Urshanabi leads Gilgamesh to the Deep Underworld. And so for nine hours Gilgamesh has to out run the sun.
And he does out run the sun, though how I do not know.
Continued
After nine exhausting hours with the sun hot on his heels Gilgamesh emerges from the underworld into the garden of the Gods.
The garden is a place that even, the mighty King of Uruk has never seen the like of. He was dazzled by trees and plants that have flowers and blossom of precious and semi precious stones and gems. It was quite amazing.
Then Gilgamesh is confronted by an ordinary man, Utanpishtim. The king of Uruk is surprised he was expecting a God that he would have to fight.
Weaponless Gilgamesh has to talk to Utanpishtim who asks him why he looks so tired and wan. Gilgamesh tells him how he has spent his last nine hours outrunning the sun. He also tells of the loss of his dear brother Enkidu and how he King of Girt – Walled – Uruk wants Immortality for himself and his people .
Utanpishtim says he has wasted his time venturing to these shores and all he has done is bring himself one day closer to death.
You can run but you cannot hide
Death reachs across the divide.
Immortals and men do not mix
All men die it’s written in stone, fixed.
Now Enlil had gathered the Gods together after the Flood and granted Utanpishtim and his wife Shiduri immortality. The question now arose who would grant this to Gilgamesh, what deeds would he do to gain his goal.
Utanpishtim set Gilgamesh the task that he must stay awake for seven days and nights with no sleep. The big ego that is Gilgamesh agreed to this blindly.
The task is set
Gilgamesh accepts and yet
In seconds he is asleep
Unable to his boastful words to keep.
He will lie says Utanpishtim
He is man as duplicitous as all his kin.
Shiduri will bake for everyday he sleeps a loaf.
He will lie, for all his mighty ways he’s just an oaf.
Shiduri bakes a loaf each day for the seven day and lays them infront of the sleeping Gilgamesh when the seventh day arrives Utanpishtim wakes Gilgamesh.
Of course he lies and tells Utanpishtim and Shiduri that he had not slept a wink.
He does not fool the wise couple who knew the outcome would always be a fail compounded by a lie. Shiduri shows Gilgamesh the seven loaves and gets him to feel the rock hard first and the soft warm last one.
Death around Gilgamesh creeps
Fear and failure into his soul seeps.
Lies from his mouth have made him fail
The useless the efforts of his travail
Will he be banished empty handed.
As a hopeless fool branded.
To be continued….
The story of Gilgamesh is one older than time and one that is repeated in all ancient and modern religious books and stories ..though the names and places change the stories do not.
Here is a clip from one of a trilogy of films called The Chronicles of Riddick. The characters in the clip have to outrun the sun, which waits for no man.
As I am nearing the end of my account of my feelings and experiences at The Silent Eye Spring Workshop I find I want to linger with the memories and stop time.
