The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels Read Free Page B

first-time visitor:
        See its wall, which is like a copper band,
        Survey its battlements, which nobody else can match,
        Take the threshold, which is from time immemorial,
        Approach Eanna, the homeof Ishtar, 1
        Which no future king nor any man will ever match!
        Go up on the wall of Uruk and walk around!
        Inspect the foundation platform and scrutinize the brickwork!
        Testify that its bricks are baked bricks,
        That the Seven Counselors must have laid its foundations!
        One square mile is city, one square mile is orchards, one square mile is claypits, as well as the open ground of Ishtar’s temple.
        Three square miles and the open ground comprise Uruk.
     
     
    The poet’s pride in the splendor and extent of his city is unmistakable. Uruk is “from time immemorial,” its foundations laid by the Seven Counselors, the gods who brought the black-heads all the special skills and crafts that have made them great. True greatness belongs exclusively to this “time immemorial,” and “no future king nor any man will ever match” such primeval achievements as the Eanna, Uruk’s temple to Ishtar, goddess of love and war. Then, as if he were working from a shooting script for a movie, the poet, having given us his establishing shots of the ancient city, invites us to have a closer look at one of the wondersit contains, a secret document preserved on a slab of Sumer’s most precious material:
        Look for the copper tablet-box,
        Undo its bronze lock,
        Open the door to its secret,
        Lift out the lapis lazuli tablet, read it,
        The story of that man, Gilgamesh, who went through all kinds of sufferings.
        He was superior to other kings, a warrior lord of great stature,
        A hero born of Uruk, a goring wild bull.
        He marches at the front as leader,
        He goes behind, the support of his brothers,
        A strong net, the protection of his men,
        The raging flood-wave, which can destroy even a stone wall.
        Son of Lugalbanda, Gilgamesh, perfect in strength,
        Son of the lofty cow, the wild cow Ninsun.
        He is Gilgamesh, perfect in splendor,
        Who opened up passes in the mountains,
        Who could dig pits even in the mountainside,
        Who crossed the ocean, the broad seas, as far as the sunrise.
     
     
    Gilgamesh, part human, part divine (since his mother is the wild cow goddess, Ninsun), has all the attributes of a proper mythological figure—fierce as a bull, strong as a wave—but also possesses the practical skills valued by your down-to-earth Sumerian businessman: he is a terrific engineer and an incomparable navigator. And this winning combinationof qualities gives us a hint that the story of Gilgamesh is the result of a long process of development and maturation. It may easily have arisen in a past so remote—long before writing, even long before agriculture—that no archaeologist can recapture it. But it has been turned and turned like pottery and elaborately decorated by successive hands, first prehistoric, then Sumerian, then Semitic.
    The lines I have quoted come from an unbroken portion of Tablet I. But now I must quote from a portion of the tablet that will give a better idea of the difficulties faced by a translator—lines that also suggest that even in lordly Uruk Gilgamesh was a bit much:
        In Uruk the Sheepfold he would walk about,
        Show himself superior, his head held high like a wild bull.
        He had no rival, at his
pukku
        His weapons would rise up, his comrades have to rise up.
        The young men of Uruk became dejected in their private [quarters(?)].
        Gilgamesh would not leave any son alone for his father.
        Day and night his [behavior(?)] was overbearing.…
        He is the shepherd of Uruk the Sheepfold,
        He is their shepherd, yet