[Freeform] Gilgamesh

[Namae Nai]

   The golden king. At the dawn of civilization, this one man had once obtained all the world. There have been numerous sovereigns and leaders in the history of humanity, conquering kings who swept east from ocean to ocean, and many are the emperors that raised vast empires. However, Gilgamesh makes a conspicuous figure even among these.

   He had placed himself before his nation and the people. Unlike the many to follow he had neither curiosity nor desire to conquer. He probably had too much to begin with and so he put himself first in all the world.

   That led to his legendary quest for immortality; the anecdote of the herb of immortality contained in humanity's most ancient tale, "The Epic of Gilgamesh."

"Hmm? What is it with that glum look? Some useless worry again? Very well, speak. I shall allow it."

   Of course, not all researchers could summon the actual spirit of their subject to answer their queries on the fine point of their legacy. Fortunately as well, the King of Heroes appeared to be in a good mood for a question and answer session.

   "Why did you let go of immortality?"

"I see. So you've finished reading the epic. Then I'll not ask you the reason for your question. I shall certainly answer if you wish to know. However, given that question is one that concerns the depths of my being I have to wonder if you are prepared for the answer? After all, you are about to make me speak of that confounded affair you will be burdened with a debt that you'll be unable to repay your entire life. Even so, do you still wish to know?"

   .....What an unexpected response. His tone was neither angered nor amused and was unexpectedly dispassionate. Gilgamesh was serious.

"Then I shall speak of it. Oh, it will not take long. After all, the circumstances are the same as in the epic."

   He had not even waited for an answer. In a fashion typical of Gilgamesh; my choice between 'yes' or 'no' never existed to begin with!

"To the king before the previous, Lugalbanda, and the goddess Ninsun-Rimat I was born, given a body that was of the highest grade by mortal standards, and knowledge reaching truth. It would seem that I was benevolent enough in my childhood. After all, I was apparently cherished as the pride of the people, who had, it was said, rejoiced that they had 'gained the best king there was.'"

   ...Curious. That's not how one should speak of his own past. Does the King of Heroes not remember his childhood well?

"Of course not. My younger self and I are utterly different in nature. I cannot even perceive my younger self. My younger self would doubtless be the same. Had he known that he would become me as an adult, he may even have stopped his own growth. Well, it is but idle supposition. I reached adulthood, and ascertained my course. That I would live not as a king who governed the people, but a storm who castigated the people. From thereon it is as it was in the epic. I seized and collected as I willed. The nation and the people were mine. All the treasures and possibilities they brought forth I collected and made my own. Why? To adjudicate, of course. Though humanity is the epitome of ingenuity, it does not possess a shared standard. No, precisely because it has no shared standard, humanity continues to bring forth new advancements. Thus, an absolute standard is indispensable. An adjudicator who was human while more than human, who belonged to the gods without being a god. If merely to govern, a human would do; if merely to menace, a god would do. To the very end, the gods had not understood that."

   Adjudicator...come to think of it, the tales had referred to Gilgamesh as such. So he was an observer... a sentencer. Punition personified, uncolored by human values. So that's what was at Gilgamesh's core...?

"This was before the Code of Ur-Nammu. Later Hammurabi established his with further delineation, but the basic idea is law for humans to prosecute humans. I lived by my standards. I collected riches, bedded women, fought with my friend, and purged the earth of banes. And after that work was completed, a certain life suddenly returned to dust. I met death, to put it concretely. Until that moment, not once had death inspired in me either grief or fear. It had never even been on my mind. However, before my eyes, one who held equal power to me perished. Though I had known that death awaited all, that was the first time it had truly registered with me."

   By "equal," he must mean Enkidu. According to the epic, upon witnessing Enkidu's death,
Gilgamesh had realized that he too was fated to die and became frightened. To escape from that destiny,
he visited the sage who was said to have overcome death. It was to be the final adventure for the King of Heroes; the quest for immortality in the underworld, Kigal.

"Needless to say, it is not that I hadn't thought of the herb of immortality before then. My vault must contain all the treasures of the earth, after all. Even if he had not returned to dust, it was a task I would have one day needed to undertake. In addition, I now had a reason to do so. I loathed and feared the death that took my friend away. For the first time since birth, I was frightened for my own life. The journey from that point onward could be summed up in a single word: a farce. It was said that there was a man in the underworld who had overcome death. For the same length of time as I had lived up to that point, I wandered the wilderness, seeking the underworld. I groveled along pathetically, with no thought in my mind but wanting only not to die. The same motive as you all. Not even a child of the gods was different in any way whatsoever when faced with death. However, even my idiocy exceeded that of humans. ......Revoltingly, I continued to ingurgitate my own baseness. Without knowing even for what purpose, for whose sake, was I attempting to overcome death. I just glared at the sky, with sheer determination to be unfading."

[Namae Nai]

   There was more than a small hint of nostalgia in that sentiment. Gilgamesh, who'd wandered the wilds for decades. Flinging aside the pride, the authority, the power of a king all from the fear of death, because like any living thing that knows it's own death he didn't want to die.

   But was that really true? No doubt he had told the truth about having feared death. But is it not only one of the reasons?

   To begin with, why did he loathe "death?" Was it anger towards the death of his friend, or fear from the realization that even one equal to himself would die?

   ...No. Much more likely he couldn't forgive himself if he abandoning his role. He had determined to be the observer, the adjudicator of the people and to see through to the very end, not the everyday contentment, but the deeds, the future of the people.

   That was his kingship. To witness their end, he had sought an enduring body that would last until the end of this world.

"Reaching the underworld, I learned the secret of immortality from the sage. It was nothing special. The sage had simply joined the ranks of the gods, and gained longevity. A farce indeed. The sage had half become a plant, for that is what it means to join the ranks of the gods. I had to be immortal with the desires of a human intact. What would come of living eternity in a body with no appetition? I resolved to leave the underworld. I became of a mind to return to Uruk and bring my vault to completion. However the sage had grown resentful at having his way of existence rejected. He told me a certain secret."

   Perhaps it was that the sage had wanted to condemn him, he who would deny immortality from the gods, to the same existence he rejected.

   According to the legend the sage imparted the following: "I understand that you cannot obey the gods. I will not tell you to beg the mercy of mighty Anu. Instead... let me impart to you a certain secret."

   The sage told Gilgamesh a method of becoming immortal without seeking the mercy of the gods. A root of an herb that grew in the deep, one that was the true secret behind immortality.

"Consuming it was out of the question since I would only become a plant, but it was a rare treasure in of itself. It would serve to decorate my vault as an exotic wonder. I stopped by the deep, jarred the herb, and returned above ground. That is all there is. I returned to Uruk, completed the walled city and my vault, and went to my rest. That's about it as to why I had sought immortality. Mm. All exactly as in the epic, the completely unabridged truth! And so we're done. I shall contemplate what to charge you for this question at my leisure. Look forward to it, eh?"

   What I wanted to know wasn't the reason he had sought immortality. I wanted to know why he let go of the herb he had gone through so much to acquire!

"(sigh)....... how many times do you intend to make me repeat that it was as it is in the epic? I let the serpent have it. I am he of the carelessness, immortality snatched from me as I bathed. I, who affirm desires, was brought down by the desires of the serpent that crawled the wilds. The simple appetition of "hunger." The serpent that consumed the herb gained the property of shedding. Not immortality per say, but the restoration of youth. As it is quite the rare potion, though I have another in my vault as well."

   Then that's it. I finally understood what was bothering me about up by that part. In the epic, the herb was stolen from Gilgamesh by the serpent.

   The strange part was after that. Without returning to the underworld, he returned to Uruk. Why had he given up on the immortality that he had chased after? What had he seen then? That was what I wanted to know.

"Something so trivial..? But, I suppose it is curious indeed. Even I cannot put into words my state of mind at that point. 'I had no need of such immortality as that modeled on the gods!' I declared as much, so some part of me must have been hopeful on that point. Returning above ground, I could not help but smile at my accomplishment. With this I could overthrow death and avenge my friend, or so I thought. And I imagined the voices of the people of Uruk. If I brought back immortality, the acclaim of the people would reach unprecedented levels. In the end, I too was but the child of a human... the rashness of youth, as it is called. However, once that happens vanity soon follows. I became bothered by the ragged state of my being, to which I had not spared a single thought until that moment. Deciding to cleanse my body before returning to Uruk, I rested at a nearby spring to recover from my fatigue. It was fatigue that had accumulated over decades. Like the breeze of the sky, the snow of the sacred peaks, the water healed me warmly, coolly, gently. 'Peacefulness,' I suppose you would call it. It was like being released from a prolonged malaise, in both body and mind. I have never been as ecstatic in any accomplishment of my own as in that moment. It was such euphoria as to make one want to shout. To tell you the truth, that was my first experience of joy. Amassing treasures is an instinct to me, much like breathing. It is not joy. However this experience was different. For the first time, I was thankful, joyous that I had been born into this world. Despite claiming to have the perspective of humans, until that moment, I had not truly been human. I was set free from everything. Burdened with no doubts, no fears, no fixations, no duty, I quivered in the overwhelming sensation of omnipotence. This was élan vital, the reward of selfish desire. I reveled in the belief that, for all eternity, I could do as I pleased with this joy. However, what awaited such a fool was the theft of the serpent. The herb was lost. The serpent shed his skin, gained a new body and left. What struck me then, was laughter. I laughed and laughed until my sides ached. It was all just so absurd that I couldn't help it. Look, this is the conclusion, I said to myself. I guffawed at my own foolishness. All that I stand to gain, all that I stand to take pride in, comes to 'naught.' Oh, it is not that I cannot attain anything. At the end of it all, not one thing shall remain for me and that, I understood then, is my sole reward. The fulfillment in life, the joy of living that I'd attained for the first time, vanishes in the blink of an eye, just like so. This was the world of humanity. This was what I must observe. What would or could I understand of this unique appeal in an undying body? Immortality is but the incompleteness of the common fool. The dream of the mongrels who cannot face the end. I had no need for immortality. My eyes had foreseen the future to begin with. There had been no reason whatsoever to fear death. Existing in that era, unfading in that moment, even without experiencing the passage of time, I'll nevertheless gaze at the distant future. I was humanity's most ancient tale. If as a hero passed down through the ages, my duty will be fulfilled. That is all there is to it. At that moment in time, I was born a human, and after I learned of joy, I died a human. Apologies. It was a mistake when I had said before that I was complete since birth. I too had my times of inexperience. It took nearly the entirety of my life to complete my development. I reached physical maturity in the days with my friend, while my mind reached maturity at that moment. My youth had come to an end at last. The sky I beheld stretched far and wide. It was such that even with my eyes, it would take aeons to see it all through. By that time, my body will have since rotted. But the knowledge... the world of humanity will continue to expand. One day, humanity shall understand the light from millions of years away. ...That is the kind of future I saw. And it was an exhilarating sight. Thinking back, I must have quite lost my drive. I had collected all that should be collected. There was no further joy to be had in that era. Then it is a simple matter of departing with integrity. I'll experience death as many times as necessary. Time and again I shall revive. Time and again I shall observe. Until the end of this world. Until the day comes when humanity reaches beyond my garden, it's home planet, and sets sail for the dark sea. I shall judge until the day comes when humanity reaches the end of the sky and strikes its final note."

   ....That was his dying dream. Gilgamesh, who'd laughed away the serpent's theft of the herb.
Before he knew it, the sun had risen. Smiling at the human joy that had blossomed within his chest for but a fleeting second, he set to return to Uruk.

   It marked the end of his adventures. Afterwards, he governed Uruk as the ruler of heroes,
and departed this world as we all must. As humanity's most ancient hero and the illustrious king who was the first in this world to have "become a story."