkey, swift as a panther —
oh Enkidu, my friend, stubborn as a mule, nimble as a donkey, swift as a panther —
We were the ones who joined together to scale mountains,
who captured and killed the Sacred Bull,
who vanquished Humbaba, king of the Cedar Forest.

“So what kind of sleep steals you away now?
Darkness cloaks you; you cannot hear me.”

Yet still [Enkidu] did not lift his head.
He felt for his pulse: utterly still.

He veiled his friend’s face like a bride;
like an eagle, he circled over him.
Like a lioness robbed of her cubs,
he circled back and forth, back and forth.
He tore at his curly hair until it piled up around him;
he stripped off his finery and cast it away as anathema.

Continue reading...

In the epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu is a wild man created by the god Anu. After Gilgamesh defeats him, the two become friends. He aids Gilgamesh in killing the divine bull sent by the goddess Ishtar to destroy them.

"The people of Uruk complain to the gods that their mighty king Gilgamesh is too harsh. The goddess Aruru forms Enkidu from water and clay as rival to Gilgamesh, as a countervailing force. Enkidu lived in the wild, roaming with the herds, and joining the game at the watering-hole. M.H. Henze notes in this an early Mesopotamian tradition of the wild man living apart and roaming the hinterland, who eats grass like the animals and like them, drinks from the watering places."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enkidu

"'A goddess made him, strong as a savage bull, none can withstand his arms. No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all; and is this the king, the shepherd of his people? His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior's daughter nor the wife of the noble. When Anu had heard their lamentation the gods cried to Aruru, the goddess of creation, 'You made him, O Aruru; now create his equal; let it be as like him as his own reflection, his second self; stormy heart for stormy heart. Let them contend together and leave Uruk in quiet.'

So the goddess conceived an image in her mind, and it was of the stuff of Anu of the firmament. She dipped her hands in water and pinched off clay, she let it fall in the wilderness, and noble Enkidu was created. There was virtue in him of the god of war, of Ninurta himself. His body was rough, he had long hair like a woman's; it waved like the hair of Nisaba, the goddess of corn. His body was covered with matted hair like Samugan's, the god of cattle. He was innocent of mankind; he knew nothing of the cultivated land."
http://www.aina.org/books/eog/eog.htm

Gilgamesh and Enkidu slaying the bull of heaven