Gilgamesh: Tablet 12

What I first noticed about this last tablet and the conclusion to Gilgamesh, was that it is not connected to the previous tablet. It is as if it's an alternative universe or a dream Gilgamesh had. So Gilgamesh wanted his drum and his drumstick back from the Underworld, so Enkidu was going to get them for him. Gilgamesh advised him on what he should do if he wanted to come back, but for some reason, Enkidu did everything he was told not to do. As if he didn't want to come back. "He did not refrain from kissing the wife he loved; he did not refrain from striking the hated wife; he embraced and kissed the son who was dear to him; and did not refrain from striking the hated son." (page 87) Here I noticed something seen in humanity in general, love and hate. Enkidu had a son he loved and a son he hated, a wife he loved and a wife he hated. Humanity's two most extreme emotions that are closest to one another. As if in the Underworld you are not allowed to express your true emotions, what you feel like doing. This is what I thought when I read the part when Gilgamesh asks Enkidu what the Underworld is like, and Enkidu tells him. "Then Gilgamesh cried woe and fell to the ground, because of the things that Enkidu was telling." (page 91)

I thought this last tablet was a great ending to Gilgamesh, without Enkidu back it wouldn't have been the same. Even though it seemed completely separate of what had already happened. I imagine what it could've been and maybe it was a dream Gilgamesh had or a view to the future. In the whole narrative we are being told about the companionship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Maybe the interaction between Gilgamesh and Enkidu in this tablet and how Gilgamesh mourned for him again when he stayed in the underworld wasn't completely real. After all, Enkidu was dead. Maybe he was a spirit, guiding Gilgamesh. I was just confused when he returned to the story so suddenly.

This book is so different to what I expected from the first narrative. Not only it's the first but it is so deep and more than just a story. This was probably written with no rules at all, since it was the first, and maybe that makes it all the more interesting. Gilgamesh is like the first superhero with the first sidekick and the first adventure.