As I observe in the sidebar on the right, the images I show here may not always “survive” the final cut in their original state; some may not survive at all. A case in point is an image I posted earlier alongside the “Bull of Heaven” sequence from the Epic of Gilgamesh. While not exactly unhappy with the piece in general, it seemed to me that the bull image which made up the left half of the diptych appeared altogether too “benign” to represent a rampaging Bull of Heaven. A recent visit to the British Museum has provided a better solution. It is as simple as that…

However, maybe not that simple after all and as I am, unusually for this blog, speaking “in my own voice” as it were, I shall take the opportunity to clarify some of the back story involved with this particular sequence in the story. Many interpreters have seen this part of the narrative as almost a comic interlude coming as it does between the journey Gilgamesh and Enkidu undertake to the Cedar Forest in order to vanquish the “keeper” of the forest charged by the gods with protecting it from despoilation by mankind, Humbaba/Huwawa. This our heroes, after much soul searching and “girding of the loins”, achieve. Gilgamesh, having the creature at his mercy, hesitates to apply the “coup de grace”, but at Enkidu’s firm and persuasive urging, ignores Humbaba’s pathetic pleas for mercy and slaughters him. Thus angering the gods and thus, too, setting in motion the chain of events which will subsequently lead to the death of Enkidu; an event which plunges Gilgamesh into inconsolable grief and sends him on a “quest”, which is the real “meat” and purpose of the epic, for the “meaning of life” (and death). In Gilgamesh’s case this basically represents a search for the secret of immortality, though subsequently he is to learn that the true meaning of life lies elsewhere.

Coming as it does between these events, the Bull sequence is something of a “side story”. In the narrative, Gilgamesh spurns the amorous advances of the goddess Ishtar/Inanna, ostensibly, or so he claims, because of her callously faithless track record with previous (some even cross-species) lovers. Enraged (hell hath no fury…), Ishtar unleashes the Bull of Heaven to rampage on the earth destroying anything that gets in its way, including, or so Ishtar hopes, Gilgamesh. Predictably, and once again with Enkidu’s help, Gilgamesh triumphs; our heroes slaughter the bull and rip out its heart. They also, as most earlier translators have put it, slice off a “haunch”, or “thigh”, and fling it in Ishtar’s face. While in itself this is not exactly a mistranslation, it does ignore the fact that, in many ancient Near Eastern texts, “thigh” is commonly a euphemism for “genitals”, which would seem much more à propos here. This is important as it points up the subplot of the whole sequence: if the search for immortality and meaning in life is the great theme of Gilgamesh, then the secondary theme is undeniably that of same sex love. And love of a wholly sexual nature too. In spite of his understandable reluctance to become just another one of the goddess’s “conquests” (which in itself represents an interesting “role reversal” of the genders) the real reason Gilgamesh spurns Ishtar’s sexual advances is that he would reject all such female advances. He quite clearly and emphatically only “has eyes” for Enkidu…

The point is, too, that on one level my own images related to the epic (part of a larger exploration of myths in general) could justifiably be seen as “illustrating” various parts of the narrative. Well, there is that aspect, of course. And claiming that there are also other “layers of meaning” associated with them is, as I have pondered at length, problematic. This goes to the heart of issues of just how much actual “meaning” any purely visual medium can successfully and clearly convey without first being placed in some sort of context. And this often, if not always, means some sort of written or verbal context.

On a final note, and just to clarify my own personal intent with these pieces, my interests do not so much lay in the “(re)telling” of myths as in questions of why myths arise. If myth-making is a means by which human’s throughout history have sought to explain the (to them) inexplicable then, and this is of greatest interest to me, why this myth or that myth in this or that place and time. In other words, my fascination is with the particular “mindset” that produces myths or “interpretations” and not first and foremost with “storytelling”…

For purposes of comparison I have posted the original image below, along with the quote from the epic that I used in the original post:

Ishtar led the Bull down to earth,
it entered and bellowed, the whole land shook,
the streams and marshes dried up, the Euphrates’
water level dropped by ten feet.
When the Bull snorted, the earth cracked open
and a hundred warriors fell in and died.
It snorted again, the earth cracked open
and two hundred warriors fell in and died.
When it snorted a third time, the earth cracked open
and Enkidu fell in, up to his waist,
he jumped out and grabbed the Bull’s horns, it spat
its slobber into his face, it lifted
its tail and spewed dung all over him.
Gilgamesh rushed in and shouted, “Dear friend,
keep fighting, together we are sure to win.”
Enkidu circled behind the Bull,
seized it by the tail and set his foot
on its haunch, then Gilgamesh skilfully,
like a butcher, strode up and thrust his knife
between its shoulders and the base of its horns.

After they had killed the Bull of Heaven,
they ripped out its heart and they offered it
to Shamash. Then they both bowed before him
and sat down like brothers, side by side.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The poem comes just short of stating that the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu is homosexual (in Tablet XII, a separate poem appended to the epic, the genital sexuality is explicit **). But it’s clear that the homoerotic element in their bond is very strong. Even before he meets Enkidu in combat, Gilgamesh dreams of him in an image of great physical tenderness. A boulder representing Enkidu falls from the sky; at first it is too heavy to budge, then it becomes the beloved in his arms, stone turning to warm flesh through the power of the metaphor. Gilgamesh’s mother, in interpreting the dream, says that that is indeed how it will be, that the boulder…

“stands for a dear friend, a mighty hero.
You will take him in your arms, embrace and caress him
the way a man caresses his wife.”

** “According to A.D. Kilmer, the symbols by which Enkidu is represented in the dream episodes make allusion to the Ishtar cult: the meteorite, kisru, evokes kezru, who would be a male counterpart of a kezertu woman (a kind of cultic prostitute), and the axe, hassinnu, evokes assinnu, a cultic performer who, typically as a eunuch, took the female role in the sexual act. By this analysis what Gilgamesh sees in his dreams is a twofold prediction of the arrival of a close male friend who will also be his lover.” (A.R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, v.1, p.452)

The repeated use of the verb hababu (embrace) in this connection implies a sexual connection. If there is any doubt about the significance of this image, note also SB [Standard Version] VI 11 59, where, in death, Gilgamesh veils Enkidu ‘like a bride.’

Graphic evidence for a sexual relationship now comes from SB XII 96-9, as understood in the light of a new manuscript of the text’s Sumerian forerunner, “Bilgamesh and the Netherworld” 250-3 (ibid., p. 454, n. 48). These lines from Tablet XII describe the return of Enkidu’s ghost from the underworld:

“If I am going to tell you the rules of the Netherworld that I saw,
sit you down (and) weep!”
“(So) let me sit down and weep!”
“(My friend the) penis that you touched so your heart rejoiced,
grubs devour [(it)... like an] old garment
[My friend the crotch that you] touched so your heart rejoiced,
it is filled with dust [like a crack in the ground]” (Tablet XII, 11. 93 ff, tr. George)

Fascinatingly, the Sumerian text from which this Akkadian text is translated has Enkidu talking about the decay of a female lover of Gilgamesh’s:

“If I am to [tell] you how things are ordered in the Netherworld,
O sit you down and weep!” “Then I will sit and weep!”
The one who handled (your) penis (so) you were glad at heart,
her vulva is infested with vermin like an (old) cloak,
her vulva is filled with dust like a crack in the ground.” (“Bilgamesh and the Netherworld”, 11.248 ff., tr George)

Stephen Mitchell, Introduction and notes to his translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh

Mix the heart of the clay that is over the abyss,
The good and princely fashioners will thicken the clay,
You, [Nammu] do you bring the limbs into existence;
Ninmah [earth-mother] will work above you,
The goddesses will stand by you at your fashioning;
O my mother, decree its [the newborn’s] fate,
Ninmah will bind upon it the image of the gods,
It is man…

Sumerian Creation Myth

For six days and seven nights, the storm
demolished the earth. On the seventh day,
the downpour stopped. The ocean grew calm.
No land could be seen, just water on all sides,
as flat as a roof. There was no life at all.
The human race had turned to clay…

When the waters had dried up and land appeared,
I set free the animals I had taken,
I slaughtered sheep on the mountaintop
and offered it to the gods. I arranged
two rows of seven ritual vases.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

When all our work on the ship was finished,
we feasted as though it were New Year’s Day.
At sunrise I handed out oil for the ritual,
by sunset the ship was ready. The launching
was difficult. We rolled her on logs
down to the river and eased her in
until two thirds was under the water.
I loaded onto her everything precious
that I owned: all my silver and gold,
all my family, all my kinfolk,
all kinds of animals, wild and tame,
craftsmen and artisans of every kind.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Ishtar led the Bull down to earth,
it entered and bellowed, the whole land shook,
the streams and marshes dried up, the Euphrates’
water level dropped by ten feet.
When the Bull snorted, the earth cracked open
and a hundred warriors fell in and died.
It snorted again, the earth cracked open
and two hundred warriors fell in and died.
When it snorted a third time, the earth cracked open
and Enkidu fell in, up to his waist,
he jumped out and grabbed the Bull’s horns, it spat
its slobber into his face, it lifted
its tail and spewed dung all over him.
Gilgamesh rushed in and shouted, “Dear friend,
keep fighting, together we are sure to win.”
Enkidu circled behind the Bull,
seized it by the tail and set his foot
on its haunch, then Gilgamesh skilfully,
like a butcher, strode up and thrust his knife
between its shoulders and the base of its horns.

After they had killed the Bull of Heaven,
they ripped out its heart and they offered it
to Shamash. Then they both bowed before him
and sat down like brothers, side by side.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

At four hundred miles they stopped to eat,
at a thousand miles they pitched their camp.
They had travelled for just three days and nights,
a six weeks’ journey for ordinary men.
When the sun was setting they dug a well,
they filled their waterskins with fresh water.
Gilgamesh climbed to the mountaintop,
he poured out flour as an offering and said,
“Mountain, bring me a favourable dream.”
Enkidu did the ritual for dreams,
praying for a sign. A gust of wind
passed. He built a shelter for the night,
placed Gilgamesh on the floor and spread
a magic circle of flour around him,
then sprawled like a net across the doorway.
Gilgamesh sat there with his chin on his knees,
and sleep overcame him, as it does all men.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Utnapishtim said, “Gilgamesh,
you came a very long way, you endured
many hardships to get here. Now
I will give you something for your journey home,
a mystery, a secret of the gods.

There is a small spiny bush that grows
in the waters of the Great Deep, it has sharp spikes
that will prick your fingers like thorns.
If you find this plant and bring it to the surface,
you will have found the secret of youth.”

Gilgamesh dug a pit on the shore
that led down into the Great Deep. He tied
two heavy stones to his feet, they pulled him
downwards into the water’s depths.
He found the plant, he grasped it, it tore
his fingers, they bled, he cut off the stones,
his body shot up to the surface, and the waves cast him back, gasping, onto the shore.

Gilgamesh said to Urshanabi,
“Come here, look at this marvellous plant,
the antidote to the fear of death.
With it we return to the youth we once had.
I will take it to Uruk. I will test its power
by seeing what happens when an old man eats it.
If that succeeds, I will eat some myself
and become a carefree young man again.”

The Epic of Gilgamesh

“My beloved friend is dead, he is dead,
my beloved brother is dead, I will mourn
as long as I breathe, I will sob for him
like a woman who has lost her only child.”

“O Enkidu, what is this sleep that has seized you,
that has darkened your face and stopped your breath?”

“Must I die too? Must I be as lifeless
as Enkidu? How can I bear this sorrow
that gnaws at my belly, this fear of death
that restlessly drives me onwards?”

“How can my mind have any rest?
My beloved friend has turned into clay –
my beloved Enkidu has turned into clay.
And won’t I too lie down in the dirt
like him, and never arise again?”

The Epic of Gilgamesh

“We have chopped down the trees of the Cedar Forest,
we have brought to earth the highest of the trees,
the cedar whose top once pierced the sky.
We will make it into a gigantic door,
a hundred feet high and thirty feet wide,
we will float it down the Euphrates to Enlil’s
temple in Nippur. No men shall go through it,
but only the gods.”

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The people of Sumer assemble in the palace,
The house which guides the land.
The king builds a throne for the queen of the palace.
He sits beside her on the throne.
In order to care for the life of all the lands,
The exact first day of the month is closely examined,
And on the day of the disappearance of the moon,
On the day of the sleeping of the moon,
The me are perfectly carried out
So that the New Year’s Day, the day of rites,
May be properly determined,
And a sleeping place be set up for Inanna.
The people cleanse the rushes with sweet-smelling cedar oil,
They arrange the rushes for the bed.
They spread a bridal sheet over the bed.
A bridal sheet to rejoice the heart,
A bridal sheet to sweeten the loins,
A bridal sheet for Inanna and Dumuzi.
The queen bathes her holy loins,
Inanna bathes for the holy loins of Dumuzi,
She washes herself with soap.
She sprinkles sweet-smelling cedar oil on the ground.
The king goes with lifted head to the holy loins,
Dumuzi goes with lifted head to the holy loins of Inanna.
He lies down beside her on the bed.
Tenderly he caresses her, murmuring words of love:
“O my holy jewel! O my wondrous Inanna!”
After he enters her holy vulva, causing the queen to rejoice,
After he enters her holy vulva, causing Inanna to rejoice,
Inanna holds him to her and murmurs:
“O Dumuzi, you are truly my love.”
The king bids the people enter the great hall.
The people bring food offerings and bowls.
They burn juniper resin, perform laving rites,
And pile up sweet-smelling incense.
The king embraces his beloved bride,
Dumuzi embraces Inanna.
Inanna, seated on the royal throne, shines like daylight.
The king, like the sun, shines radiantly by her side.
He arranges abundance, lushness, and plenty before her.
He assembles the people of Sumer.
The musicians play for the queen:
They play the loud instrument which drowns out the southern storm,
They play the sweet algar-instrument, the ornament of the palace,
They play the stringed instrument which brings joy to all people,
They play songs for Inanna to rejoice the heart.
The people spend the day in plenty.
The king stands before the assembly in great joy.
He hails Inanna with the praises of the gods and the assembly:
“Holy Priestess! Created with the heavens and earth,
Inanna, First Daughter of the Moon, Lady of the Evening!
I sing your praises.”
My Lady looks in sweet wonder from heaven.
The people of Sumer parade before the holy Inanna.
The Lady Who Ascends into the Heavens, Inanna is radiant.
Mighty, majestic, radiant, and ever youthful.

The Joy Of Sumer: The Sacred Marriage Rite