The Tavern at the Edge of the World

In the garden of jewels Gilgamesh comes to a tavern. The keeper, Siduri — a divine barmaid, half-goddess, who lives where the world ends — sees him approaching: matted hair, lion's skin, a man who has come from somewhere terrible. She bolts the door. He hammers and identifies himself: the king who killed Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven, whose friend Enkidu has died. She lets him in. She tells him the truth. The gods kept eternal life for themselves and gave death to the rest. There is no way around it.

Then she gives the famous counsel — the lines that have been quoted from this poem for four thousand years. Fill your belly with good things; day and night, dance and be merry; let your clothes be fresh; bathe yourself in water; cherish the small child who holds your hand; let your wife delight in your embrace. This, she tells him, is what mortals are given. This is enough. Gilgamesh refuses. He cannot accept it; not yet. He demands she tell him how to cross the waters of death. Reluctantly she names the ferryman, Urshanabi, who alone can cross.

He finds Urshanabi. The ferryman has stone images on his boat — the only safe means of crossing, since any living thing that touches the waters of death dies. Gilgamesh, in his fury, smashes the stones. Urshanabi tells him calmly to cut three hundred wooden poles, two for each touch on the way across. They build the makeshift crossing pole by pole. They reach the far side. There, on the shore, an old man is sitting and watching them come in. He is not a giant. He is not robed in glory. He is an old man with a long memory, looking out to sea. He is Utnapishtim.