The Death of Enkidu

In his sleep Enkidu sees a council of the gods. They are angry. The cedars have been cut; Humbaba killed; the Bull of Heaven slain. Enlil, who set Humbaba in the forest, demands a life. Shamash defends Enkidu — they did it under my orders — and is overruled. The verdict comes down: Enkidu, not Gilgamesh, must die. The dream is precise about why him and not the other.

He wakes and tells Gilgamesh. Within days he is sick. The illness lasts twelve days. He cannot stand; he cannot eat; the strength of the wild man drains out of him while his friend sits beside the bed. Enkidu, in his fever and fury, begins to curse the chain of beings that brought him here. He curses the cedar door he built for Enlil's temple. He curses the trapper who first saw him at the watering hole. He curses Shamhat — may she be homeless, may she sleep in the shadow of walls, may all her gifts be taken back.

Shamash, from his daily round across the sky, hears him and answers gently. Without Shamhat, the sun god says, you would not have eaten bread or drunk beer; you would not have known friendship; you would not have been mourned by Gilgamesh, who will weep for you and walk the wilderness in a lion's skin. Enkidu hears it. He calls back the curse and replaces it with a blessing. Then he tells Gilgamesh his last dream. A man with a lion's face came for him; he was led down a road from which there is no return; he came to the House of Dust where the kings and priests of the world sit in silence, dressed in feathers, eating clay. He says it. He turns his face to the wall. He dies. Gilgamesh holds his body and refuses to let go.