FEATURES HIGH GEAR, MARCH, 1977

The oldest known epic, the, Epic of Gilgamesh, written nearly four thousand years ago in Babylonia, is also one of the most ancient overtly homosexual works of literature. It concerns itself chiefly with the exploits of the hero, Gilgamesh, and his male lover, Enkidu. In addition to being the oldest such poem, it is also one of the most popular in the ancient Middle East. The Assyrians and others created their own

ver-;

sions of the original master-. piece. Greatly altered fragments of the legend, more especially the myth of the Great Deluge, were borrowed by the ancient Hebrews. The powerful figure of Gilgamesh is often represented in Mesopotamian bas-reliefs.

Early in the epic, Gilgamesh, King of Erek, has a series of dreams which perplex him. In the dreams he is grooming himself among fellow warriors when he is suddenly approached by one of them who forces him to

WHAT LOVER

OF YOURS

DID YOU EVER

LOVE FOREVER?

By LEON STEVENS

the ground and lies on top of e

him. The subduer is stronger

and heavier than Gilgamesh E

who is unable to free himself. The spectators cheer both the victor and the vanquished. And Gilgamesh brings the stranger home to his mother for approval. He recounts the dream to his mother who interprets the dream to mean that Gilgamesh would soon meet a champion who would prove his superior. This hero was to become his close companion who would "watch over him as over a wife." The man was destined to remain his 'intimate friend forever.

Gilgamesh's nocturnal visions are fulfilled when he meets Enkidu, a hairy, muscular, beerdrinking sportsman. In contrast

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with the extremely butch Enkidu, EN

Gilgamesh is accustomed to a sophisticated, mild, urban lifestyle. The two are suspicious of each other at first but gradually become used to each other. Gilgamesh invites Enkidu to accompany him on a visit to a promiscuous goddess. Enkidu objects and presumably in a fit of jealousy, forcibly prevents him from going. The men square off for a fight, Gilgamesh is subsequently defeated and they both, not only patch up their dif-

ferences but fall deeply in love.

Each tries to make himself more compatible with the other. Crude Enkidu attempts to present a "chic" image while Gilgamesh takes to wearing leather ("animal skins") like that of his comrade.

The primary theme of the whole story is Gilgamesh's desperate search for the source of immortality and Enkidu's calm acceptance of death. The hero is traumatized when Enikdu succumbs to a fever and perishes. Gilgamesh is inconsolable and begs the gods to conjure up the ghost of his dead lover after which the following emotional exchange takes place:

Tell me, my friend, implored Gilgamesh, tell me, my friend, tell me the law of the underworld that you know. No, replied Enkidu, I shall not tell you about it, my friend, I shall not tell you; if I were to tell you the law of the subterranean world that I know, I should see

you sit down and weep.

Very well, replied Gilgamesh once more, I am ready to sit down and weep.

That which you cherished, Enkidu then confided, that which you caressed and which brought happiness to your heart, now, like an old garment, it is devoured by the worms.

That which you cherished, that which you caressed and which made your heart glad, is today covered in dust.

It is plunged into dust. It is all plunged into dust. Enkidu's demise had been forecast in certain highly sym-

W

bolic and malevolent somnolent revelations. Gilgamesh's fate is never fully revealed because he is one-third human and twothirds divine. This god king of Erek, is physically threatened but metaphsically ambitious. His life is dedicated to a quest for his deified ancestor, UtaNapishtim who can tell him that secret of eternal youth. After an Odyssey of sorts, he does, in fact, reach Uta-Napishtim who advises him that everything earthly is transitory and that neither gods nor humans can know their fates.

It is inferred that the early

mortality of Enkidu is an indirect punishment of Gilgamesh by the gods for his ambition and insolence. This haughtiness comes to a climax when the goddess Ishtar cruises Gilgamesh only to be rejected by him. Although the chief protagonist's rejection of the "Queen of Heaven" is sometimes interpreted as gaymale woman-hatred, Gilgamesh's impassioned refusal is highly generalized and even avoids the goddess' gender. Instead, it seems to be a denunciation of heterosexuality. He declaims:

Though art no more than a ruin..... that gives no shelter to man against bad weather, títhou art only a banging door. that cannot withstand the storm, thou art only a strap that conceals treachery, though art only blazing pitch that burns the hand of him that touches it, thou art only a water bottle that drowns him who carries it, thou art only a scrap of limestone that lets the ramparts fall into ruins....

What lover of yours did you ever love forever?

The lone hero succeeds in obtaining an herb which imparts immortality but before he has the opportunity to eat it, it is consumed by a hungry serpent which happens by his encampment!

The Gilgamesh Epic is detailed, humanistic and remarkably sophisticated for its time. Its influence on later (and frequently inferior) literature is unmistakable. The biblical myths of Genesis and Exodus are, in many cases, full scale ripoffs of the Babylonian prototype. The story of the Great flood, as told to Gilgamesh by UtaNapishtim, is repead in detail as the tale of Noah's Ark. Gilgamesh's "reading" of Ishtar is rehashed far less eloquently in Joseph's flight from Potiphar's wife. The robbery of human immortality by a snake resurfaces in the Garden of Eden scenario. The disparity between coarse Enkidu and the gentler Gilgamesh reappears redundantly as the contrast between Jacob and Esau and Ishmael and Isaac. The sensuous contest between Enkidu and Gilgamesh is reconstituted as Jacob wrestling with the angel. This heterosexual plagiarism is abundant elsewhere in the Pentateuch and so is subtle Hebrew reaction to Mesopotamian homosexuality.

For instance, after the flood, Noah becomes intoxicated and lies naked in full view of his son Ham who stands transfixed by paternal nudity. Once sober, the homophobic and erotophobic Noah

curses his son. The episode of Sodom and Gormorrah betrays a conscious effort by Semitic patriarchs to recover the rich imagery of the Babylonians and at the same time strains out their gayness.

Unlike ensuing imitations, The Gilgamesh Epic is a consistent, tightly-knit whole. Its central themes are expanded but preserved. At the outset of the work, Enkidu laments his artificial heterosexual mode of existence, prior to meeting his lover, Gilgamesh. The last lines.

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of the poem join two prevalent themes: the search for everlasting life and the desire for a partner of the same sex, with the observation:

The spirit of the unburied man reposeth not in the earth, and the spirit of the friendless man wandereth about the streets....

Eva Szabo

She came through the ions of time, mastering a virgin mare, water-colored white... unclothed by night...

Ridden from one counter-parted garden of sin, resolved so gainfully revived...

On a lone-star island;

she yearned, yet loved the land, and worshipped an eternal day.

I was born of an everlasting, sun joined with one ice-landic moon beam;

Set down on her land, unknown to but

One...

clothed in the night...

My beautiful Cadence lie waiting

welcoming the frosted sun...

Questioning

each other's

existence, falling in yet falling out, and in...

Two in love, ah but what is it, or is it so...

Grains of sand surround the rush and

ageless Run. I love my Love... Encased in soft caressing arms of my water-color White...

Woman, stark,... daughter of daylight.

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