Gilgamesh: A New English Version
Translated By: Stephen Mitchell / Narrated by: George Guidall
Length: 4 hrs and 4 mins
From a chick with absolutely noooo interest in cuneiform… Huzzah for Mitchell!
This is what happens when you become an active participant in your learning to be an End of Life Doula: You pay attention, you ask questions in class, and you even go so far as to bare your soul every now and again. This has the effect that some people Friend you, start baring their souls, and you notice… they’re kinda… off… Which leads ya to backpedal! backpedal! set boundaries! Until you come upon someone who’s truly decent, there’s give and take, and humor, and true sharing, and even music sent back and forth.
This new friend, you discover, is also a bibliophile, so you wind up messaging queries about audiobooks on sale that might be worth it (ANYTHING on sale is worth it!). And said Doulos buddy is also… an Assyriologist (Look it up; I had to), so you wind up at said audiobook sale plunking down $2 for Gilgamesh.
And soooo, without ANY interest in cuneiform, here I am having finished the “New English Version” of the aaaancient story (Homer was a johnny-come-lately!) by Stephen Mitchell, a man who makes no bones about not being well-versed (Kinda sorta a pun, so sorry) in cuneiform. Rather, this is a pulling together of Every Single Translation Out There, dipping, dancing, weaving, filling in a few blank spots, and bringing a 21st century Bromance-flair to the epic poem. Dude! even I could get into it, and that’s saying a LOT cuz I dunno how many times I fell asleep during Beowulf (Full disclosure? Fell asleep FIVE TIMES here, but two of those times I blame on Alēve knocking me out… can’t explain the first three…).
What I’m going to offer ya here, is a thoroughly Modern Woman’s Squid’s Eye synopsis and comments on an Epic Poem that I really really REALLY shoulda read in AP English. As I did not, I come to you with the cheeky good humor that only time and hard knocks could engender.
Gilgamesh is King of Uruk, a total bad-ass with really long legs (A journey that would take a mere runt o’ a man 6-weeks takes him 3 days). Alas, he’s rather a jerk as well. He’s tyrannizing poor lovely Uruk, crushing men, deflowering women, the brute. The citizenry cry out to be saved by his baser impulses, and so Enkidu, aNOTHer big dude is created and is set to live amongst animals and in Nature. Sightings of such a magnificent specimen who spoils catches finally are too much for a trapper who seeks Gilgamesh’s wisdom to get rid of Enkidu. A plan is hatched, a harlot is procured (Actually, that’s Modern Me saying the temple devotee who brings religious ecstasy to men by spreading her legs for otherworldly carnal delights is uhm, well, that’s how her skills are going to be utilized), and the trapper and the harlot, sorry, travel travel travel, wait at Enkidu’s watering hole. The plan? The woman all tra la lalala sits back, legs apart, and for seven-days, uhm, uses her body and skills to bring him to being all Human-Like. There ain’t ANY going back after that.
A run in with Gilgamesh (Stopped at the doorway just as he’s about to deflower a new bride… some other guy’s bride, doncha know…) has Enkidu all bristly and angry, and the two clash like bulls, head-butting, eye-gouging, knees to groins, you know: Doing the whole Male-Bonding thing. After that, Enkidu breathlessly pants that WOW, he’s just met a Superior Entity; Gilgamesh breathlessly pants that WOW, he’s just met the love of his life, his brother forever and ever and evermore; and the two become inseparable.
Then it’s off for feats of derring-do, slaughtering an innocent monster-ish, giant-ish type o’ dude, just cuz they can. Actually, Gilgamesh has the Big Idea to go off to slaughter Humbaba but gets cold feet riiiiiiiight at the end when Humbaba begs for mercy, and it’s Enkidu who cheers and cajoles him on. Next, slaughtering the Bull of Heaven, cuz see, Gilgamesh kinda sorta crudely ticked off Ishtar by soooo NOT becoming her consort (Hell hath no fury… but apparently Heaven hath a Bull…), which has diSAStrous consequences. Yeh, the Bull is killed, Ishtar is jeered, but Enkidu’s life winds up being forfeit.
Which is the best part of the story as Enkidu’s death brings complete grief to Gilgamesh who suddenly becomes all too aware of how human he is; he has known the greatest of loves, and that made him vulnerable. Where once he razzed Enkidu to come with him to take on Humbaba, declaring: Dude, we’re gonna die SOMEday, might as well Live Forever In The Minds Of Men, now? He’s ooooh so devastated, undone, keeping Enkidu’s corpse by his side and believing that if he just grieved with his entire heart, his entire soul, then somehow Enkidu might be brought back to life again.
And then a maggot falls outta Enkidu’s nostril, and it beYONd sets Gilgamesh off on his final quest, for immortality this time.
George Guidall. When is the man NOT a brilliant narrator? Welllll, even tho’ this version has verrrry masculine themes, suuuuuch muscular writing and word choices, is jam-packed with action action action and Bravery in the Face of Fear? I mean, I KNOW I took Alēve on two occasions, but seriously? And I mean, I KNOW Guidall is The Go-To Man for Classics (Yeh yeh yeh, apologies to Simon Vance and Simon Prebble, but Guidall is EVERYWHERE), but seriously? And I mean, I could tell the man delivered all the liveliness with many bells and whistles and MUCH hoopla, but seriously? Dude, I fell asleep three times that had nothing to do with naproxen sodium. Author Mitchell took translations galore, wrote in prose, then he scripted all into a form of verse, and that has (Tho’ no discernible rhythm) a definite ebb and flow and the occasional repeated phrase for emphasis. So I’m blaming either the flow of the writing for, in spite of the Manly Air, lulling me to sleep; or I’m casting the evil eye at Guidall for having such avuncular and good-natured tones, in spite of the gore and mayhem. CERtainly, I cast no doubt ‘pon m’self.
-OR- it coulda been all the Trail Mix I scarfed throughout… too many carbs, ya know?
Anyhoo, come for a WONderful version of a tale you might’ve read a translation of eons ago, stay for the extended essay about the context of the story (And you think I’M glib? Listen to that essay!), and be enchanted the whole time.
And if Life has blessed you soooo supremely? Ask your Assyriologist friend for name spellings…
One cheer for cuneiform, and three mighty Huzzahs for Friends!
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