Robert Silverberg - Gilgamesh the King

At last I saw the welcome shores of the Land dark against the horizon. We entered the wide mouth of the joined rivers and went onward, on and on to the place where the rivers divide. Then there was the Idigna, making its course off to the right; and there was the Buranunu, our own great river, branching to the left. I gave thanks to Enlil. I was not yet home; but the wind that reached my nostrils was a wind that had blown yesterday through my native city, and that alone was enough greatly to gladden me.

Not long afterward we docked at the quay of holy Eridu. There I bade the Meluhhan captain farewell and went ashore by myself. It would not have been wise to go on further with that ship, for its next port of call would be Ur; and that was no place now for me to go in the guise of a solitary traveler. They would know me in Ur. If I set foot there without any army at my back I knew I would never see Uruk again.

They knew me also in Eridu. I had not been off the ship three minutes before I saw eyes flickering and fingers pointing, and heard them whispering in awe and wonder, "Gilgamesh! Gilgamesh!" It was to be expected. I had been to Eridu many times for the autumn rites that follow in the wake of the Sacred Marriage. But this was not autumn, and I had come without my retinue. Little wonder they pointed and whispered.

It is the oldest city in the world, Eridu. We say that it was the first of the five cities that existed before the Flood. Perhaps it was, though I no longer have as much faith in those old tales as I had before my visit to the Ziusudra. Enki is the prime god of the place, he who has power over the sweet waters that flow beneath the earth: his great temple is there, and his chief dwelling place lies beneath it, so they say. I believe it must be so: you can dig anywhere in the low-lying ground about Eridu and discover fresh water.

Eridu lies somewhat off the Buranunu but is connected to the river by lagoons and good waterways, and it is as much a port as the river cities themselves. Its site is difficult, though, for the desert comes right down to the edges of the city and I think some day the dunes may sweep right over it. They must think so too, for they have put not only the temple but the entire city atop a great raised platform. There is much stone around Eridu, and the city's builders have used it well. The retaining wall of the platform is a massive thing faced with sandstone, and the stairs of the temple are great marble slabs. It is a thing to be envied, to have stone close by your city, and not to be compelled as we are to build only of mud.

The merchants of Uruk have long maintained a commercial house in Eridu, close by Enki's temple: a place held in common, where they can extend credit to one another and put their books in balance and exchange rumors of the marketplace and do whatever else it is that merchants do. It was there I went from the quay, moving unconcerned through an ever larger crowd of whisperers and pointers: "Gilgamesh! Gilgamesh!" all the way. When I entered the tradinghall I found three men of my city working at their scribe-work with stylus and tablet; they sprang to their feet at the first sight of me, gasping and turning pale as though Enlil himself had come striding into their midst. Then they fell to their knees and set up a frantic1 making of the royal signs; wiggling their arms and waving their I heads about like frenzied madmen. It was a while before they were calm enough to make sense.

"You are not dead, majesty!" they blurted.

"Evidently not," I said. "Who was it that gave that story forth?"

They looked warily at one another. At length the oldest and shrewdest-looking of them replied, "It was said at the temple, I think.

That you had gone into the wilderness out of mourning for Enkidu your brother, and you had been devoured by lions-"

"No, that you had been carried off by demons-" put in another.

"By demons, yes, that came out of a whirlwind-"

"The Imdugud-bird was seen in the rooftops, crying evil omens, five nights running-" the third declared.

"A two-headed calf was found in the pastures-they sacrificed it at the Ubshukkinakku-"

"And at the Sanctuary of Destinies, they-"

"Yes, and there was green mist around the moon, which-"

I broke into all this babble with a loud cry: "Wait! Tell me this: at which temple was it that I was given forth as dead?"

"Why, the temple of the goddess, majesty!"

I smiled. That was no great surprise.

Quietly I said, "Ah. Ah, I see: of course. It was Inanna herself who uttered the doleful news, eh?"

They nodded. They looked more troubled with each passing moment.

I thought of Inanna and her hatred for me, and her hunger for power, and how she had coolly put the king Dumuzi aside long ago when he had ceased to serve her needs; and I knew that my leaving Uruk must have seemed to her like a gift from the gods; and I told myself that I had done the most foolish of foolish things, running off in my madness and pain in search of eternal life, when I had the duties of this life to carry out. How she must have laughed, when she was told I had gone from the city by stealth! How she must have relished it when the days went by and I did not return, and no one knew where I was!

I said, "Was she greatly grieved? Did she lament and tear her robes?"

They nodded most solemnly. "Her grief was great indeed, 0 Gilgamesh."

"And did they beat the drums for me? The lilissu-drum, the little balag-drums?"

They did not answer.

"Did they? Did they?'

"Yes." A hoarse whisper. "They beat the drums for you, O Gilgamesh. They mourned most grievously for you."

My head roared. I thought my fit was coming on. I felt the buzzing within, I felt the hissing. I ~ame close to them, so that they trembled from being so near me, and I was trembling myself as I asked the question I most feared to ask: "And tell me this, have they chosen a king in my place yet?"

Again an exchange of worried glances. Those hapless merchants quivered like leaves in an autumn gale. "Have they?" I demanded.

"Not-yet, O Gilgamesh," said one finally.

"Ah, not yet? Not yet? The omens have been inauspicious, I imagine."

"They say the goddess has called for a new king, but the assembly has thus far chosen to withhold its consent. There are those who think that you still live-"

"It is very likely that I do," I said.

"-and they fear that the gods will be displeased, if a king should too hastily be put in your place-"

"The gods will very likely be displeased," I said. "And not only the gods."

"-but there is need, everyone agrees, for a king in Uruk; for you know, majesty, that Meskiagnunna of Ur is swollen with pride, that he has put both Kish and Nippur into his hand, that he looks now toward our city-and in these troublesome months we have not had a king-we have not had a king, majesty-"

"You have a king," I said. "Make no mistake on that score: you have a king. Let's hope that you don't have two, by this time."

There was a certain lightness to my tone of voice, I suppose, but none in my heart. I felt a great weight within, and much bewilderment. Was I still king? Did I even deserve to be? The gods had placed me in command over Uruk and I had deserted my post: that could not be denied. For that, anyone might say, I am to blame. But any blame attach to us ever, when the gods call all the tunes? the gods not also sent me Enkidu, and then taken him away? was it not so, therefore, that it was the gods who had aroused it, the pain, the fear of dying, that had driven me forth on my quest for life? Yes. Yes. Yes. I did not think that I was at fault. I had been following the dictates of the gods in all things. But where the will of proud Gilgamesh, then? Was I nothing but the plaything of the remote and uncaring great ones to whom this world below The servant of the gods, yes: I will not deny that. We are all serving of the gods and it is folly to think otherwise. But their plaything. Their toy?