Gilgamesh the King

by Robert Silverberg

  I am he whom you call Gilgamesh. I am the pilgrim who has seen everything within the confines of the Land, and far beyond it; I am the man to whom all things were made known, the secret things, the truths of life and death, most especially those of death. I have coupled with Inanna in the bed of the Sacred Marriage; I have slain demons and spoken with gods; I am two parts god myself, and only one part mortal. Here in Uruk I am king, and when I walk through the streets I walk alone, for there is no one who dares approach me too closely. I would not have it that way, but it is too late to alter matters now: I am a man apart, a man alone, and so will I be to the end of my days. Once I had a friend who was the heart of my heart, the self of my self, but the gods took him from me and he will not come again.

  My father Lugalbanda must have known a loneliness much like mine, for he was a king and a god also, and a great hero in his day. Surely those things set him apart from ordinary men, as I have been set apart.

  The imprint of my father is still clear in my mind after all these years: a great-shouldered deep-chested man, who went bare above the waist in all seasons, wearing only his long flounced woolen robe from hips to ankles. His skin was smooth and dark from the sun, like polished leather, and he had a thick curling black beard, in the manner of the desert people, though unlike them he shaved his scalp. I remember his eyes best of all, dark and bright and enormous, seeming to fill his whole forehead: when he scooped me up and held me before his face, I sometimes thought I would float forward into the vast pool of those eyes and be lost within my father’s soul forever.

  I saw him rarely. There were too many wars to fight. Year after year he led the chariots forth to quell some uprising in our unruly vassal state of Aratta, far to the east, or to drive away the wild marauding tribes of the wastelands that crept up on Uruk to steal our grain and cattle, or to display our might before one of our great rival cities, Kish or Ur. When he was not away at the wars, there were the pilgrimages he must make to the holy shrines, in spring to Nippur, in the autumn to Eridu. Even when he was home he had little time for me, preoccupied as he was by the necessary festivals and rituals of the year, or the meetings of the city assembly, or the proceedings of the court of justice, or the supervision of the unending work that must be done to maintain our canals and dikes. But he promised me that a time would come when he would teach me the things of manhood and we would hunt lions together in the marshlands.

  That time never arrived. The malevolent demons that hover always above our lives, awaiting some moment of weakness in us, are unwearying; and when I was six years old one of those creatures succeeded in penetrating the high walls of the palace, and seized upon the soul of Lugalbanda the king, and swept him from the world.

  I had no idea that any of that was happening. In those days life was only play for me. The palace, that formidable place of fortified towered entrances and intricately niched facades and lofty columns, was my gaming-house. All day long I ran about with an energy that never failed, shouting and laughing and tumbling on my hands. Even then I was half again as tall as any boy of my own age, and strong accordingly; and so I chose older boys as my playfellows, always the rough ones, the sons of grooms and cupbearers, for of brothers I had none.

  So I played at chariots and warriors, or wrestled, or fought with cudgels. And meanwhile one day a sudden horde of priests and exorcists and sorcerers began to come and go within the palace, and a clay image of the demon Namtaru was fashioned and placed close by the stricken king’s head, and a brazier was filled with ashes and a dagger put within it, and on the third day at nightfall the dagger was brought forth and thrust into the image of Namtaru and the image was buried in the corner of the wall, and libations of beer were poured and a young pig was slaughtered and its heart was set forth to appease the demon, and water was sprinkled, and constant prayers were chanted; and each day Lugalbanda struggled for his life and lost some further small part of the struggle. Not a word of this was said to me. My playfellows grew somber and seemed abashed to be running about and shouting and whacking at cudgels with me. I did not know why. They did not tell me that my father was dying, though I think they certainly knew it and knew also what the consequences of his death would be.

  Then one morning a steward of the palace came to me and called out, “Put up your cudgel, boy! No more games! There is man’s business to do today!” He bade me bathe and dress myself in my finest brocaded robe, and place about my forehead my headband of golden foil and lapis lazuli, and go to the apartment of my mother the queen Ninsun. For I must accompany her shortly to the temple of Enmerkar, he said.

  I went to her, not understanding why, since it was no holy day known to me. I found my mother clad most magnificently in a coat of bright crimson wool, a headdress gleaming with carnelian and topaz and chalcedony, and golden breastplates from which hung ivory amulets in the form of fish and gazelles. Her eyes were darkened with kohl and her cheeks were painted deep green, so that she looked like a creature that had risen from the sea. She said nothing to me, but fastened about my neck a figurine in red stone of the wind-demon Pazuzu, as if she feared for me. She touched her hand lightly to my cheek. Her touch was cool.

  Then we went out into the long hall of the fountains, where many people were waiting for us. And from there we went in procession, the grandest procession I had ever seen, to the Enmerkar temple.

  A dozen priests led the way, naked as priests must be when they come before a god, and a dozen priestesses as well, naked also. After them strode two dozen tall warriors who had fought in the campaigns of Lugalbanda. These were encumbered by their full armor, copper helmets and all, and carried their axes and shields. I was sorry for them, inasmuch as this was in the month Abu, when the scourge of summer lies heaviest on the Land, and no rain falls and the heat is a burden beyond bearing.

  Following the warriors came the people of the household of Lugalbanda: butlers, maids, cupbearers, jesters and acrobats, grooms, charioteers, gardeners, musicians, dancing-girls, barbers, drawers of the bath, and all the rest. Every one of them was dressed in a fine robe, finer than anything I had ever seen them wear before, and they carried the implements of their professions as though they were on their way to wait on Lugalbanda. I knew most of these people. They had served in the palace since before I was born. Their sons were my playmates and sometimes I had taken meals in their dwellings. But when I smiled and waved to them they looked away, keeping their faces solemn.

  The last person in this group was one who was particularly dear to me. I went skipping up from my place in the rear of the procession to walk beside him. This was old Ur-kununna, the court harper: a long-shanked white-bearded man, very grave of bearing but with gentle twinkling eyes, who had lived in every city of the Land and knew every hymn and every legend. Each afternoon he sang in the Ninhursag courtyard of the palace, and I would sit at his feet for hour upon hour while he touched his harp and chanted the tale of the marriage of Inanna and Dumuzi, or the descent of Inanna to the nether world, or the tale of Enlil and Ninlil, or of the journey of the moon-god Nanna to the city of Nippur, or of the hero Ziusudra, who built the great vessel by which mankind survived the Flood, and who was rewarded by the gods with eternal life in the paradise on Earth that is known as Dilmun. He sang us also ballads of my grandfather Enmerkar’s wars with Aratta, and the famous one of the adventures of Lugalbanda before he was king, when in his wanderings he entered a place where the air was poisonous, and nearly lost his life, but was saved by the goddess. Ur-kununna had taught some of these songs to me, and he had showed me how to play his harp. His manner was always warm and tender toward me, with never any show of impatience. But now, when I ran up alongside him, he was strangely remote and aloof: like everyone else, he said nothing, and when I indicated that I would like to carry his harp he shook his head almost brusquely. Then my mother hissed at me and called me back to the place that she and five of her serving-maids occupied at the end of the procession.

  Down the endless rows of palace steps we march
ed, and into the Street of the Gods, and along it to the Path of the Gods that leads to the Eanna precinct where the temples are, and up the multitude of steps to the White Platform, and across it, dazzled by the reflection of the brilliant sunlight, to the Enmerkar temple. All along the path the streets were lined with silent citizens, thousands of them: the whole population of Uruk must have been there.

  On the steps of the temple Inanna waited to receive us. I trembled when I saw her. The goddess has since earliest time owned Uruk and all that is within it, and I dreaded her power over me. She who stood there was of course the priestess Inanna of human flesh, and not the goddess. But at that time I did not know the difference between them, and thought I was in the presence of the Queen of Heaven herself, the Daughter of the Moon. Which in a way was so, since the goddess is incarnate in the woman, though I could not have grasped such subtleties so young.

  The Inanna who admitted us to the temple that day was the old Inanna, with a face like a hawk’s and terrifying eyes, rather than the more beautiful but no less ferocious one in whom the goddess came to dwell afterward. She was clad in a bright cape of scarlet leather, arranged on a wooden framework so that it flared out mightily beyond her shoulders and rose high above her. Her breasts were bare and painted at the tips. On her arms were copper ornaments in the form of serpents, for the serpent is the sacred creature of Inanna; and about her throat was coiled not a copper serpent but a living one, of a thickness of two or three fingers, but sluggish in the terrible heat, barely troubling to let its forked black tongue flicker forth. As we went past her, Inanna sprinkled us with perfumed water from a gilded ewer, and spoke to us in low chanted murmurs. She did not use the language of the Land, but the secret mystery-language of the goddess-worshippers, those who follow the Old Way that was in the Land before my people came down into it from the mountains. All this was frightening to me, only because it was so solemn and out of the ordinary.

  Within the great hall of the temple was Lugalbanda.

  He lay upon a broad slab of polished alabaster, and he seemed to be asleep. Never had he looked so kingly to me: instead of his usual half-length flounced skirt he wore a mantle of white wool and a dark blue robe richly woven with threads of silver and gold, and gold-dust was sprinkled into his beard so that it sparkled like the sun’s fire. Beside his head rested, in place of the crown he had worn during his life, the horned crown of a king who is also a god. By his left hand lay his scepter, decorated with rings of lapis lazuli and mosaics of brightly colored seashells, and by his right was a wondrous dagger with a blade of gold, a hilt of lapis lazuli and gold studs, and a sheath fashioned of gold strands woven in openwork like plaited leaves of grass. Heaped up before him on the floor was an immense mound of treasure: earrings and finger-rings in gold and silver, drinking-cups of beaten silver, dice-boards, cosmetics-boxes, alabaster jars of rare scent, golden harps and bull-headed lyres, a model in silver of his chariot and one of his six-oared skiff, chalices of obsidian, cylinder-seals, vases of onyx and chalcedony, golden bowls, and so much more that I could not believe the profusion of it. Standing arrayed about my father’s bier on all four sides were the great lords of the city, perhaps twenty of them.

  We took up our places before the king, my mother and I in the center of the group. The palace servants clustered about us, and the warriors in armor flanked us on both sides. From the temple courtyard came the great hollow booming of the lilissu, which is the kettledrum that otherwise is beaten only at the time of an eclipse of the moon. Then I heard the lighter sound of the little balag-drums and the shrill skirling of clay whistles as Inanna entered the temple preceded by her naked priests and priestesses. She went to the high place at the rear of the hall, where in a temple of An or Enlil there would be an effigy of the god; but in the temple of Inanna at Uruk there is no need for effigies, because the goddess herself dwells amongst us.

  Now began a ceremony of singing and chanting, much of it in the language of the Old Way, which I did not then know and scarcely comprehend today, since the Old Way is woman-religion, goddess-religion, and they keep it to themselves. There were libations of wine and oil, and a bull and a ram were brought forth and sacrificed and their blood sprinkled over my father, and seven golden trays of water were emptied as gifts to the seven planets, and there were more such sacred acts. The snake of Inanna awoke and moved between her breasts, and flicked its tongue, and fixed its eyes upon me, and I was afraid. I felt goddess-presence all about me, intense, stifling.

  I edged close to the kindly Ur-kununna and whispered, “Is my father dead?”

  “We must not speak, boy.”

  “Please. Is he dead? Tell me.”

  Ur-kununna looked down at me from his great height and I saw the white light of his wisdom glowing in his eyes, and his tenderness, and his love for me, and I thought, how like his eyes are to Lugalbanda’s, how large and dark, how they fill his forehead! He said gently, “Yes, your father is dead.”

  “And what does that mean, being dead?”

  “We must not speak during the ceremony.”

  “Was Inanna dead when she descended into the nether world?”

  “For three days, yes.”

  “And it was like being asleep?”

  He smiled and said nothing:

  “But then she awoke and came back, and now she stands before us. Will my father awaken? Will he come back to govern Uruk again, Ur-kununna?”

  Ur-kununna shook his head. “He will awaken, but he will not come back to govern Uruk.” Then he put his finger to his lips, and would not speak again, leaving me to consider the meaning of my father’s death as the ceremony went on and on about me. Lugalbanda did not move; he did not breathe; his eyes were closed. It was like sleep. But it must have been more than sleep. It was death. When Inanna went to the nether world and was slain, it was the occasion of great dismay in heaven and Father Enki caused her to be brought forth into life. Would Father Enki cause Lugalbanda to be brought forth into life? No, I did not think so. Where then was Lugalbanda now, where would he journey next?

  I listened to the chanting, and heard the answer: Lugalbanda was on his way to the palace of the gods, where he would dwell forever in the company of Sky-father An and Father Enlil and Father Enki the wise and compassionate, and all the rest. He would feast in the feasting-hall of the gods, and drink sweet wine and black beer with them. And I thought that that would not be so harsh a fate, if indeed that was where he was going. But how could we be sure that that was where he was going? How could we be sure? I turned again to Ur-kununna, but he stood with eyes closed, chanting and swaying. So I was left alone with my thoughts of death and my struggle to understand what was happening to my father.

  Then the chanting ended, and Inanna made a gesture, and a dozen of the lords of the city knelt and lifted to their shoulders the massive alabaster slab on which my father lay, and carried it from the temple through the side entrance. The rest of us followed, my mother and I leading the procession, and the priestess Inanna in the rear. Across the White Platform we went, down its far side, and toward the west a few hundred paces, until we stood in the sharp-edged shadow of the temple of An. I saw that a great pit had been excavated in the dry sandy earth between the White Platform and the temple of An, with a sloping ramp leading down into it. We arranged ourselves into a group at the ramp’s mouth, and all the townsfolk by their thousands, formed a great ring around the whole precinct.

  Then an unexpected thing: the serving-maids of my mother the queen surrounded her and began to take her rich and costly garments from her, one by one until she stood naked in the bright sunlight in the full view of all the city. I thought of the tale of Inanna’s descent, how as she went deeper and deeper into the nether world she gave up her garments and at last was naked, and I wondered whether my mother too was making ready for a descent into the pit. But that was not the case. The lady-in-waiting Alitum, who looked so much like my mother Ninsun that they seemed to be sisters, stepped forward now and put off her own ro
bes, so that she also was altogether bare; and the serving-maids began to put the crimson coat of my mother on Alitum and her headdress and breastplates, and Alitum’s simpler robes on my mother. When they were done, it was hard to tell which was Ninsun and which Alitum, for Alitum’s face had been daubed with green paint just as had my mother’s.

  Then I saw a playmate of mine, Enkihegal the son of the gardener Girnishag, walking slowly toward me between two priests. I called out as he approached. But he made no answer. His eyes were glassy and strange. He seemed not to know me at all, though only yesterday I had raced with him from one side of the grand Ninhursag courtyard to the other, eight times without stopping.

  The priests now began to pluck at my brocaded robe and stripped it from me and put my robe on Enkihegal, and gave me his ordinary one. They took my golden headband away, and put that on his head. I was as tall as he was, though he was three years older, and my shoulders were of the same breadth as his. When we were done exchanging clothes they left Enkihegal standing by my side, as Alitum stood by my mother’s side.

  Now a sledge-chariot came forth, drawn by two asses. It was decorated with blue, red, and white mosaic along the edges of the framework, and had golden heads of lions on its side panels with manes of lapis lazuli and shell; and great mounds of treasure were heaped upon it. Then the charioteer Ludingirra, who had ridden many times to the wars with my father, stepped forward. He took a deep drink from a huge wine-bowl that the priests had fetched, and made a sharp sound and shook his head as though the wine were bitter, and mounted the chariot and drove it slowly downward into the deep pit. Two grooms walked alongside to steady and calm the asses. Afterward a second and a third chariot followed, and each of the drivers and each of the grooms drank of the wine. Into the pit went vessels of copper and silver and obsidian and alabaster and marble, gaming-boards and tumblers, chalices, a set of chisels and a saw made of gold, and a great deal more, all of it magnificent. Then the warriors in armor went down into the pit; and then some of the palace servants, the barbers and gardeners and a few of the fine ladies-in-waiting, with their hair done up in golden braid, and headdresses of carnelian and lapis lazuli and shell. Each of them drank of the wine. All this in silence, except for the steady beat of the lilissu-drum.