Journal # 3.
Mythic themes
Quotes.
Theme: creation.
“When the gods created Gilgamesh they gave him a perfect body. Shamash the glorious sun endowed him with beauty, Adad the god of the storm endowed him with courage, the great gods make his beauty perfect, surpassing all others, terrifying like a great wild bull. Two thirds they made him a god and one third man.” [Gilgamesh: Prologue.]
Theme: Immortality
“How can I rest, how can I be at peace? Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am dead. Because I am afraid of death I will go as best I can to find Utnapishtim whom they call the Faraway, for he has entered the assembly of gods…and to him alone of men they gave everlasting life.” [Gilgamesh: P38]
Theme: Hero
“O Gilgamesh, king and conqueror of the dreadful blaze; wild bull who plunders the mountain, who crosses the sea, glory to him, and from the brave the greater glory of Enki’s!” [Gilgamesh: P24]
Theme: Journey
“I have not established my name stamped on bricks as my destiny decreed; therefore I will go to the country where the cedar is felled. I will set up my name in place where the names of famous men are written, and where no man’s name is written yet I will raise a monument to the gods. Because of the evil that is in the land, we will go to the forest and destroy the evil…” [Gilgamesh: P10]
Theme: woman.
“Go to Uruk, find Gilgamesh, extol the strength of this wild man. Ask him to give you a harlot, a wanton from the temple of love; return with her, and let her woman’s power overpower this man. When next he comes down to drink at the wells she will be there, stripped naked; and when he sees her beckoning he will embrace her, and then the wild beasts will reject him.” [Gilgamesh: P2]
“Enkidu, why are you cursing the woman, the mistress who taught you to eat bread fit for gods and drink wine of kings? She who put upon you a magnificent garment, did she not give you glorious Gilgamesh for your companion…” [Gilgamesh: P31]
Theme: companion
“O my brother, so dear as you are to me, brother, yet they will take me from you, I must sit down on the threshold of the dead and never again will I see my dear brother with my eyes.” [Gilgamesh: P29]
Theme: monster
“When he roars it is like the torrent of the storm, his breath is like fire, and his jaws are death itself. He guards the cedars so well that when the wild heifer stirs in the forest, though she is sixty leagues distant, he hears her.” [Gilgamesh: P10]
Theme: gift brought back to the community.
“He was wise, he saw mysteries and knew secret things, he brought us a tale of the days before the flood. He went a long journey, was weary, worn out with labour, and returning engraved on a stone the whole story.” [Gilgamesh: P60]
Theme: Truth
“The question, is not whether the story is true, but whether it has truth inside it, the kind with a capital T.” [Beggar king: P9]
Theme: Loss
“It was only as sunlight streamed through the window that I realized I was not dreaming. I was wide awake, but could no longer speak. My horse was gone.” [Beggar king: P28]
Commentary.
Both books tell a story concerning love, loss, and a journey. For Gilgamesh, the journey is more of a physical traveling, where he had a certain task, he sets out for it and accomplishes it. In that process, he felt love and friendship; he endured the loss of Enkidu. The journey wasn’t yet ended. He then changed his direction, and searched for an internal life. In vain, he earned something more precious, the meaning of life, and that a hero does not avoid death, but embraces it. As for the Beggar king, the journey was more of a mind tour. Unlike Gilgamesh, Joel had no quest, he had no destination. All he felt was the loss of his voice, and more importantly, the loss of direction. And his journey was the process which he had to go to find that story of himself, to be a beggar and the king; finally coming into realization of things he should value the most in life. The journey wasn’t exactly adventurous, but it’s worth something. And yet either of them got what they wanted in the first place, but they got something better than that.