Click here to listen to Gilgamesh part 2 of 3: Humbaba and the Cedar Forest in the season 1 archives on buzzsprout
In part 2 of this 3-part series, Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu venture into the sacred cedar forest to confront the demon Humbaba and make great names for themselves. These actions and motivations may seem questionable today, and raise questions about the enduring value of the ancient story.
What do these two have to teach us about the human condition? Do they simply illustrate timeworn heroic values—for better or for worse— or does this poem connect past and present in a meaningful, useful way?
Transcript of Gilgamesh part 2: Humbaba and the Cedar Forest
Hello everyone, and welcome to Myth Matters, a bi-weekly podcast of storytelling and conversation about mythology, and why it’s important to our lives today. I’m your host and personal mythologist, Catherine Svehla. Thank you for joining me. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours you are part of this story circle,
This podcast is part 2 in a 3-part series on the Sumerian myth of Gilgamesh, and I’m going to tell you more of the story today, but I want to start with a few thoughts about this ancient story is worth revisiting. As a mythologist I clearly have a love for old stories, history, art, and the glimpses of the ancestors and of the younger world that they afford. We likely have this in common since you are listening to this podcast and yet, the value in looking back goes beyond aesthetics and a love for the past. The myth of Gilgamesh in particular is worth revisiting because it’s a beautiful and poignant narrative about friendship and the fear of death that offers interesting opportunities for reflection on the evolution of cultural ideas of nature, civilization, the divine, death and immortality, masculine, feminine, and the heroic.
All of these aspects of life, as experiences and concepts, have changed over the centuries and are in need of further transformation. That’s one way that we can interpret what’s going on in the world right now. How do we prepare ourselves for these experiences and engage wisely with change and our desire for it, with no view of the past? of course the “past” is past, and we’re not ever going to know it. We’re not going to go back and re-inhabit it. We’re not going to go back 5,000 years, when this story of Gilgamesh may have first been told and understand it, and the world that gave rise to it, in the way that those people did. And yet, we can see ourselves and also learn something at the same time.
Gilgamesh, as I’m discovering in my current engagement with it, is a particularly intriguing illustration of this mixture of the past and the present, the power of the meanings that we bring and also locate, in a story like this, and the task of interpretation. The poem as it is being discovered and in its current material form, is fragmentary. In the New Yorker article that I referred to in the first Gilgamesh podcast, Joan Acocella talked about a book by Michael Schmidt called “Gilgamesh, the Life of a Poem,” which I’ve spent some time with.
This book explores the fragmentary nature of the poem. “Gilgamesh” continues to be discovered in literal fragments. It’s a jigsaw puzzle of 11 or 12 clay tablets that are physically incomplete, the ancient language in which the poem is written is still being deciphered, and new tablets are being discovered. A new tablet was discovered in 2006. So the poem of Gilgamesh is a work in progress even now, according to Schmidt, and the gaps in the story hold significance for scholars and poets, past and present, and for us as the readers/listeners to the story today.
In his introduction, Schmidt writes, “It [the poem] spent millennia buried. Unearthed, it wears marks of weather, excavation tools, human delinquency and restoration. It shows its age and celebrates its material presence, a partial survival.” We don’t know the author. We will never penetrate that subjectivity of whoever put this story together. So in this way that I find truly remarkable, the particular poem is a living example of the activity in which we’re always engaged, interpretation, filling in the gaps in the ways that make sense to us.
On that note, let’s turn to the story, In part 1 we met Gilgamesh, who is two-thirds god and one-third mortal man. He was causing a lot of trouble for his people because he had no equal, no worthy friend. The god Anu answered the prayers of his oppressed subjects by asking the goddess Aruru to make Gilgamesh a fit companion. She created the wild man Enkidu, who lived among the animals and thought that he was one of them.
Gilgamesh has a dream that foretold Enkidu’s arrival and their friendship. In the meantime, Enkidu discovers his humanity in the arms of the holy prostitute Shamhat. Shamhat teaches him the ways of men and he makes his way to the city of Uruk with her. There Enkidu confronts Gilgamesh, and after a mighty fight they recognized each other and declare themselves friends.
In Part 2 we’ll see what adventures these two get into together. So, I invite you to relax and listen. Let the story take you and see your response as a clue about the presence of these themes in your life right now.
Gilgamesh: Humbaba and the Cedar Forest
Gilgamesh sees a dream and Enkidu interprets it for him. “The father god Enlil has given you kingship,” he tells Gilgamesh, “but not eternal life. You are meant to appreciate your superior power and be wise and use your gifts justly,” he tells Gilgamesh. Enkidu sighed and his eyes were full of tears. “What is the matter my friend?” Gilgamesh asked. “I grow weak in idleness,” said Enkidu, “my arms have lost their strength.” Gilgamesh thought of the Country of the Living and the great land of cedars. “I haven’t established my name as my destiny decrees. You just said it in this dream,” he told Enkidu. “My name must be written in the place where the names of the famous are written, and where there is no famous name written I will raise a monument to the gods. There is an evil in the land and because of this, we will go to the forest and destroy it.”
Gilgamesh was thinking of Humbaba, whose name means “hugeness” or “ferocious giant.” Humbaba was the guardian of the sacred precinct of cedar trees and Gilgamesh imagined these trees as gleaming gates for the city of Uruk, as pillars and lintels in the temples to Inanna/Ishtar. He told Enkidu, “I think that we should go and get some of these cedar trees, and confront and destroy Humbaba.”
But Enkidu still sighed bitterly. He said, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. When I ran with the wild beasts we went into the forest. It’s ten thousand leagues in every direction and the god Enlil has instructed the demon Humbaba to protect it. Enlil the Storm god is his guardian. The forest is a precinct sacred to the gods and Humbaba is a fearsome creature. His roar is like a storm and he breathes fire and weakness overcomes any who see him. It is never an equal battle. Humbaba will know as soon as we step foot inside his sacred precinct and I don’t want to go.”
What, already you are afraid?” Gilgamesh said. “No man can live forever. Our days are numbered and we have only our great names that can endure in memory—if we make them great.” “Humbaba’s roar is like a storm and he breathes fire and weakness overcomes any who see him” Enkidu replied.
“Even though I am your lord,” said Gilgamesh, “I will go first into the forest and if I die there, at least people will say ‘Mighty Gilgamesh died fighting the ferocious Humbaba.” “If you insist on going Gilgamesh,” Enkidu said, “then go to Shamash the Sun God first and tell him because the country with the cedar trees belongs to him.”
So, Gilgamesh took two kid goats to the alter of Shamash and prayed to the god. “Oh god Shamash,” he prayed, “I am going to the Land of cedars and I ask you to give me good omens and grant me protection so I return to Uruk safely.” And Shamash answered, “You are great Gilgamesh but why do you need to go to my country?” “Oh god Shamash,” said Gilgamesh, “Here in the city men die oppressed and that is the lot of human beings everywhere. Even the tallest cannot reach heaven and this is my fate too. I will die, but I am destined to be great and I haven’t established my name as my destiny decrees,” he said, “My name must be written in the place where the names of the famous are written” he said, “and where there is no famous name written I will raise a monument to the gods.”
Tears ran down Gilgamesh’s face. “Why did you make me so restless if you don’t want me to do this thing?” he said. “You have given me this desire and I cannot succeeded without your help. If I die there in the cedar forest then so be it, but if I return, I will make a great offering to you Shamash.”
Shamash showed mercy on Gilgamesh and his tears. He appointed the all of the great winds, the icy and the scorching, the whirlwind and the sweeping gales, as allies to Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh went now to the smiths and makers of weapons and armor and commissioned them to make great heavy axes and swords for himself and Enkidu. These were so massive that only men with the strength of Enkidu and Gilgamesh could hope to wield them properly.
The people and the counselors heard about these plans and gathered in the streets and the marketplace. Gilgamesh went to talk to them. “I go to conquer the creature in the cedar wood,” he said, “to show him the strength of the sons of Uruk and make an enduring name for myself.” The people murmured among themselves and the counselors all urged him to abandon the plan. “You are young,” they said, “and you have time for other heroic exploits. This is too difficult. The forest stretches ten thousand leagues in every direction and the god Enlil has instructed the demon Humbaba to protect it. The forest is a precinct sacred to the gods and he is a fearsome creature. Humbaba’s roar is like a storm and he breathes fire and weakness overcomes any who see him. It is never an equal battle Gilgamesh.”
When Gilgamesh heard these words he turned to Enkidu and said,” What should we say then? That I was too afraid to fight Humbaba and sat at home the rest of my days? Let’s go consult with my mother, the wise goddess Ninsun.” They went to the goddess and Gilgamesh told her of his plan. “Will you pray to Shamash for me until I return?” he asked. His mother agreed.
Ninsun put on a beautiful gown and jewelry and went to the altar of the Sun. She burned incense and prayed, “O Shamash, you have given my son this restless heart and now he sets out on a long journey to the cedar forest and Humbaba. I beseech you to protect him and keep him from harm.” When she finished her prayers, she called to Enkidu. “I didn’t give birth to you,” she told him, “but I now adopt you as my son. Serve Gilgamesh well and bring him back to me.” She gave Enkidu an amulet as her pledge, to wear around his neck for protection.
Now Gilgamesh and Enkidu put on their weapons and the people and counselors gathered around to send them off. “Be careful Gilgamesh,” the counselors said, “be strategic and let Enkidu go first. He is experienced in battle and has been to the forest and seen Humbaba. Enkidu, we entrust our king, your dear friend, to you.” Then they offered a prayer for Gilgamesh. “May the god Shamash grant you victory,” they prayed, “and let you see with your eyes what your heart desires. May he remove all roadblocks and stand beside you, and may you also have the blessings of your guardian god, Lugulbanda. Wash your feet in the river of Humbaba every night and fill your waterskin with pure water to offer to Shamash.”
“There is nothing to fear,” Enkidu said, “Follow me Gilgamesh. I know the way.” At these words the crowd dispersed and the two friends set out for the cedar forest in the Country of the Living, and the fierce demon guardian of the trees, Humbaba.
They walked for twenty leagues before they stopped to eat, and walked another thirty leagues before they stopped for the night. They pitched camp and Gilgamesh dug a well and poured out water for underworld. Then heclimbed a mountain peak and made offerings of wheat and barley with his prayers. Enkidu built Gilgamesh a snug hut of twigs with a bed of moss and stationed himself outside the door. He bade his friend and king to sleep and dream.
They did this for seven days and six nights and walked as far as ordinary people do in six weeks. Every night when the moon was high, Gilgamesh woke up in a state of fear. The dreams that he saw were dreams of destruction but Enkidu said that they were dreams of victory. “The fierce powers you see in those dreams are ours,” he said, “and those of our ally, the Sun God Shamash.”
They crossed seven mountains before they came to the gate of the forest. When they got to the gate Enkidu said, “Wait, don’t open it. I am overcome with weakness.” “Don’t speak like a coward my friend,” Gilgamesh said, “we’ve come too far to turn back now. You have been in battle before and you know the action will bring courage. Stay close to me and we will fight and watch over each other, and leave an enduring name even if we die.”
Together they went into the forest. They gazed in awe at the beautiful tall cedar trees. They saw the broad path through the forest and up the mountain, that was used by Humbaba. At sunset, Gilgamesh once again dug a well and made an offering of meal to the mountain, dwelling of the gods. “Bring me a favorable dream” he prayed. Then he and Enkidu lay down and went to sleep.
At midnight, Gilgamesh woke up. He woke up Enkidu to tell him his dream. “What a dream” he said, “full of confusion and terror. I seized a wild bull in the wilderness and it bellowed and kicked up dust to fill the sky. Someone grabbed my arm and I fell back and then someone refreshed me with water.” “Dear friend,” Enkidu said, “that dream foretells the help that we will receive from Shamash and your guardian Lugulbanda. The bull was Shamash and the one with water was your guardian.” “I had another dream,” Gilgamesh told him. “We were standing by a huge mountain, so large that we seemed like flies beside it. the mountain fell and struck me. Then a bright and beautiful light came and he pulled me out from under the mountain and gave me water to drink.” “This is a good dream,” said Enkidu, “the mountain was Humbaba and we will surely bring him down. We will be legends until the end of time.”
The next day, the men walked deeper into the still, green forest. They gazed in awe at the magnificent trees. Gilgamesh thought of the fine gates and temples they would make for his city of Uruk. He took his ax and began to cut one down. Far off in the distance they heard Humbaba roar with anger. Shamash called down to them to have courage but Gilgamesh was suddenly overcome with weakness and lay down as if he was in a deep sleep. Enkidu tried to rouse him. “Don’t force your mother into mourning” he said, “This is no time for a nap.” And finally Gilgamesh woke up. “May I live to be the wonder of my mother NInsun,” he said, “I am ready to fight this creature, whatever he may be.”
Now it was Enkidu’s turn to get cold feet. He said “Gilgamesh, you are not afraid because you don’t know this monster, with his fangs and fire, and tremendous strength. But I do, and I am terrified. Go ahead if you want and let me go back to the city. I’ll joyfully sing your praises tell the story of your great deeds, and then I’ll mournfully sing of your death, because that is what awaits you.” “Come now,” said Gilgamesh, “and take up your weapons. What can defeat the two of us fighting together? And if we are crushed, well, death is our fate anyway. You’ll never rest Enkidu, if you leave this fight.”
Now Humbaba came out of his strong cedar house with his eyes flashing. “Onward then Gilgamesh!” Enkidu cried and these words gave them both courage. “Go forward now before he has time to fully arm himself.” Humbaba fastened the eye of death on Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh cried out to Shamash, “I’ve followed the road that you directed. Where is the aid that you promised me?” Shamash unleashed the great winds, the icy and the scorching, the whirlwind and the sweeping gale, and they blew in Humbaba’s eyes and they held him in place so he couldn’t move.
Gilgamesh felled the first cedar and Humbaba flared and blazed, but he could not move. They advanced and Gilgamesh cut the second cedar. Again, Humbaba flared and blazed. Seven cedars Gilgamesh cut and each time Humbaba flared and blazed. Now Gilgamesh and Enkidu had reached Humbaba. He tried to move but he was no match for the winds that assailed him. Understanding his situation, the great demon turned pale and tears came into his eyes. “I have never known a mother or father,” he told Gilgamesh. “I was born of the mountain and Enlil made me guardian of this forest. If you let me go, I will be your servant. I will even cut trees for you and build you a palace.”
Gilgamesh was moved. “Enkidu,” he said to his friend, “why shouldn’t we let this creature go free?” “Because he will kill you and others,” Enkidu replied. “You can’t trust him.” “What you say is evil Enkidu,” said Humbaba. “You don’t want Gilgamesh to have another mighty friend.” “Don’t listen to him Gilgamesh” Enkidu said. “He is a marvel,” said Gilgamesh. “There are other marvels,” said Enkidu, “and you came for this glorious deed.”
Gilgamesh then struck Humbaba in the neck with his sword. Enkidu hit him with the axe. Gilgamesh struck him again and Humbaba went down. Now the cedars shivered and the mountains shook because their guardian was dead.
Gilgamesh cut down a huge cedar tree and Enkidu floated it down the river to be the door of the palace. Then they covered Humbaba with a shroud and set the head before the gods, and when Enlil the Storm god saw it, he raged at them. “Why did you do this thing?” he said and he cursed them. “May the great fire that was Humbaba’s be in your faces and in your bread and water,” he said. Shamash, the Sun god heard this and shrugged. The die was cast.
When they got back to Uruk, no crowds awaited them. The city was quiet and no one applauded. The men were dirty and went in to bathe. Gilgamesh washed his hair and put on his royal robes. The goddess Inanna/Ishtar, Queen of Heaven and Earth, and of love, saw him. He was magnificent. “Come be my husband,” she said to him, “and I will make you happy. I will make you greater, richer, and more powerful than any other man on earth.”
“But what gifts can I give you in return,” said Gilgamesh. “I will gladly give you fine clothes and food and wine fit for a queen, but I will not make you my wife. Your lovers do not fare well fickle goddess. Which of them have you loved forever?” Gilgamesh listed the famous lovers of Inanna/Ishtar, all dead or transformed into birds or other animals. “Won’t the same thing happen to me eventually?” he asked.
The goddess Inanna/Ishtar did not want to hear this. She went to her father Anu in the high heavens, weeping angry tears. “Gilgamesh has insulted me,” she fumed. “I know what happened,” her father said, “and we both know that he told the truth.” “Father,” Inanna/Ishtar said, “give me the Bull of Heaven to destroy that arrogant Gilgamesh. Give me the bull or I will smash the doors of hell and let the dead mingle with the living.” “If I give you the bull then there will be seven years of drought,” said her father. “People will starve and suffer unless you’ve laid aside sufficient stores of grain and grass for the cattle.” “I have saved enough,” Inanna/Ishtar said, so Anu gave her the Bull of Heaven.
Inanna/Ishtar took the bull to Uruk and with his first snort a crack in the earth opened and a 100 young men fell to their deaths. With his second snort 200 hundred fell, and with his third snort, three hundred died. Enkidu leapt onto the bull and seized its horns. “You wanted to be famous Gilgamesh,” he cried, “now thrust your sword into its neck.” Gilgamesh did this and they killed the bull. They cut out the heart and offered it to Shamash but Inanna/Ishtar cursed them. “Woe to you Gilgamesh for scorning me” she cried. Enkidu added his own insult to the goddess. He cut a piece of meat from the bull’s thigh and threw it in Inanna/Ishtar’s face. “If I could lay my hands on you, this is what I would do,” he said.
That night Gilgamesh had a feast in the palace and dancing girls sang his praises. But Enkidu saw a dream. In the morning he told his friend, “I dreamt that there was a council of the gods and they said that because we killed Humbaba, and cut the cedars, and killed the Bull of Heaven, that one of us must die. Enlil and Shamash argued, but in the end, they will take me from you. I will never see my dear friend, my brother, again.” Enkidu started to cry. Then he became sick.
Enkidu became very sick. In his suffering he cursed the cedars trees and the gate they had made with his name upon it. Then he cursed the Trapper who found him, and then the woman who tamed him and brought him into the world of human men. Shamash heard him and called down from heaven, “Why do you curse the woman, the one who taught you and gave you everything, who brought you to Gilgamesh, the friend who has loved you and made you a prince. He will mourn you and the people will remember you when you are dead.” Enkidu was sorry for his curses and he replaced them with blessings, especially for Shamhat, the woman who gave him the life and the glory that he had enjoyed.
That night Enkidu had a dream another dream. This was a dream about his glorious deeds and about the dry house of death and Erishkigal, the Queen of darkness, who fixed him with the cold eye of death. With bitterness, he shared this dream the next morning with Gilgamesh, who marveled at its strangeness and left to pray for him. Twelve days Enkidu suffered with his sickness and Gilgamesh stayed by his side. On the twelfth day, Enkidu said “Because the great goddess cursed me, I must die in shame, here in bed, and not on the battlefield like a hero.” Then he died.
Gilgamesh wept and tore at his hair and clothes. He went to the counselors of the city and sang a song of Enkidu’s greatness and of their deep friendship. Then he declared that all the people of Uruk should mourn for him. For seven days Gilgamesh lamented by the body and then the worms fastened on Enkidu. When a maggot fell from his nostril, Gilgamesh finally gave him up to the earth. The king summoned the craftsmen throughout the land and ordered them to make a statue of Enkidu. When it was done he offered it to Shamash, and weeping, he left Uruk alone.
Gilgamesh had lost his beloved friend, his only true companion, and he had seen death up close, the fate decreed for him as well.
Let’s reflect for a few minutes on the killing of Humbaba and the cutting down of the cedar trees, this quest for honor and glory that fuels our heroes. I read the Jenny Lewis retelling of this scene and I highly recommend it, it’s beautiful. She makes the killing of Humbaba even more poignant. Looking at that act now, today, it feels reprehensible, and unnecessary and cruel, an act of violence motivated by this vacuous ego desire to be well-known. And yet.
I don’t have to set that response aside to also consider the differences between this time and the past. In ancient days there were far fewer human beings, far fewer cities, and I imagine that people lived with a greater awareness of their vulnerability to the forces of the natural world and their connection to it. A greater awareness of the relative puniness of the human made and of the human. If I consider that and the urge for human beings developing the self-consciousness that we have now, to find a place in this big wild world, it has a certain beauty. Like watching films of climbers who scale the highest peaks protected by ropes. Isn’t there something trilling about people who undertake a quest like that, in which we’re reminded of just how small we are?
I said something at the beginning about our concepts of nature, and when I think about this forest, this beautiful, still, green forest, I get a sense of peaceful and image of abundance. At the same time, I’m reminded of an essay by Annie Dillard, I think it’s in “The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” she talks about the abundance of nature and then she makes this shift and uses the word “profligate.” Profligate. The natural world is composed of an astonishing variety of life forms she observes, in overwhelming, essentially infinite, quantities. And there is something remarkable and amazing, and also kind of horrible about that, about the sheer volume. She gives the example of the lives of insects and describes some of the ways that insects have for killing and eating other, like paralyzing with venoms and sucking out juices and leaving behind dry husks and there is not only an uncountable number of beings, there is an uncountable number of ways to die.
Dillard makes this elegant and I think important move, away from the feeling of the generosity of nature in its abundance, to the awareness that there’s a facelessness to all of these characters, an absence of consequence or concern on the part of this powerful life that produces and takes, and produces and takes… in our human perception and conception of this, we call it “impersonal.” Im-personal. And there you hear our human consciousness and self-consciousness, our awareness of the vastness and the variety of life, its fleeting nature, our smallness. All of this is the backdrop of the quest for meaning, and of the meanings that we find.
What happens if you bring that to this story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu? Considering that the way to be known, to assert themselves as individual human beings is to confront the natural world in its awesomeness and strength, and also sacredness. There’s a tension here that we live in, a kind of middle ground, and Inanna/Ishtar is an embodiment of this middle ground. There’s a relationship that I see, between the insulting of Inanna/Ishtar and the rejection of her offer of marriage, and the killing of Humbaba.
Inanna/Ishtar is a face of that fundamental goddess, from a time when the female face encapsulated our understanding of life as sacred, both its beginnings and endings. Innana/Ishtar, in the imagination of the Sumerians, loves individuals and she casts them aside because that is what happens. Mortals die and are replaced. This is the dance with the eternal to which we must reconcile ourselves.
I wonder about the collective inability to live with this, and the modern denial of death, and the accompanying fantasies about earth, about nature. On the one hand, the romantic images of a return, as if it’s going to be a return to some type of garden of Eden. On the other hand, the belief that she can be subdued, that we can render ourselves separate, invulnerable to the fate of our fellow creatures.
Back to what I was saying at the beginning of this podcast—maybe you feel along with me, the thread that connects Gilgamesh’s action and the challenge that he faces, and part 3 will get into the kernel of it, and our current situation. Do you feel how this dilemma, this tension, connects us to a past that is different and somehow familiar? I want to close with a little bit more from Schmidt. He quotes Andrew George’s translation of the beginning of the myth of Gilgamesh, and the way that we, the readers or listeners, are addressed by the poem and told to climb the stairway and survey the grand city of Uruk. Andrew George translates the opening of the poem like this:
“Open the tablet-box of cedar,
release its clasp of bronze!
[Lift] the lid of its secret,
pick up the tablet of lapis lazuli and read out—
the travails of Gilgamesh, all that he went through.”
All that Gilgamesh went through. All that we go through, my friends.
That’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or comments about today’s program. If you are new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website where you’ll find information about the podcast and a variety of ways to subscribe or listen from your favorite podcast platform. I post transcripts of each episode on mythicmojo.com.
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