The Birth of the Human
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

If I had to define essential human nature, I wouldn’t take Aristotle’s classic definition that “man is a rational animal.” True, we are rational beings – on occasion – but more often than not, we are downright unrational. Nor would I take the definition proffered by certain medieval theologians, to wit, that man “is the animal that laughs.” We are surpassed even there by the hyena and the kookaburra, not to mention the jackass. My definition of the human being would be the “storytelling creature.” It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that crows or dolphins or elephants swap yarns, but so far I’ve seen no evidence.
Human beings have always told stories. Even the cave paintings at Lascaux suggest narrative. But the oldest surviving story for which we have written texts is the tale of Gilgamesh. It’s not only the oldest; it may also be the best.
Gilgamesh was the King of Uruk, in what is present-day Iraq, and reigned around 2800 B.C.E. He was apparently an actual historical figure but one so transmogrified by myth as to become legendary. His myth was powerful and pervasive enough that it became the stuff of poetry in numerous ancient languages, principally Akkadian but also Sumerian and Hittite. The reconstruction of the ancient texts, preserved on baked clay tablets incised with cuneiform writing, commenced in the 19th century and represents one of the least-trumpeted but most heroic of patient scholarly endeavors.
Cuneiform writing, carried out by a scribal caste using wedge-shaped implements, is not alphabetic but employs a complex mixture of ideograms and phonetic signs impressed upon clay tablets; once baked, they become virtually indestructible, unlike papyrus or leather or paper. Most of the latter have perished (which is why we possess no writings from Achaemenid Persia, for example). Fragments of papyrus still turn up – an almost complete (and rather scabrous) lyric by the early Greek poet Archilochus was discovered not long ago – but are usually in tatters. In the great libraries of the Assyrian kings, however, where tablets were methodically shelved and arranged, an entire literature, albeit with inevitable gaps, has survived. The story of Gilgamesh is one such survivor.
Gilgamesh is no knight in shining armor. He is presented as an arrogant and swaggering ruler before whom his subjects cower in abject terror. Like Oedipus, he is the embodiment of hubris, but unlike Oedipus he isn’t guilty of any primal sin. He is simply unadulterated despotism. The epic of his adventures has all the ingredients of a thriller, but one with strange and enigmatic twists; in fantastic encounters and bizarre beings it rivals the “Odyssey.” Despite lacunae in the extant texts and hypothetical reconstructions of words and passages, it is the great granddaddy of the literature of quest and lies at the origins of such fantasies as “The Lord of the Rings” and even “Harry Potter.”
Since its decipherment, “Gilgamesh” has attracted translators. A spate have recently appeared in English. Some are free versions, such as those of Herbert Mason and David Ferry; others are more rigorous, such as those of Benjamin R. Foster and A.R. George, the leading expert on the epic. The newest version, a free rendering, is by Stephen Mitchell (Free Press, 292 pages, $24), best known for his translations of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, as well as of various sacred scriptures. What we now call the “Standard Babylonian Epic” survives on 12 clay tablets written in Akkadian; to the ancients it was known by its opening line, “Sha naqba imuru” (“He who saw the Deep”). Though its authorship was anonymous and collective, it was edited, some 500 years after it first appeared, by a scribe whom we know as Sin-leqi-unninni; some 2,000 of the original 3,000 lines survive. Here is how Mr. Mitchell’s version begins:
He had seen everything, had experienced all emotions,
From exaltation to despair, had been granted a vision Into the great mystery, the secret places,
The primeval days before the Flood.
The lofty but simple diction sets the tone. We know Gilgamesh for his adventures, but he was also a man of knowledge, one who had tested life to the limits. In this he is the very type of the ideal man, one who combines knowledge and action; a type, moreover, which was upheld not only in the ancient Near East but emulated for centuries in the Islamic world. The epic is the story of how Gilgamesh came to this wisdom and the narrator directs us to
Find the cornerstone and under it the copper box
That is marked with his name.
Unlock it. Open the lid.
Take out the tablet of lapis lazuli.
Read How Gilgamesh suffered all and accomplished all.
Who could resist such a mysterious invitation? Rilke was overwhelmed when he first read the poem in German translation and proclaimed it “stupendous.” Rilke saw it primarily as an epic on “the fear of death.” It’s true that a horror of death motivates Gilgamesh to undertake his quest for the source of eternal life, but the poem is both broader and deeper than that. “Gilgamesh” is really about what it means to be human, as well as about the mortal limitations humans must learn to accept. The ancient Greek poet Pindar, a Johnny-come-lately by Babylonian standards, put it most succinctly when he wrote in his third Pythian ode: “Dear soul, do not strive for immortal life / But exhaust what lies within your power to do.”
“Gilgamesh” explores the theme of becoming human in several striking episodes. The first concerns Enkidu, the wild man who later proves Gilgamesh’s best friend. Enkidu grows up as a beast among beasts, naked and unshorn, “kneeling beside the antelope and deer” to lap from water holes. When Gilgamesh hears of Enkidu, he plots to capture him, dispatching the temple prostitute Shamhat to the water hole and directing her “to strip off her robe and lie there, / naked, ready, with her legs apart.” The name Shamhat is probably cognate with the Hebrew simcha, “delight,” and she lives up to her name. When Enkidu sees her, he makes love to her for seven days without stopping. Afterwards the wild animals run from him; he has become, for better or worse, fully human.
In another episode, the goddess Ishtar tries to seduce Gilgamesh, but he refuses. She offers him everything from “a chariot of lapis lazuli” to kinky and unbridled sex but Gilgamesh is too wary; he knows how fickle she has always been. His tirade against her has a furious eloquence, which Mr. Mitchell renders wonderfully well:
Why would I want to be the lover
Of a broken oven that fails in the cold,
A flimsy door that the wind blows through,
A palace that falls on its staunchest defenders, A mouse that gnaws through its thin reed shelter, Tar that blackens the workman’s hands, A waterskin that is full of holes And leaks all over its bearer, a piece Of limestone that crumbles and undermines A solid stone wall, a battering ram That knocks down the rampart of an allied city, A shoe that mangles its owner’s foot?
As a final insult, Gilgamesh flings a haunch of the bull of heaven, which Ishtar has sent to kill him, into the face of the goddess. By this blasphemous act, which still has the power to shock when we read it, Gilgamesh asserts his humanity. Enkidu and Gilgamesh become inseparable, embark on heroic quests, the most famous of which involves Humbaba, the fierce guardian of the sacred cedar forest. The epic swarms with other equally fantastic figures: Shiduri, the mysterious tavern keeper at the edge of the world; Urshanabi, the boatman of the Waters of Death with his crew of stone men, the scorpion-man and his scorpion-wife; Utnapishtim, sole survivor of the Great Flood, and his kindly wife, whom Gilgamesh begs for the secret of eternal life. When Enkidu dies, through the machinations of Ishtar, Gilgamesh sits by his body for “six days and seven nights” until he spots a maggot coming out of his nose. The horror of death overcomes him; he feels it now in his flesh. His dread is not merely of dying but of the underworld, a ghastly realm in Babylonian belief. As Enkidu describes it to his friend:
Those who dwell there squat in the darkness,
Dirt is their food, their drink is clay,
They are dressed in feathered garments like birds,
They never see light, and on door and bolt
The dust lies thick.
Against this horrific vision, the epic offers a view of human life that is both beautiful and wise; it is the lesson Gilgamesh, and all of us, have to learn. As Shiduri puts it:
Humans are born, they live, then they die,
This is the order that the gods have decreed.
But until the end comes, enjoy your life,
Spend it in happiness, not despair.
Savor your food, make each of your days
A delight, bathe and anoint yourself,
Wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean,
Let music and dancing fill your house,
Love the child who holds you by the hand,
And give your wife pleasure in your embrace.
That is the best way for a man to live.
How Gilgamesh makes his way to Utnapishtim, the sole human granted eternal life, how he plucks the thorny shrub of immortality from the waters of the Great Deep, only to see it stolen by a snake, and then returns, chastened and wiser, to Uruk – all this makes for utterly enthralling reading, thanks to Mr. Mitchell’s skill and flair in recasting the ancient text.