Quest for Immortality

Towards the second half of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh embarks on a solo adventure after becoming heavily grief stricken from the death of Enkidu. Here Gilgamesh states “[I am seeking] the [road] of my forefather, Uta-napishti, who attended the gods’ assembly, and [found life eternal:] of death and life [he shall tell me the secret]” implying that he is looking for the secret of being immortal. This theme, the quest for immortality, is not an uncommon tale and appears throughout cultures from all around the world. (One famous example from modern times is the character Voldemort from the Harry Potter series.) Gilgamesh becomes so fearful of death that it is repeated multiple times throughout the tablets, further emphasizing the importance of that fear. Yet after all his battles and other such obstacles, Gilgamesh finds that he can’t in fact gain immortality, even he was told that “the life that you seek you will never find.” The closest Gilgamesh did get towards some type of mystical state was the plant that Uta-napishiti was believed to have said would make you “[…be again as you were in your youth]” resembling a fountain of youth type story. That too ended up getting lost from Gilgamesh, and the story ends with Gilgamesh’s failure. But was it really a failure? In the beginning and the end of Gilgamesh there is yet another repetition: “A square mile is city, a square mile date-grove, a square mile is clay-pit, half a square mile the temple of Ishtar: three square miles and a half is Uruk’s expanse.” What was really interesting to see was a type circulation of the end that touched back to the beginning. It seems that although Gilgamesh did not seek immortality physically, he in fact did achieve it by establishing the great city of Uruk. Although subtly there, the repetition of this verse does not seem to be mere coincidence, but possibly another emphasis that the city will exist, since it was there in the beginning of the story and lasted all the way to the end.