Early Heroes

Question 1

Where does the epic of Gilgamesh take place?

Answer 1

• Near eastern
• Sumerians inhabited Mesopotamia around 2500 BCE
  
  • Gilgamesh is king of Uruk (5th after the ‘flood’)
• Story comes from 12 Akkadian tablets from 700 BCE (cuneiform/wedge-shaped clay tablet)

Question 2

Describe some characteristics of Gilgamesh

Answer 2

• Master of animals and natures
  
  • Tames nature to make safe spots for humans
• A mortal hero with divine qualities
  
  • Son of Lugalbanda (mortal king of Uruk) and Ninsun (goddess); struggles to accept his mortality
  • Violent and arrogant
• Best friend Enkidu (gods made him, the hero’s double, out of clay)
• He is transformed through loss and suffering, and goes beyond mortal boundaries

Question 3

How was Gilgamesh as a ruler?

What were the consequences?

Answer 3

• He was problematic: got into fights, consummates brides
• His citizens pray and the gods forge Enkidu
  
  • Enkidu spawns as a wild hairy man
  • Sacred prostitute Shamhat tames him, but he loses his ability to run with animals after sex
    
    • She takes him to the city of Uruk where he meets Gilgamesh in a fight
• Together they slay the monster Humbaba who guards the cedar forest

Question 4

Describe Gilgamesh and Ishtar

Answer 4

• Gilgamesh rejects and insults goddess Ishtar, and she punishes him by killing Enkidu
• Gilgamesh experiences grief and denial and does not bury Enkidu
  
  • Only when he sees a worm fall from his nose does he give him an amazing funeral
  • Gilgamesh questions his mortality (“must I too die?”)

Question 5

Describe Gilgamesh’s solitary quest

Answer 5

• Gilgamesh leaves the city and roams the wilderness in lion skin
  
  • Searching for the secret of immortality
• He travels beyond the limits of the world and talks to old wise man Utnapishtim
  
  • Utnapishtim is old and survived the flood with his wife; he lives under a mountain through a tunnel
• Utnapishtim teaches him that he has to accept that he will die
• Gilgamesh returns home with his unique knowledge and writes it down in a sacred text

Question 6

Describe the four main features of a greek hero and the general themes of greek hero stories

Answer 6

1. Divine parent and human parent
2. Weird birth
   
   • Threatened
   • Early powers
   • Education in exile by supernatural beings
3. Impossible task
   
   • Divine interaction (usually Athena is a friend)
4. Nostos
   
   • Unhappy or tragic domestic life
   • Ironic death
   • Kleos and timé (undying)

General theme of separation, initiation, and return