The encounter between Gilgamesh and Uta-Utnapishtim teaches the protagonist to accept death’s inevitability and stop searching for eternal life. Afflicted by Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh immerses into thoughts about his mortality and seeks Uta-Utnapishtim, who was granted everlasting life after the Deluge. Uta-Utnapishtim advises Gilgamesh to abandon the idea and demonstrates to the character his unpreparedness for eternity, presenting a challenge not to sleep for “six days and seven nights” (Anonymous, XI, 210). Fatigued after a long and challenging journey, the hero immediately falls asleep. Believing Gilgamesh to be deceitful, Uta-Utnapishtim orders his wife, “Go, bake for him his daily bread-loaf, and line them up by his head, and mark on the wall the days that he sleeps!” (Anonymous, XI, 221-223). The hero is not able to deny his failure. Thus, Uta-Utnapishtim’s primary teaching is death’s inescapability, and that immortality has numerous forms, Gilgameshe’s would be Uruk.
Work Cited
Anonymous. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Translated by Andrew George. New York: Penguin, 1999.