Enkidu

The herds came down to the waterhole at dusk, and the wild man came with them. He moved among the gazelles as one of their own, his body matted with hair, his locks hanging long and unbound, his skin darkened by sun and the dust of the open steppe. He grazed the grass beside them. He shouldered in at the water and lapped where they lapped, and when a lion crossed the plain in the night he was there at the edge of the herd with the strength to drive it back. No city had ever touched him. He knew nothing of bread, nothing of beer, nothing of the smell of woven cloth.

He had been made for a reason he did not understand. In the city of Uruk the people groaned under their king. Gilgamesh was two parts god and one part man, and his energy had nowhere to go: he wore out the young men in contests, and he took the brides of the city on their wedding nights as if that were his right. The complaint rose all the way to the gods, and the answer was not to punish the king but to match him. The mother goddess, called Aruru, washed her hands, pinched off a piece of clay, and cast it down into the wilderness. From it she formed a second self for Gilgamesh, a stormy heart for a stormy heart. The war god Ninurta gave him his strength. His hair grew thick as the grain goddess’s, and he was set loose among the animals, knowing only their company.

A trapper found him first, and was terrified. The wild man filled in the pits the trapper had dug and tore out his snares, freeing the game, and the trapper’s livelihood fell apart in a single season. On his father’s advice he went to Uruk and asked for help, and the help they sent was a woman. Shamhat, a woman of the temple, went out to the waterhole and waited. When the wild man came she met him, and they lay together six days and seven nights. When at last he rose and went back to the herd, the gazelles bolted from him. His body had slowed. Something in him had changed, and the animals knew it before he did. He could not run with them anymore, but he could now understand speech, and that was the trade.

Shamhat clothed him with half her own garment and led him toward the fields. She taught him to eat bread and to drink beer until he was merry, and she had him washed and oiled until he looked like a man rather than a beast. For a time he worked as a herdsman himself, chasing off the wolves and lions he had once run beside, keeping watch while the shepherds slept. Then he heard about the king, about the brides and the wedding nights, and the new sense of right that had come with his new mind would not let it stand.

He went to Uruk and planted himself in the doorway of the wedding house, blocking the king’s path. They came together in the street like two bulls. The doorposts shook, the walls of the house shook, and the city poured out to watch its king fight a stranger who could match him hold for hold. In the end the grip broke and the fury drained out of both of them, and what was left was recognition. They embraced and became friends, and from that point the two of them were rarely apart.

What followed was glory and then its price. Restless for a name that would outlast them, they marched to the distant Cedar Forest and killed its guardian, the giant Humbaba, and felled the sacred trees. When the goddess Ishtar offered herself to Gilgamesh and was refused with a list of every lover she had ruined, she demanded the Bull of Heaven and loosed it on the land. Enkidu seized the bull by the horns and held it while Gilgamesh drove in the blade, and then, in plain contempt, he tore off one of the bull’s haunches and flung it in the goddess’s face. Two monsters dead, two divine orders defied. The gods met in council and decided that one of the friends had to pay, and the lot fell on Enkidu.

He did not die in battle. He sickened. Bedridden, he first cursed the trapper and cursed Shamhat for dragging him out of his clean wild life, then, reminded of the bread and the friendship and the king who loved him, he took the curse back and blessed her instead. He told Gilgamesh a dream of the place he was going: a house of dust where the dead sit in darkness, dressed in feathers like birds, eating clay. Then he wasted away over twelve days and was gone. He died slowly, in bed, of a sickness, with no wound on him.

His power was never subtle. It was raw physical might, enough to wrestle a demigod king to a standstill and to grapple a heaven-sent bull, the strength of something made rather than born. His weakness was the same thing that made him human. The moment Shamhat civilized him he lost the speed and the kinship with the animals that had been his birthright, and once he had a name and great deeds attached to it he became answerable to the gods who hand out death. Made from clay, he returned to dust, and his returning broke the heart of a king badly enough to send him chasing a cure for mortality that did not exist.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Enkidu?

Enkidu is the wild-born companion of Gilgamesh in ancient Mesopotamian myth, created by the gods to be the king’s equal. He begins as a hairy wild man living among animals on the steppe and becomes Gilgamesh’s closest friend and fellow adventurer.

How was Enkidu created?

Enkidu was made from clay by the mother goddess Aruru, who shaped him at the gods’ request to be a counterweight to the overbearing king Gilgamesh. The war god Ninurta gave him his strength, and he was set loose in the wilderness to live with the wild herds.

How did Enkidu become human?

A temple woman named Shamhat was sent to the waterhole, and after Enkidu spent six days and seven nights with her the wild animals would no longer accept him. Losing his place among the herd, he gained human understanding, learned to eat bread and drink beer, and was clothed and brought into the city.

How does Enkidu die?

Enkidu dies of a wasting sickness sent by the gods as punishment after he and Gilgamesh killed the forest guardian Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven. He falls ill, lingers in bed for twelve days, describes a grim dream of the underworld, and dies, leaving Gilgamesh devastated and driving him to search for immortality.

Why is Enkidu important in the Epic of Gilgamesh?

Enkidu matters because his friendship transforms Gilgamesh from a tyrant into a hero, and his death forces the king to confront human mortality. His loss is the turning point of the epic and the reason Gilgamesh sets out to find the secret of eternal life.

Related Entries

Gilgamesh, Humbaba, Bull of Heaven, Ishtar, Inanna, Ninhursag, Anu, Ninurta, Shamash, Utnapishtim, Enlil, Enki, Aqrabuamelu, Anzû