Myths and Legends from Around the World

by Robin Brockman

  Penetrating far into the forest, they were moved by its beauty as well as haunted by it. They walked the trails made by Humbaba and came to its very heart, where, struck dumb with awe, they saw the Cedar Mountain of the gods. The shade of the great trees around it gave out a sense of peace and happiness. At sunset, Gilgamesh dug a well and climbed some way up the mountain, taking water and food with him as offerings. He asked the mountain to send him a dream that would foretell joy.

  That night, after the two friends had lain down to sleep, Gilgamesh awakened suddenly with a start.

  “What was that? What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” Enkidu said after a moment, fully awake now, having feared a threat. “I did not speak.”

  “My friend, who was it who spoke to me if not you?” Gilgamesh took a moment to emerge fully from sleep. “It was a dream. I remember it now.”

  The two men lay down again, silently staring at the stars through the treetops.

  After a few minutes, Gilgamesh spoke. “I dreamt we stood at the foot of the mountain. Then suddenly the mountain fell and we were, you and I, like two fleas. But there was another dream, too, and I saw the mountain again as it was falling. Then a glow shone out. The radiance and brightness of it grew intense and overwhelmed the earth and carried me away from under the mountain, refreshing me and filling my heart with joy.”

  “Your dream has a good meaning,” Enkidu told him. “It signifies good things. The mountain is obviously Humbaba and we will overpower him and kill him.”

  In yet another dream he had that night, Gilgamesh identified signs of another good omen and in the morning, when they climbed the mountain once more, they were both in good spirits. The time for the confrontation with Humbaba was nearly at hand.

  After sharpening his axe on a stone, Gilgamesh looked at the tree varieties in the immediate vicinity. When he had selected a suitable type, he brought his mighty blade down on the trunk, swung back and cut again, chopping at it slowly, rhythmically, with hard blows that echoed around the forest. Its thick trunk would sustain such loud but slow, measured chopping for hours, Gilgamesh reckoned, and its splendid foliage would hide the fact that Enkidu was concealed up there.

  The two men had planned a similar deception to the one that had worked so well at the forest entrance. Gilgamesh would attract the attention of Humbaba, summon him with the sound of his chopping, and when he came to investigate, Enkidu would drop onto him and together the two friends would kill him.

  Everything worked perfectly until they saw Humbaba. By comparison, the demon they had killed at the entrance to the forest was knee high to him and soft skinned. With hide as hard as granite, fire in his piercing, withering eyes, a mouth like a cavern and ugly as an ancient toad, he came at Gilgamesh, in a thundering, ground-shaking run.

  “Who cuts the trees of my forest?” he roared furiously. “Who trespasses on my mountain and disturbs its serenity?”

  Gilgamesh stood gaping at Humbaba, and Enkidu found himself being looked down upon by the giant demon, who could see him easily through the thinner branches at the top of the tree. Slowly, Humbaba lumbered toward the two friends, both of whom were frozen with fear. All thought of fighting the monster vanished from their minds as they watched it come at them. They might as well take their axes and swords to the mountain itself. Instinctively and uselessly, Gilgamesh scrambled up the tree and clung to it beside Enkidu, their eyes enormous and glassy, no colour in their faces as each looked at the other, knowing that death was coming for them and that it would be a hideous one. Battle against an army of men each would have been preferable to combating this evil demon.

  They made no bold, noble or witty comments now, for unlike past times and past fights, they were not simply facing death. The two heroes were not afraid of death. They were, however, very afraid of Humbaba. He was horrible, invincible, and the cruelty of his burning eyes terrified them into paralysis and screaming insanity.

  Fire shot from the demon's eyes and his mouth opened to gush forth a slimy torrent of water that hit them like a raging river. As if caught in a storm the tree fell, torn from the ground, roots and all, and was washed backwards as the demon's foul breath and scorching eyes cooked them in steam that rose from the combination of all the vile creature's weapons.

  “Oh, what have we done?” the two friends squealed in bitter anguish over the rashness of their adventure.

  “Shamash, Shamash,” Gilgamesh wailed. “Help us.”

  “Yes,” Enkidu begged the god. “Save us from this thing.”

  Praying furiously, holding to the downed tree for all their worth, they shut their eyes from the horror approaching them and pleaded with Shamash to intercede and somehow stop the monstrous Humbaba from annihilating them.

  As they lay among the branches, shivering in terror, alternately praying for deliverance and cursing themselves for fools, the god heard their pleas and his heart was moved. To even have tried to face the evil demon of death was enough to win his support. Perhaps the heroes’ mad courage and frank repentance amused him, too.

  Shamash stirred up the winds until a tremendous gale began to blow, tearing and whipping at the mountainside, felling more trees, yet blowing at Humbaba, who now fought against it to keep his monstrous feet. Rocking in the great wind that faced him, he teetered violently and seemed to topple slowly, falling almost gracefully for a long moment until with an earth-shuddering crash he met the ground, tossing stones and tree trunks into the air with the jarring, thunderous impact.

  With no real thought but acting on warrior instinct, the heroes scrambled out from under the branches around them, stumbled over the shattered wood and rubble left by the torrent and the gale, found their discarded weapons and attacked. Even as they climbed onto the rockhard chest of the felled Humbaba, they were assailed by doubt that they could harm him. Already the shocked and shaken demon was struggling to rise. With his bulk it would be difficult but not impossible. They had to act swiftly or be in the same danger they had faced only moments before.

  Noticing a fissure in the granite-like armour, just over the demon's heart, they aimed a sword at it and prepared to drive it in with the flat of an axe blade.

  “Wait,” bellowed Humbaba. “Do not slay me. Have pity and I will give you this great cedar forest and all its wealth of trees.”

  “No,” said Enkidu.

  “I beg you,” the demon pleaded. “Do not kill me, I long to live, and I swear to do you no harm and to cease from the evil that is loathsome in the sight of Shamash.”

  “What do you think?” Gligamesh asked, looking at Enkidu. “Shall we spare him and show compassion?”

  “Don't trust him, evil never changes,” Enkidu swore. “If we don't kill him now, while we can, he'll surely kill us once he is free and up again, and Shamash who heard us once may not be so kind again.”

  Gilgamesh reared back and hit the sword pommel with his axe, driving it like a stake into the breast of the demon, then with its point on the pommel of the first, another sword was driven in, pushing the first yet deeper. With a quake-like shudder, the great demon Humbaba died. Using their axes like chisels and working at it for days, they cut off the demon's head for a prize and wearily, though in glorious triumph, the two heroes returned to Uruk.

  Gilgamesh bathed, washed his hair, which he let fall to his shoulders and polished his armour. He put on clean clothes with fine embroidery and wrapped a belt around his waist. Finally he donned his crown. The greatest celebration of his life awaited him as the whole city longed to toast the victory he and Enkidu had won. The elders and heroes of the city applauded them and showed awe and respect, the populace worshipped them and the women of Uruk desired them as bed-mates. Everyone, everywhere wanted them, and this was not limited to mere humanity.

  From heaven, the glorious Ishtar looked on Gilgamesh and she was smitten. His beauty, courage and irresistible success filled her with passion. Appearing in his bed-chamber, she admired his body as he dressed, and then spoke in a husky, seduc
tive voice.

  “Come to me Gilgamesh,” she said, devouring him with a smouldering look from her hooded eyes. “Be my chosen bridegroom and give me your seed to enjoy. You shall be my husband and I shall be your wife.”

  Startled briefly, Gilgamesh returned her smouldering gaze. He knew her to be the most beautiful and desirable female in heaven or on the earth. For a moment he hardly knew what to say. With studied calm he went on dressing.

  “I shall prepare a carriage of lapis lazuli and gold for you,” she continued, “with golden wheels and spokes of bronze. Demons of lightning will pull it instead of mules.”

  “A fine vehicle,” Gilgamesh said flatly.

  “Our home will be filled with the fragrance of cedars,” Ishtar told him, moving slowly and seductively towards him, her shapely body seeming to glide and shimmer, though solid, warm and soft. “When you enter our home, the threshold will kiss your feet and kings, rulers and princes will all bow down to you in submission. They will offer you wealth in revenue from the mountains and the plains. Your goats will bear triplets and your ewes will give birth to twin lambs. Your donkeys will carry more than mules ever can and your oxen will be splendid and without rivals. The horses of your chariots will be the winners of every race they run.”

  “Glorious Ishtar,” Gilgamesh asked with no emotion in his voice. “What do I have to give you if I take you for a wife? Do I offer you ointments and clothes for your body? Do I give you bread and food? If so, what food can I give that will be fit for you, a divine goddess?”

  “All you must give to me is yourself, Gilgamesh,” Ishtar whispered breathily in his ear, for by now she was next to him and pressing herself against him.

  “What good would it do me to have you for my wife, Ishtar?” Gilgamesh asked sincerely. Gently he pushed her away and looked her frankly in the eye. “You are only a hearth when the fire dies with the cold. You are a crack in a door, that keeps out neither wind nor storm.”

  “Gilgamesh!” she gasped in wonder.

  “You are a castle within which heroes decay.” He was worked up now, the full shock of her proposal having sunk in. Though briefly fun for her, it would have been disastrous for him. Moved to righteous anger, he waxed lyrical. “Yes, you are an elephant which destroys its harness. You are pitch that soils its bearers, a water skin that leaks over its carrier, a marble wall that collapses. You are a sandal that pinches the wearer.”

  “How dare you!” She slapped his face.

  “Which of your lovers have you loved with any consistency?” he demanded.

  She sniffed and tossed her lovely head but did not reply.

  “Let me remind you of the sad tales of your past loves, shall I?”

  “What sad tales can these be?” Ishtar pouted.

  “There was Tammus, the lover of your youth, for whom there is yet wailing and weeping every year. Next you fancied the multi-coloured roller bird but then struck him and broke his wing so that he alights in the garden even now and laments crying; ‘My wing! My wing!’”

  “An accident,” she shrugged, carelessly.

  “Oh? Then you wanted the lion, so perfect in his strength and grace, but dug seven times seven pits in which to trap and kill him. You desired the horse yet inflicted the whip and the spur and the harness upon him and forced him to race seven leagues without quenching his thirst until he had muddied the waters. Then you made his mother, Silili, weep and lament forever.”

  “Vicious rumours,” Ishtar said lightly, studying her nails.

  “You loved the shepherd after that,” Gilgamesh continued. “And he brought you bread and slaughtered the kids of his flock and cooked them for you every day, but you struck him and turned him into a wolf. Now he's chased by his own herd-boys and his dog bites his legs.”

  Ishtar sighed heavily, feigning boredom, but inside she was seething with anger.

  “You loved Ishullanu after that, your father's gardener, who daily brought you baskets of dates and heaped your table with delicacies of all kinds. You looked on him and enticed him. ‘Come on, handsome Ishullanu and let me enjoy your manhood,’ you said to him; ‘Reach out your hand and touch the charms of my body.’ Then Ishullanu demurred, knowing you would do him no good, and he asked how a hut of straw could keep out the bitter cold of winter and asked why he should eat tainted bread. In a fury, you raised up your wand and hit him, turning him into a frog just to make him suffer.”

  “So?”

  “Soon enough you're bound to treat me the same as you have all the others.”

  Enraged, Ishtar glared at him a moment and then instantly ascended to heaven where she went in tears to her father and mother, the god Anu and the goddess Antum.

  “Gilgamesh has cursed and insulted me,” she cried, flinging herself dramatically at her father's feet.

  “Oh, has he?” Anu said doubtfully.

  “Well, he has listed all my wicked and shameful deeds,” Ishtar said, her lower lip protruding.

  “You provoked him and got what you deserved,” Anu told her with a smile, while Antum nodded in agreement.

  “Daddy,” Ishtar said pouting and fluttering her eyelashes. “Let me have the Bull of Heaven so that I can send it down to destroy that bad Gilgamesh.”

  Seeing her parents exchange a look of impatience and disapproval, Ishtar stood up quickly and glared at them.

  “Well,” she snapped, “if you don't give me the Bull of Heaven, I'll tear down the door to the Underworld and let the dead rise up and eat with the living.”

  “But Ishtar,” her father said in alarm. “If I gave you the Bull of Heaven then Uruk would go through seven lean years. Have you collected enough crops for those years? Have you stored that much fodder for the cattle and other beasts?”

  “Oh yes, Daddy, I've stored more than enough for all the people and animals if the lean years spread. Plenty of fodder and grain.”

  With a sigh, knowing Ishtar was fully capable of carrying out her threat, Anu gave her the chain of the leading rein of the Bull of Heaven. Taking it gleefully, she led the creature away and down to earth where she placed it in the middle of Uruk.

  Panic and terror spread throughout the city at once. At the first terrible lowing of the bull a hundred people died, then two and three hundred more. When it lowed again hundreds of others were killed. With its third lowing, it attacked Enkidu, who had come to investigate. But bravely, Enkidu fought back.

  Leaping out of the way of its charge, Enkidu grabbed the Bull's horns as it passed him and was pulled onto its back. Whirling furiously and throwing foam from its mouth and dung with its tail, the great Bull desperately tried to dislodge him. With a mighty buck it tossed him into the dust and came at him with its giant horns aimed at his chest. Gilgamesh, who had arrived just then, ran and threw the full weight of his body into the animal's side, checking its momentum and infuriating it. Only Enkidu springing to his feet and distracting the Bull again, prevented it spinning about and goring Gilgamesh, who then scurried out of range.

  “We've boasted about all our other exploits, my friend,” Enkidu said. “But they were mostly far from Uruk.”

  “And they will all have been for nothing if we don't kill this thing and save my people,” Gilgamesh replied, all the while watching the Bull in case it charged one of them.

  Snorting and digging at the ground with its hooves, it looked from one to the other and bided its time. If it lowed again now many people would die.

  “We had better attack it together,” Enkidu said. “I'll get it by the tail and going backwards a moment, while you get on its back with your sword drawn.”

  “A thrust between the nape of its neck and its horns should kill it,” Gilgamesh agreed. “Are you ready?”

  Enkidu nodded with a doubtful grin.

  “Now,” cried Gilgamesh and instantly they jumped at the bull.

  Enkidu succeeded in grabbing its tail and, as hoped, pulled it backwards long enough to stop it spinning. In those split seconds Gilgamesh sprang upon the terrible animal's
back and fought against its violent leaping and shaking to poise his sword point above the agreed place. Both hands tightly grasping the hilt, using every ounce of his strength, he stabbed downwards.

  Without so much as a bellow, a shiver or a last rear or buck, the Bull dropped on the spot, stone dead. Gilgamesh sat on its back trying to collect his wits and Enkidu stood, still holding the tail, staring at the sight in front of him. Suddenly, people burst from doors and windows and climbed down from trees and roofs to take the two men up on their shoulders and carry them in triumph around the city walls.

  Returning to the Bull's body, the two heroes were never more loved by the people of Uruk than now. They cut out the heart of the Bull and offered it to Shamash, prostrated themselves and prayed. Then the two brothers, feeling utterly drained, sat down and rested. As they lay, leaning against the carcass, Ishtar appeared hovering over the walls of Uruk, shouting curses at them.

  “Woe to you, Gilgamesh,” she raged. “For defiling and insulting me by killing the Bull of Heaven.”

  At this unjust fury of a woman justly scorned, Enkidu lost his temper entirely. Deftly leaping up, he sliced off one of the Bull's haunches and he flung it at Ishtar, hitting her square in the face with it.

  “If I'd caught you, I'd have done to you what I did to him, and tie his entrails around your limbs.”

  Disappearing in high dudgeon, Ishtar gathered the priests and vestal virgins and performed lamentations and wailing over the Bull of Heaven's right haunch, while in Uruk, Gilgamesh summoned craftsmen and armourers, finding uses for other parts of the dead creature.

  Everyone was amazed at the thickness and size of the horns, for each of them was lapis lazuli, weighing thirty mina. The thickness of the outer layer was the span of two fingers and could hold six gur-measure of oil. This Gilgamesh offered up to his protector god, Lugalbanda. Then he took the horns and hung them in his bedroom.

  The two heroes washed their hands in the Euphrates River, embraced and rode again through the streets of Uruk to hear once more the people's praise. Crowds proclaimed them, and sang of their courage.