The Taming of Enkidu

Shamhat waits at the watering hole. On the third day Enkidu comes down to drink with the herd. She sees him, uncovers herself, lets him take her. He stays with her seven days and seven nights. Afterward, sated, he tries to run with the gazelles again. They scatter from him. His knees buckle when he tries to keep up. The herd no longer knows him. He has — in the poem's exact phrase — become like a man. He turns back to Shamhat. She begins to teach him.

She gives him bread; he does not know what to do with it; she shows him. She gives him beer; he drinks seven jugs and laughs and his face shines. She cuts his hair; she anoints him with oil; she dresses him in clothes from her own pack. She tells him about Uruk and about Gilgamesh. Enkidu — newly civilized, newly furious — declares he will go to the city and challenge the king himself. They set out together. On the way Shamhat tells him Gilgamesh has been having dreams about him. A meteor he could not lift; an axe lying on a road; both, his mother told him, are signs of a brother coming.

In Uruk a wedding is being held — Gilgamesh on his way to take the bride. Enkidu plants himself in the doorway. The king cannot pass. They wrestle. The walls of the houses shake. The doorposts splinter. Gilgamesh, in the end, gets the better leverage and throws Enkidu down. They look at each other on the floor of the broken doorway — and they embrace. The poem does not explain the turn. From that day they are inseparable. The bride is left alone. The city is at peace.