EPIC OF GILGAMESH TABLET IX
The Quest for Immortality The Scorpion Columns I - VI - Column I
- Then Gilgamesh wept some more
- for his dead friend. He wandered
- over barren hills, mumbling to his own spirit:
- "Will you too die as Enkidu did?
- Will grief become your food? Will we both
- fear the lonely hills, so vacant?
- I now race from place to place,
- dissatisfied with wherever I am and
- turn my step toward Utnapishtim,
- 10. godchild of Ubaratutu,
- who lives a pious life in fair Dilmun
- where the morning sun arises as it
- does in paradises lost and won.
- As if in sleep I come upon the mountain door at midnight
- where I face wild-eyed lions and I am afraid.
- Then to Sin, the god of mighty light,
- I raise my solemn chant to beg:
- 'Save me, please, my god."'
- Despite respite
20. he could not sleep or dream that night.
- Instead he wandered through the woods
- so like a savage beast just then
- did he bring death again and again
- upon the lions' heads
- with an ax he drew
- from off his belt.
- Column II
- When he finally reached the base of
- Mt. Mashu, Gilgamesh began to
- climb the double cliff
- 30. that guides the rising and setting of Shamash.
- Now these identical towers touch
- the distant, distant sky,
- and far below, their breasts descend toward Hell.
- Those who guard the gate are
- poison scorpions
- who terrorize all, whose spells bring death.
- And then resplendent power
- thrives all across the town
- where I was born
- 40. and rises farther still to
- mountain tops.
- At dawn and dark they shield Shamash.
- And when he sensed them there,
- Gilgamesh could not dare to look
- upon their threat;
- but held his glance away,
- suspended fear,
- and then approached in dread.
- One among the guardians there
- 50. said this to his wife:
- "The one who comes toward us
- is partly divine, my dear."
- And then the same one said
- to the god-like part of Gilgamesh:
- "Eternal heart, why make
- this long, long trip
- trying to come to us
- through travail? Speak now."
- Column III
- Gilgamesh said: "I come by here
- 60. to visit my elder, my Utnapishtim,
- the epitome of both life everlasting and
- death that is eternal."
- The poison scorpion guardian said:
- "No mortal man has ever
- come to know what you seek
- here. Not one of all your kind
- has come so far, the distance
- you would fall if you fell
- all day and all night into the pit
- 70. and through great darkness
- where there is no light
- without Shamash who raises
- and lowers the sun;
- to where I let no one go,
- to where I forbid anyone to enter."
- Column IV
- Heartache pain abounds
- with ice or fire all around.
- The scorpion one,
- I do not know whether a man or a woman,
- 80. said then:
- "Gilgamesh, I command you
- to proceed
- to highest peaks
- over hills toward heaven.
- Godspeed!
- With all permissions given here, I approve your venture."
- So Gilgamesh set out then over
- that sacred, sacred path within the mountains of Mashu,
- near that incarnate ray of sunshine
- 90. precious to Shamash.
- Oh dark, dark, dark, dark.
- Oh the night, unholy and blind,
- that wrapped him as soon as he stepped
- forth upon that path.
- Column V
- DARKNESS
- Beneath a moonless, starless sky,
- Gilgamesh was frozen and unseeing
- by time before midnight;
- by midnight's hollow eye
- 100. he was unseen and frozen.
- At 1 a.m. he tripped and fell
- blinded and frozen.
- At 2 a.m. he staggered on
- blinded and frozen.
- At 3 a.m. he faltered not
- blinded and frozen.
- By 4 a.m. his second wind warmed him who still was
- blinded and frozen.
- And at your final dawn,
- 110. son of man, you will see only
- a heap of broken images in an ascending
- light that gives you sight you may not want,
- for you will then behold all precious goods
- and gardens sweet as home to you, as exile,
- boughs of blue, oh unforgotten gem,
- as true as any other memory from any other previous life.
- Column VI
- Then along the path
- Gilgamesh traveled fast
- and came at length to
- 120. shorelines fresh with dew.
- And there he met a maiden,
- one who knows the secrets of the sea.
- Tablet I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII
- Babylonia Index
- Babylonia Glossary
- Home Page
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