Persian stream·Epic of Gilgamesh·The Ninth Tablet: Gilgamish In Terror of Death Seeks Eternal Life

Source context

Theme

terror of death and the quest for immortality following the loss of a companion

Soul-faculty

Consciousness Soul

Steiner

• GA 233, 1923-12-26Steiner identifies Gilgamesh's encounter with death — precipitated by the loss of Eabani — as the central evolutionary moment in the epic, in which the ego-bearing personality confronts mortality as a consequence of full incarnation into the physical body.
• GA 126, 1910-12-27Steiner notes that Gilgamesh's journey to Xisuthros (Uta-napishtim, the Babylonian Noah) is a visit to the keeper of an ancient mystery tradition, a genuine successor to earlier initiation wisdom.
• GA 233, 1923-12-29Steiner indicates that in the era depicted by the Gilgamesh epic, the human being still experienced supersensible realities as present perception rather than memory, making the confrontation with death a lived cosmic crisis rather than a conceptual one.

Cross-tradition

• Vedantic / Upanishadic traditionThe Katha Upanishad presents a structural parallel: Nachiketa descends to the realm of Yama and demands knowledge of what lies beyond death, mirroring Gilgamesh's driven search for the secret of immortality at the boundary of the known world.
• Greek heroic traditionAchilles' grief-driven transformation after the death of Patroklos and his subsequent confrontation with his own mortality shows cross-tradition congruence with Gilgamesh's terror following Enkidu's death, linking the loss of a soul-companion to the awakening of death-consciousness in the hero.
• Egyptian mystery traditionThe traversal of liminal regions guarded by scorpion-beings in the Ninth Tablet bears cross-tradition congruence with the Egyptian Duat passages in the Book of Gates, wherein the soul must navigate guardian thresholds separating the realm of the living from hidden cosmic regions.

The Ninth Tablet: Gilgamish In Terror of Death Seeks Eternal Life

THE NINTH TABLET.

GILGAMISH IN TERROR OF DEATH SEEKS ETERNAL LIFE.

Column I.

(Gilgamish determines to seek Eternal Life).

6Gilgamish bitterly wept for his comrade, (for) Enkidu, ranging Over the desert: "I, too—shall I not die like Enkidu also? 5.Sorrow hath enter’d my heart; I fear death as I range o’er the desert, I will get hence on the road to the presence of Uta-Napishtim 7,

—Offspring of Ubara-Tutu is he—and with speed will I travel. (If) ’tis in darkness that I shall arrive at the Gates of the Mountains, 10.Meeting with lions, then terror fall on me, I'll lift my head (skywards), Offer my prayer to the Moon-god, (or else) to . . the gods let my orison Come . . . 'O deliver me!'" . . . He slept . . . (and) a dream . . . [Saw he] . . . which were rejoicing in life, 15.Poised he [his] axe . . . in his hand, (and) drew [his glaive from] his baldric, Lance-like leapt he amongst them . . . smiting, . . . (and) crushing.

(The rest of the Column is mutilated).

Column II.

(The hero reaches the Mountains of Mashu).

Mashu the name of the hills; as he reach’d the Mountains of Mashu, Where ev’ry day they keep watch o’er [the Sun-god's] rising [and setting], 5.Unto the Zenith of Heaven [uprear’d are] their summits, (and) downwards (Deep) unto Hell reach their breasts: (and there) at their portals stand sentry Scorpion-men, awful in 1 terror, their (very) glance Death: (and) tremendous, Shaking the hills, their magnificence; they are the Wardens of Shamash, 10.Both at his 2 rising and setting. (No sooner) did Gilgamish see them" (Than) from alarm and dismay was his countenance stricken with pallor, Senseless, he grovell’d before them.                                         (Then) unto his wife spake the Scorpion: "Lo, he that cometh to us—’tis the flesh of the gods is his body." 15.(Then) to the Scorpion-man answer]d his wife: "Two parts of him god-(like), (Only) a third of him human."

(Eight broken lines remain, in which the Scorpion-man addresses presumably Gilgamish, asking him [why he has goner a far journey, and telling him how hard the traverse is. Column III begins with the third line in which Gilgamish is evidently telling the Scorpion-man that he proposes to cask(?)] Uta-Napishtim about death and life. But the Scorpion-man says that [the journey has never before been made, that none [has crossed] the mountains. The traverse is by the Road of the Sun by a journey of twenty-four hours, beginning with deep darkness. The last half of this Column and the first half of Column IV are lost, but it would appear that the Scorpion-man describes the journey hour by hour, and that Gilgamish accepts the trial of his strength "[even though it be] in pain . ., [though my face be weather]d] with cold [and heat]

[paragraph continues] (and) in grief [I go] . . ." Then the Scorpion-man, with a final word about the mountains of Mashu, farewells him, wishing him success. "[(Then) when] Gilgamish [heard this], [he set off] at the word of the Scorpion-man, taking] the Road of the Sun . . ." The first two hours are in deep darkness, without light,  which did not allow [him to see . . . behind him] . . ." Each succeeding period of two hours is the same until the eighth is reached and passed, and by the ninth he apparently comes to the first glimmer of light. Finally, with the twelfth double hour, he reaches the full blaze of the sun, and there he beholds the Tree of the Gods, the description of which is given in the only four complete lines, 48-51, of Column V. It is conceivable that this is the Vine, the Tree of Life, whence Siduri, the Maker of Wine, plucks the fruit for her trade).

Bearing its fruit (all) ruby, and hung about with (its) tendrils. 50.Fair for beholding, and azure the boskage it bore; (aye), ’twas bearing Fruits (all) desirable unto the eye.

(Column VI in the Assyrian is nearly all lost, and it is uncertain what part the Tree plays: but at this point a third Old Babylonian tablet helps us out. At this point, according to this early version the Sun-god takes pity on the hero).

"[He of the wild things hath dresséd] their pelts and the flesh of them eateth. Gilgamish, [never] a crossing [shall be (?)] where none hath been ever, (No), [so long] as the gale driveth water." 5.Shamash was touch’d, that he summon’d him, (thus) unto Gilgamish speaking: "Gilgamish, why dost thou run, (forasmuch as) the life which thou seekest Thou shalt not find?" (Whereat) Gilgamish answer’d the warrior Shamash: 10."Shall I, after I roam up and down o’er the waste as a wand’rer, Lay my head in the bowels of earth, and throughout the years slumber Ever and aye? Let mine eyes see the Sun and be sated with brightness, (Yea, for) the darkness is (banish’d) afar, if wide be the brightness. When will the man who is dead (ever) look on the light of the Sunshine?"

(With this ends all our connected text of Column VI, the Assyrian Version ending with about a dozen mutilated lines containing a mention of numerous minerals and stones, and evidently Gilgamish has now come to the girl Siduri the sabitu, which last word is generally taken to mean a provider of strong waters).

Footnotes

41:6 Assyrian Version.

41:7 The Babylonian Noah, with whom so much of the remainder of this story is concerned.

42:1 Lit. "their terror, and."

42:2 Lit. "of Shamash."

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