Enkidu is Dead

Is anyone surprised that the world's oldest story, Gilgamesh, has the makings of a great speculative fiction tale?

Translator Stephen Mitchell writes:

"The hero of this epic is...a superman. [By] attacking a monster, he brings on himself a disaster that can only be overcome by an agonizing journey."

That sounds like the synopsis of a fantasy story. And let's not forget that Gilgamesh also boasts the world's first really nasty monster:

"Humbaba, whose roar booms forth like a thunderclap, whose breath spews fire, whose jaws are death."

It takes not one, but two supermen to go up against the likes of Humbaba.

Older than the Bible or the Illiad, Gilgamesh comes to us from engraved cuneiform stone tablets unearthed in Nineveh around 1844. One of the first bits to be translated was the account of Utnapishtim- a man who got warning of a Great Flood being stirred up by one of the gods to punish "sinful mankind." Fortunately, the gods gave him detailed instructions on how to build a great ship, capable of holding Utnapishtim's family, and "animals, wild and tame...of every kind." After raging for six days and seven nights, the storm and rain die down, and Utnapishtim sets a series of birds free from the ship. When the last bird, a raven, does not return, he knows dry land has been found.

Sound familiar? Utnapishtim gets a much better deal for his trouble than Noah did. Utnapishtim is rewarded for his journey with the seaweed equivalent of the Philosopher's Stone- the consuption of which grants him eternal life. As it so happens, eternal life is precisely what Gilgamesh is questing for.

Is it just me, or would this epic make a great MMO?

A Gilgamesh MMO would call for major parental guidance. Gilgamesh is no pre-Biblical religious tract- it's an adventure story, and sexuality enters frankly into the tale. No coy allusion to be found here- forget symbols of snakes and apples. When the storyteller wants to name a body part, he names it.

Enkidu, Gilgamesh's superhero double, is brought to life by the gods, but he is brought to civilization by a one of the priestesses who "give their body to any man". Here are the instructions given to Shamhat:

"Now use your love-arts. Strip off your robe and lie here naked with your legs apart...touch him, excite him, take his breath with your kisses."

I selected this as a mild passage in the Enkidu-Shamat scene. It gets much more graphic.

I could go even crazier here and suggest that Gilgamesh's passage to the underworld reminded me of 2001, but there's no need to go nuts. I think fire-breathing monsters, prototype superheroes, the mystical appearance of an "other self," magic plants, and a quest for eternal life, all fall easily within the scope of speculative fiction.

And throughout it all, Gilgamesh keeps asking something human beings have speculated about, apparently, since the beginning of time:

"Must I die too? Must I be as lifeless as Enkidu?"