Gilgamesh the King

by Robert Silverberg

  I never grew weary. I was making Uruk weary of me, but I did not know that yet.

  Now it was the season of the new year, and once again the time of the Sacred Marriage arrived. I had been king of Uruk a year and some months. Tonight the goddess would open to me for the second time. I performed the rituals of purification, I meditated in darkness and silence in the Dumuzi-house, and when evening came they took me in the traditional way, by boat, toward my union with Inanna.

  And as I debarked at the very quay where I had shattered the forces of Agga, and strode into the city through a gate in the wall I had built with my own hands, I felt a great surge of pride in what I had achieved. I felt like a god, in truth: not like one who merely has some godly blood in his veins, but in truth a god, a wearer of the horned crown, who walks through the bright heavens in splendor. Was I wrong, to feel such pride? I had come from exile to receive the crown; I had repaired the canals; I had crushed the most powerful of foes; I had built the walls of Uruk, and all this before I had reached my twentieth year. Was that not godlike to have done? Did I not have reason for pride?

  And now the goddess awaited me.

  In these months I had had little in the way of dealings with her, only the customary sacrifices and rituals that required both our presences. We had scarcely spoken otherwise. There were times when I could have gone to her to seek counsel or blessing, and I had not. There were times when she might have sought me out, and she did not. I think I understood even then why we were keeping such a wary distance from one another. In Uruk we were like rival kings; she had her zone of power, and I had mine. But already I was extending the reach of my zone. This was not with the intent of provoking her enmity, but simply because I knew no way to be king, other than to exercise power to the fullest. When I had made war on Agga, I had not asked her consent: it seemed too risky, when I had already met the opposition of the house of elders to the war. The war had to be fought; and with Inanna against me I would not be able to levy the army I needed; therefore I did not consult Inanna. I feared the interference her power could create. I was even then concerned with placing myself beyond the range of that power. And, she, seeing the growing strength of my own authority, had drawn back, uncertain of my intentions, unwilling to challenge me before she understood my purposes more completely.

  But on the night of the Sacred Marriage all such dreary considerations of state are set aside. I went to her in the long chamber of the temple and found her glittering in her oils and ornaments. I hailed her as my holy jewel, and she greeted me as royal husband, fountain of life; and we performed the rite of the showing-forth; and when that was done we went within, to the chamber of the sweet-smelling green rushes, and the handmaidens of the goddess undid her sheaths of alabaster and plates of gold and left her naked to me.

  When we were alone I put my hands to her sleek shoulders, and stared deep into the shining mysteries of her eyes, and she smiled at me as she had smiled that first time when we were children, a smile that was in part warm and loving, in part fierce, intense, challenging. I knew she would devour me if she could. But on this night she was mine. She had grown no less beautiful in the twelve months gone by. Her bosom was deep, her waist was narrow, her hips were broad; her fingernails were long as daggers, and painted the color of the moon in eclipse. She beckoned me to the bed with a single small gesture of her hand.

  We glided down to it and embraced. Her skin was like the fabrics they weave in heaven. My body rose over hers. Her back was arched beneath me. Her fingers dug deep into the cords and sinews of my shoulders, and she drew her knees toward her breasts and turned them outward, and her lips parted, her tongue came flickering out, her breathing was a thick heavy hissing. She kept her eyes open all the while, as women rarely do. I saw that. For I kept my eyes open also, throughout every moment of that night.

  At dawn I heard the coming of the new year’s first rain, a faint muffled drumming against the ancient white brick of the temple platform. I slipped from the bed and looked about for my robe, so that I could take my leave. She lay facing me; she was watching me the way a serpent watches its prey.

  “Stay a while longer,” she said softly. “The night is not yet done.”

  “The drum is beating. I must go.”

  “All the city sleeps. Your friends lie sprawled in drunken dreams. What can you do alone at this hour?” She made purring sound. I mistrust serpents that purr. “Come back to my bed, Gilgamesh. The night is not yet done, I tell you.”

  With a smile I said, “You are not yet done, you mean.”

  “And are you, then?”

  I shrugged. “We have performed the rite. And performed it amply, I think.”

  “So the insatiable one is sated, for the moment? Or are you merely bored with me, and ready to begin the search for your next woman of the day?”

  “You speak cruelly, Inanna.”

  “But not without truth, eh, Gilgamesh? You never have enough. Not enough women, not enough wine, not enough toil, not enough warfare. You rage through Uruk like a torrent, sweeping everything before you. You are a burden under which all the city groans. The people cry out for mercy from you, so terribly do you oppress them.”

  That stung me. My eyes went wide with surprise. “I, an oppressor? I am a just and wise king, lady!”

  “Perhaps you are. No doubt you think you are. But you overwhelm and crush your own people. You march the young men up and down the drilling-fields, up and down and up and down, until everything gets black before their eyes and they fall down from exhaustion, and still you have no mercy on them. And the women! No one has ever consumed women as you do. You use them as though they are playthings, five, six, ten a night. I hear the stories.”

  “Not ten,” I said. “Not six, not five.”

  She smiled. “That is not how they tell it. They say that no one can content you, that you are like a wild bull. They look at me and say, ‘Only a goddess can satisfy him.’ Well, there is a goddess within me, and you and I have passed this night together. Are you content, for once? Is that why you are so eager now to leave?”

  I was eager to leave now because I had no defense against this onslaught of hers. But I would not admit that to her. Stiffly I said, “I wish to walk by myself in the rain.”

  “Walk, then, and then come back.” Her eyes flashed. She had the force within her of a snapping whip. I picked up my robe, hesitated, let it fall again and stood naked before her. There was the musky odor of our night’s lovemaking in the chamber. The last of the incense still sputtered in the bowl. Her lips were taut, her nostrils were flaring. In a low harsh voice she said, “Will you come back? For you there are ten women every night, Gilgamesh. For me there is only you, one night a year.”

  Suddenly I feared her less, hearing her trying to wheedle me that way with pity.

  “Ah, is that how it is, Inanna? No one else, all the year long?”

  “Who else but the god may touch the goddess, do you think?”

  I grew more bold. I dared to tease her a little. “Not even in secret?” I asked playfully. “Some lusty slave, summoned in the darkest watch of the night—”

  Fury flared in her. She pulled her hands toward her breasts. Her fingers tightened, so that they looked like claws. “You say such a thing, under the temple’s own roof? Shame, Gilgamesh! Shame!” Then she softened. Cat-like still, she stretched, she purred again, she raised one knee and let her foot slide down the calf of her other leg. More gently she said, “There is only you, one night of the year. I swear it, though it makes me feel soiled that you should require me to take oath on it. There is only you. I am not yet ready to let you leave me. Will you stay? Will you stay just a little while longer? It is only the one night I have, this one night.”

  “Let me cleanse myself first in the rain,” I said.

  I stood some time outside the temple, in the virgin air of the rainswept dawn. Then I went back to her. Cat or serpent, priestess or goddess, I could not refuse her, not if it was the only night of the year
that she might know an embrace. And the rain, washing the night’s staleness from me, had reawakened my strength and my desires anyway. I would not refuse her. I wanted her. I went to her and we began the night afresh.

  18

  EARLY IN THE NEW YEAR a strange dream came to me, and I was unable to make any sense of it. Later that night came a second dream just as strange, just as unreadable.

  I was troubled that I had so little understanding of these dreams. The gods often speak to kings as they sleep, and perhaps I was being given some knowledge important to the welfare of the city. So I went to the temple of An and took my dreams to my mother the wise priestess Ninsun.

  She received me in her chamber, a dark-walled room with heavy pilasters painted crimson. Her cloak was black, bordered below with a broad band of beads of lapis, gold, and carnelian. There was about her, as always, a supreme tranquility and beauty: all might be in turbulence, but she was ever at peace.

  She took my hands between her small cool ones and held them a long while, smiling, waiting for me to speak.

  “Last night,” I said after a time, “I dreamed that a feeling of great happiness came upon me, and I walked full of joy among the other young heroes. Night fell, and the stars appeared in the heavens. And as I stood beneath them one of the stars plunged to earth, a star that bore in itself the essence of Sky-father An. I tried to lift it, but it was too heavy for me. I tried to move it, but I could not. All Uruk gathered around to watch. The common people jostled; the noblemen dropped down and kissed the ground before the star. And I was drawn to it as I would be drawn to a woman. I put a carrying-strap on my forehead and braced myself and with the help of the young heroes I lifted it and carried it to you. And you told me, mother, that the star was my brother. That was the dream. Its meaning baffles me.”

  Ninsun appeared to stare off into some great empty space. Then she said, still smiling, “I know the meaning.”

  “Tell me, then.”

  “This star of heaven, that attracted you as a woman might attract you—it is a strong companion, it is a loyal friend, your rescuer, your comrade who will never forsake you. His strength is like the strength of An, and you will love him as you love yourself.”

  I frowned, thinking of that vast loneliness that I believed was the inescapable price of my kingship, and how weary I was of it.

  “Friend? What friend do you mean, mother?”

  “You will know him when he comes,” she said.

  I said, “Mother, I dreamed a second dream the same night.”

  She nodded. She seemed to know.

  “An axe of a strange shape was lying in the streets of great-walled Uruk,” I said, “an axe unlike any of the axes familiar to us. All the people were gathering around it, staring, whispering. As soon as I saw it, I rejoiced. I loved it: again, I was drawn to it as I would be to a woman. I took it and fastened it at my side. That was the second dream.”

  “The axe you saw is a man. He is the comrade who is destined for you—”

  “The comrade, again!”

  “The comrade again, yes. The brave companion who rescues his friend in a time of need. He will come to you.”

  “May the gods send him swiftly, then,” I said with great fervor.

  And I leaned forward close to her and told her something I had never revealed to anyone before: that I was in terrible need, that a great chilling loneliness assailed me in the midst of all my power and plenty. Those were not easy words to speak. Twice my tongue stuck fast, but I forced it to say the words. My mother Ninsun smiled and nodded. She knew. I think it was she that had induced the gods to fashion a companion for me. When I left her temple that morning I felt a lightness in my soul, as of the lifting of storm-clouds after they have hung heavy in the air for many days.

  About the time these dreams were coming to me a great strangeness—so I was afterward told—was befalling a man I did not know, a certain hunter, Ku-ninda by name. This Ku-ninda was a man of one of the outlying villages, who had his livelihood from trapping wild game; but this time when he went out into the wilderness on the far side of the river to inspect the traps he had set, he found them all torn apart. Whatever beasts might have been snared in them had been set free. And when he went to look into the pits he had dug, he discovered that they had all been filled in.

  This was a great mystery to Ku-ninda. No civilized person will disturb the traps of a hunter or fill in his pits: it is a discourtesy, and an ignoble act. So Ku-ninda searched for the man who had done these things to him; and soon enough he caught sight of him. But he was like no man Ku-ninda had ever seen. He was of huge size, naked, rough and shaggy all over, covered with dark coarse hair everywhere, more like a beast than a man, a wild creature of the hills. He carried himself like an animal, crouching, grunting, snorting, running swiftly on the balls of his feet. The beasts of the wilderness seemed to have no fear of him, but ran freely at his side: Ku-ninda saw the wild man among the gazelles on the high ridges, grazing with them, fondling them, eating grass as they ate grass. Ku-ninda was troubled by the strangeness of what he saw. He made more traps. The wild man sought them out and destroyed them, every one. One day Ku-ninda encountered the wild man at the watering-hole: they stood face to face. “You, wild one: why do you disturb my traps?” Ku-ninda demanded. The wild man made no reply, but only sniffed the air. He growled, he snarled, he bared his teeth, he glared with fiery eyes. A spume of spittle came forth and rolled down into his thick beard. Ku-ninda was no coward, but he shrank back: his face was frozen with fear, and terror numbed his limbs. Again the next day they met at the watering-place, and the day after that, and each time, when the wild man saw Ku-ninda, he growled and snarled, and Ku-ninda did not dare go near him. And at last, seeing that the shaggy stranger was making it impossible for him to hunt, Ku-ninda yielded, and went back empty-handed to his village, greatly downcast.

  He told this tale to his father, who said, “Go you to Uruk, and set yourself before Gilgamesh the king. There is no one more mighty than he: he will find a way to help you.”

  When next it was my audience-day for the common people, there was this Ku-ninda waiting in the audience-hall, a strong and sturdy man of more than middle height, with a lean hard face and keen penetrating eyes. He was clad in black skins, and he had the smell of sinews and blood about him. He put an offering of meat before me and said, “There is a wild fellow in the fields who tears up my traps and frees my catch. He is as strong as the host of heaven and I dare not approach him.”

  It seemed strange to me that this sturdy Ku-ninda could show fear of anyone or anything. I asked him to tell me more, and he spoke of the growling, the snarling, the baring of teeth; he told me how the wild man ran with the gazelles on the high ridges, and grazed beside them in the grass. Something in that stirred me deeply and held me fascinated. My skin crept a little with wonder and amazement, and the hair prickled along my neck. “What a marvel,” I said. “What a mystery!”

  “Will you slay this creature for me, O king?”

  “Slay him? I think not: it would be a pity to slay him for no other reason than being wild. But we can’t let him run loose in the fields, I suppose. We will trap him, I think.”

  “Impossible, majesty!” Ku-ninda cried out. “You have not seen him! His strength is as great as yours! There is no trap that could hold him!”

  “There is one, I think,” I said, with a smile.

  An idea had come to me as Ku-ninda spoke: a notion out of one of the old tales that the harper Ur-kununna had sung in the courtyard of the palace when I was a boy. I think it was the tale of the goddess Nawirtum and the devil-monster Zababa-shum, or perhaps the goddess was Ninshubur and the monster was Lahamu: I do not remember, and the names are I suppose not important. The point of the tale was the power of womanly beauty over the forces of violence and savagery. I sent to the temple cloister for the holy courtesan Abisimti, she of the round breasts and long shining hair who had initiated me into the rites of fleshly love when I was young, and told her wh
at I would have her do. She hesitated not at all. There was true holiness in Abisimti. She was in all ways a servant of heaven, and her way of giving services was to give it without question, which is the only true way.

  So Ku-ninda took Abisimti with him out onto the steppe, out into the hunting-lands, to the watering-hole where Ku-ninda had had his encounters with the wild man, three days’ journey from Uruk. There they waited a day and a second day, and the wild man was among them. “That’s the one,” said Ku-ninda. “Go to him now, use your arts upon him.”

  All unafraid and unashamed, Abisimti went to him and stood before him. He growled, he grunted, he frowned, not knowing what sort of creature she might be; but he did not snarl, he did not bare his teeth. She unfastened her robe and disclosed her breasts to him. I think he must never have seen a woman before, but the power of the goddess is great, and the goddess made the beauty of the holy whore Abisimti manifest to his understanding. She uncovered herself and showed him her soft ripe nakedness, and let him fill his nostrils with the rich perfume of her, and lay down with him and caressed him, and drew him down atop her so that he might possess her.

  It was his initiation. He had been like a beast; by embracing her he became like a man. Or it would be just as true to say that by embracing her he became a god. For that is the way that the divine essence enters into us, through the rite of the life-giving act.

  Six days and seven nights they lay together coupling. I will testify myself to Abisimti’s skills: I could have sent no one to him who was wiser in the ways of the flesh. When she lay with Enkidu—for that was the wild man’s name, Enkidu—she surely must have made use of all her wisdom with him, and after that he could never be the same. In those hot days and nights the wildness was burned from him in the forge of Abisimti’s passion. He softened, he grew more gentle, he gave up his savage grunting and growling. The power of speech came into him; he became like a man.