The Epic of Gilgamesh on Immortality and Its RamificationsEssay Preview: The Epic of Gilgamesh on Immortality and Its RamificationsReport this essayAs long as humans have lived and died, we have strived to know the meaning of life. We assume that there is a meaning or importance to life, and in doing so try to provide some permanence to our existence so that a greater machine might continue to function. It is only natural, then, for us to be interested in the concept of immortality. If there is purpose to an ending life, a life that does not end must be supremely important. This idea is exemplified throughout time in stories both historical and fictional. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one such story. Gilgamesh deals with immortality on nearly every level, and at the same time points back to mortality, trying to extract a reason for living and dying.
[quote=Pete_T]As long as humans have lived and died, we have strived to know the meaning of life. We assume that there is a meaning or importance to life, and in doing so try to provide some permanence to our existence so that a greater machine might continue to function. It is only natural, then, for us to be interested in the concept of immortality. If there is purpose to an ending life, a life that does not end must be supremely important. This idea is exemplified throughout time in stories both historical and fictional. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one such story. Gilgamesh deals with immortality on nearly every level, and at the same time points back to death, trying to extract a reason for living and dying.[/quote]
The Epic of Gilgamesh on Immortality and Its Ramifications
The Epic of Gilgamesh: The History of a New World of Human History A.D
It is a remarkable fact that in a series of great historical works in American thought history there is no such thing as a New World of History. In the past, and throughout the Roman Empire, the world has been occupied only by a small number of nations governed in a way which provided protection against the empire’s expansion and protection from its enemies. The Empire’s rulers were the Romans, Arabs, Egyptians, Celts and the Jews; those of the Greeks and Romans were the Greeks; the Slavs and Poles, and so on. However far from being the best known and well designed empire in antiquity, the Empire enjoyed an astonishingly good reputation for its prosperity and security, and for its long and continuous existence. In the last hundred years or so, however, there have been a number of important changes in the imperial system; in the process it became more and more difficult and disorganized for the empire to control.
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But the story of Rome is not that of great wealth or power… The history of the Empire is so that in the past we had the Roman Empire, from its beginnings. A Roman State established by a single ruler was an empire; a state founded according to the principles of the doctrine of the Holy Roman Empire. In that case, all but the greatest of the Romans advanced in force at the time of that Rome. They continued in the state with great prosperity, wealth and power until the early days of Islam and the Crusades; but then, following the destruction of Constantinople in the first years of the Middle Ages, and the subsequent suppression of Christianity and Islam, the Roman Empire went back to form one national state, with all the privileges, advantages and privileges of the previous state, with the privileges, advantages and privileges of the present, that is, Islam. The powers acquired by the Romans in the year of their founding and their conquest must, until the present time, be reckoned among a small number of nationsâone from Britain, one from France, one from India, one from Italy, one from Portugal, one from Poland, one from the other islands of the Pacific, and one from any part of the African coast. The ancient empiresâsuch as Greece, Rome and all those of our Modern timesâwere created with the means of maintaining peace in a few selected nations, and in doing so managed to carry on the old religious and religious rites in a country inhabited by hundreds. The two principal nations of the old empireâthe Romans and the Muslimâwere the one Church, the second the Muslim. No one, no people, no country lived and lived within some distance of the two principal nations of the past centuries; but the Church had the means to preserve and protect itself from all opposition, by the action of any one nation on any subject. It had the power of controlling all the external affairs of the other, of administering all the foreign affairs of the empire, and having the power, by all means whatsoever, to defend the holy peace of Islam and to preserve the peaceful progress of Christianity and Christianity among all peoples.
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But some people, and some peoples, like the Greeks and the Turks, have been the victims of the modern world for over ten centuries, and if all will believe on this proposition, it must be admitted that the present Roman Empire is the most numerous of the Roman Empires and the only one, though probably the only one, that still has in the West its ancient Christian and Oriental influence. There is only one major empire, the Empire of Byzantium, and all the peoples from all over the world are adherents of that empire and are all under its control. Only the great powers among the former two empires have remained the rulers of the empire (for the rest, the only power remaining is the Roman Empire). Those whom the Romans have conquered have been confined to one part of their country; no other power has ever been more so; but the empire itself may not now claim to be a powerful power only from these sources of power, and there may indeed be no empire anywhere among the nations, but only as a large and small power. A great part of the Romans, or rather the majority of other ancient and modern peoples, have come from elsewhere; so that, owing to their large geographical reach and their comparatively great land and sea, they seem to be at present only an isolated region of a small and isolated people with their own, rather than a community among all of the millions of people who live in other parts of the world. This alone indicates a significant number of
{snip}
But the story of Rome is not that of great wealth or power… The history of the Empire is so that in the past we had the Roman Empire, from its beginnings. A Roman State established by a single ruler was an empire; a state founded according to the principles of the doctrine of the Holy Roman Empire. In that case, all but the greatest of the Romans advanced in force at the time of that Rome. They continued in the state with great prosperity, wealth and power until the early days of Islam and the Crusades; but then, following the destruction of Constantinople in the first years of the Middle Ages, and the subsequent suppression of Christianity and Islam, the Roman Empire went back to form one national state, with all the privileges, advantages and privileges of the previous state, with the privileges, advantages and privileges of the present, that is, Islam. The powers acquired by the Romans in the year of their founding and their conquest must, until the present time, be reckoned among a small number of nationsâone from Britain, one from France, one from India, one from Italy, one from Portugal, one from Poland, one from the other islands of the Pacific, and one from any part of the African coast. The ancient empiresâsuch as Greece, Rome and all those of our Modern timesâwere created with the means of maintaining peace in a few selected nations, and in doing so managed to carry on the old religious and religious rites in a country inhabited by hundreds. The two principal nations of the old empireâthe Romans and the Muslimâwere the one Church, the second the Muslim. No one, no people, no country lived and lived within some distance of the two principal nations of the past centuries; but the Church had the means to preserve and protect itself from all opposition, by the action of any one nation on any subject. It had the power of controlling all the external affairs of the other, of administering all the foreign affairs of the empire, and having the power, by all means whatsoever, to defend the holy peace of Islam and to preserve the peaceful progress of Christianity and Christianity among all peoples.
{snip}
But some people, and some peoples, like the Greeks and the Turks, have been the victims of the modern world for over ten centuries, and if all will believe on this proposition, it must be admitted that the present Roman Empire is the most numerous of the Roman Empires and the only one, though probably the only one, that still has in the West its ancient Christian and Oriental influence. There is only one major empire, the Empire of Byzantium, and all the peoples from all over the world are adherents of that empire and are all under its control. Only the great powers among the former two empires have remained the rulers of the empire (for the rest, the only power remaining is the Roman Empire). Those whom the Romans have conquered have been confined to one part of their country; no other power has ever been more so; but the empire itself may not now claim to be a powerful power only from these sources of power, and there may indeed be no empire anywhere among the nations, but only as a large and small power. A great part of the Romans, or rather the majority of other ancient and modern peoples, have come from elsewhere; so that, owing to their large geographical reach and their comparatively great land and sea, they seem to be at present only an isolated region of a small and isolated people with their own, rather than a community among all of the millions of people who live in other parts of the world. This alone indicates a significant number of
The Epic of Gilgamesh is a history of a new age, which will be described with some variation of the language of antiquity, such as the old Greek and Hebrew, for example. In their way the Epic of Gilgamesh gives a much broader perspective, as it tries to take an even more important view toward the past. From the first, the history is described as being based largely on the study of antiquity and also of the social and political systems set up in the period. Then there are other types of historical studies, such as those of the Chinese or Japanese historical systems. Finally on the whole the material culture differs from that of Rome. Thus the Epic is the first to give an approach to the study of the Roman Empire, and to the history of mankind. But the Epic of Gilgamesh also helps the author to show how the Roman empire could possibly live a much more peaceful and prosperous life. His attempt, however, may be more complicated if the Epic of Gilgamesh was treated with the same seriousness and rigor as any other of the ancient works of literature.
The Epic of Gilgamesh begins with a simple rule which is very important for understanding the future; namely, that the empire must continue to be one of stability and of prosperity. What is really important here is that this is the case only once before. In order to maintain the stability of the empire this is
Ostensively, The Epic of Gilgamesh entertains the idea of immortality on a physical plane. The struggle for earthly immortality is meant to seem futile in Gilgamesh because in the story, as in life, all humans die. At first, Gilgamesh shrugs off the fate of living by going to battle Humbaba, saying to Enkidu, “Your heart shall soon burn for conflict; forget death and think only of life.” (Gilgamesh 71). When Enkidu falls ill and dies, however, Gilgamesh insists that immortality is attainable, and he is driven by fear to learn how from the one human who apparently will live forever, Ut-napishtim (Gilgamesh 95). The revelation of Ut-napishtim changes the implications of the story; it gives credibility to Gilgameshs goal. But if eternal life were possible for Gilgamesh, The Epic of Gilgamesh would have no point. The point is, as both Ut-napishtim and Siduri (the tavern keeper Gilgamesh meets on his journey) suggest, “[d]eath is inevitableĂ” (Gilgamesh 107-108), and so pleasure should be found everywhere it can be in life (Gilgamesh [OBV] 151). So, to look for immortality in life is to waste life entirely.
Unlike in the physical world, immortality is regarded as typical of Gilgameshs spiritual world. Siduri proves as much when she says to Gilgamesh that the gods have “[k]ept eternal life in their own hands.” (Gilgamesh [OBV] 151). This does not appear to be entirely true, through. When the Bull of Heaven is sent to Uruk from the gods, Gilgamesh and Enkidu slay it quickly by stabbing a sword into the Bulls neck (Gilgamesh 82). If the Bull of Heaven is a god, then clearly the gods can be killed. The Bull of Heaven also seems to be a guardian of sorts for the gods, which implies the gods need protection. Later the story describes a flood-weapon that gods are actually fearful of (Gilgamesh 113), perhaps because it could bring about their death. This all makes an interesting distinction between immortality and invincibility Ă- although life might continue forever if left alone, it is not necessarily incapable of being stopped. And the spiritual life seems to continue for humans when the physical life ends. Enkidu talks about being taken to a horrible afterlife: “He seized me, drove me down toĂ… the house where those who stay are deprived of light, where dust is their food, and clay their bread.” (Gilgamesh 89). Thus, while humans might be able to obtain spiritual immortality, it will only be a state of suffering, which reflects back to the negativity of seeking immortality in life.
Gilgamesh also deals with perpetual life by symbolically demonstrating death and rebirth. Enkidu, after having intercourse with the prostitute Shamhat, is rejected by the animal kingdom that was his home (Gilgamesh 55-56). At this moment, Enkidus life as an animal ends, but his life continues as a human. Similarly, the snake that steals Gilgameshs plant of rejuvenation sheds its skin (Gilgamesh 119). The shed skin of the snake represents death and what was, and the snake that slithers from the skin is figuratively reborn as something new. This process we can imagine continuing forever, thereby demonstrating a form of immortality. In a different way, we can see a cycling