The Duality of Human Nature in The Epic of Gilgamesh

True friendship can exist only between equals.

- Plato

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, nature and nurture take the form of two friends who feel a sense of completeness in each other’s company. When these two characters join forces in combat, we see the Forest of Cedar stripped of its primary guardian, Humbaba, leaving nature exposed to man’s instinctual drive for self-preservation coupled by a lack of foresight. Gilgamesh’s association to the city and Enkidu’s association to the wild reveal the duality of human nature and the egotism that arises from self-awareness. When these two bodies come together as one soul, we discover that man’s goodness is ultimately rooted in his connection to the natural world. Their journey challenges us to reflect on our species development from savageness to “civility” and the part of us that becomes lost in this ascent.

Enkidu’s “savage” appearance and wild spirit represent the primitive part of humans and the animal instincts inherent to our species. Introduced, at first, as a free-spirited creature who spends his days “grazing” with the other “beasts”, the creation of Enkidu wondrously emerges onto the scene in Tablet 1. Before his transformation from a wild, untamed animal to a refined and cultured man who possesses the gift of reasoned speech, Enkidu is described as one who was raised in silence, not yet afflicted by language or self-awareness (4, I 104) which means that he has never made comparisons between himself and others until this time. After two weeks of sexual intercourse with Shamhat* who is sent to “defile” Enkidu by order of the king, Enkidu’s “legs stood still, though his herd was in motion” (8, I 200), metaphorically illustrating the tension between the constant movement of the primitive “herd” (8, I 200) and the more sedentary lifestyle of the “refined” man and the inner sense of restlessness caused by this tension. This internal conflict is reflective of Enkidu’s spiritual transition from a “lower” animal soul to a “higher” human soul that, instinctively, desires a friend (8, I 214). Furthermore, this intimacy gives Enkidu “reason and wide understanding” (8, I 202) which causes him to take an interest in language thereafter. Feeding his new ego, Shamhat flatters Enkidu by saying “You are handsome, Enkidu you are just like a god!” (8, I 207) followed by more persuasive rhetoric designed to lure him back to Uruk so that he may provide a counterpart for Gilgamesh, and thus, restore peace in the city. The fornication between Shamhat and Enkidu is an important scene because it marks a turning point for Enkidu who begins to see himself through the eyes of others and is no longer guided exclusively by his natural instincts. Moreover, this mission forces Enkidu to look past his original goal of survival as he begins to embrace his “higher” faculties and his superego that has suddenly manifested within.

Upon his arrival in the city, Enkidu is soon a favourite among the subjects who gather around him and discuss his appearance in the streets of Uruk (15, II 176-187). Yet even more impressive than his physique, is Enkidu’s sense of natural law and justice which is highlighted by his disapproval of the state’s “divine law” that permits the king to bed the brides of his male subjects on the first night after marriage. When Enkidu hears of this law “his face pale[s] in anger” (15, P 165) and he then forcefully prevents king Gilgamesh from entering the wedding house and carrying out this practice with the most recent bride of Uruk. The action that Enkidu takes in response to the injustice of this marital practice in this scene demonstrates a sense of morality that the city dwellers (including their ruler) seem to lack, as we see Enkidu’s character acting as a sort of intermediary between legal and natural rights.

Gilgamesh, on the other hand, represents the “refined”, and cultured part of humans that has been shaped by the unnatural world and the unnatural environment in which they are raised. Disillusioned by his ranking, reputation, and absolute power in the city, king Gilgamesh “harries” the young men of Uruk “without warrant” as “his tyranny grows harsher” by the day (3, I 67-69). After the gods of heaven complain to the god Anu about his ruthless leadership, it is decided that Gilgamesh needs an equal to offset his “badness” that has arguably intensified due to his long-term detachment from wild nature. There to reconnect him to these roots, is Enkidu, who comes to Gilgamesh, first, in his dreams, in the form of earthly matter and later as a tool (made from this matter) and relates these dreams to his mother. Ninsun tells her son that the rock and axe symbolize “a mighty comrade” who will be a friend, “saviour”, and even a partner for him and expects Gilgamesh to love and embrace him as such (10, I 268). In anticipation, Gilgamesh waits for his new “tool” to arrive, happily boasting “a friend to counsel me I will acquire!” (11, I 297). Here, we see that Gilgamesh’s first thought is of how he will use this new friend to his advantage. Moreover, rather than making friends naturally, this quote suggests that Gilgamesh simply “acquire[s]” his, revealing a sense of entitlement in his personality. In Gilgamesh, we see a man too far removed from his primitive state and who now requires special “counsel” due to a lack of rationality ironically. The rock and the axe may also symbolize our transition from hunter-gatherers to a more sedentary species that began manipulating raw material. Since Enkidu, in a sense, represents organic material, we see several instances in the poem when his character falls victim to this manipulation.

When these two characters collide, Enkidu’s natural upbringing provides a source of protection for Gilgamesh who will benefit personally from Enkidu’s knowledge and spiritual connection to the natural world. Before Gilgamesh and Enkidu disrupt the Forest of Cedar, it is described as a lush and thriving jungle:

[Thick] tangled was the thorn, the forest a shrouding canopy

cedars and gum trees, [all entwined,], left no way in

For a league on all sides cedars [sent forth] saplings,

cypresses [grew thick] for two-thirds of a league. (36, V 10-13)

After slewing its guardian, however, the two friends “reduced the forest [to] a wasteland” (46, V 304), robbing it of its resources and the life and beauty it once possessed. In this scene, we see man’s innate competitive drive and desire for glory taking precedence over his conscience as the two men “trample” the forest, take resin from the cedars, cut down trees, and “seek out the best timber” (46, V 312). More concernedly, the pair also lack the foresight to see the long-term consequences of their actions and the ways in which they have disrupted the natural order and balance of jungle life. Later in the poem, before Enkidu dies, he laments to the door that was fashioned out of one of the trees that Gilgamesh felled during their rampage in the Forest of Cedar and speaks directly to it as if it were still a living thing:

O door of the woodland, that has no [sense,]…

For twenty leagues I sought for you the [finest] timber…

‘Your tree had no rival [in the Forest of Cedar:]…

I fashioned you, I lifted you, I hung you upright in Nippur.

Had I but known O Door, that so you would [repay me,]…

I would have lifted my axe, I would have cut you down,

I would have shipped you down on a raft to Ebabbara… (54, VII 39-50)

Sadly, Gilgamesh takes this monologue to be a sign of “madness” in his friend because he was not conditioned to think of trees as living souls, and therefore, cannot grasp the depth of his friend’s relationship to the wood and the remorse he feels for the destruction they caused in the forest. However, Enkidu’s self-reproach is also mixed with a combination of anger and bitterness towards the hunter (who reported Enkidu for freeing the animals from the traps he laid) and Shamhat (who seduced him, clothed him, and gave him ale). However, his anger is immediately tempered by the sun god, Shamash, who brings a sense of calm to the chaos within Enkidu’s heart and mind before his death. Interestingly, Enkidu’s passing triggers a sense of fear in Gilgamesh, who, for the first time in his life, begins to fear his own mortality. Rather than accepting this natural and inevitable fate, Gilgamesh tries to work against nature’s design in a desperate and eventually failed attempt to achieve the immortality that his beloved friend could not.

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, we see a civilization too far removed from the natural world. And although the citizen’s devotion to the gods and connection to the spiritual world allow them to exist in a “higher” realm, their city has grown weak from ruthless subjugation under the rule of king Gilgamesh and its long-term disconnection from wild nature. Guided primarily by their gods, convention, tyrannical leaders, and a fear of nature, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Uruk challenges us to reflect on our species departure from nature upon entrance into civil society and just how civil the “civil state” truly is. Gilgamesh’s association to the city represents the environmental factors that shape our development while Enkidu’s association to the wild represents the hereditary part of our nature. Interestingly, Gilgamesh’s confrontation with mortality ends up being the requisite to his sense of wholeness while the creation of Enkidu allows us to see that man’s goodness is ultimately rooted in his connection to the natural world.

Sincerely,

Heather

*Shamhat is a prostitute of Uruk in this tale

Note: This post has been inspired by a scholarly lecture on the ancient Mesopotamian poem The Epic of Gilgamesh presented by Dr. Mark Blackell, an informative lecture on claim, evidence, and analysis by Dr. Kaia Scott, and some thought-provoking seminar discussion on this poem with my LBST111 classmates.

Works Consulted

Anonymous. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Translated by Andrew George, Penguin Classics, 2020.