“Destiny in Gilgamesh and The Iliad”: Stories do not need to inform us of things. From Gilgamesh, for example, we know that some of the people who lived in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the second and third millennia BCE celebrated a king named Gilgamesh. We know they believed in many gods, we know they were self-conscious of their own cultivation of the natural world, and we know they were literate. In the story, The Iliad, we also know that great rulers and gods ruled and were top priority of the lands. The point being that it can be argued that the stories of Gilgamesh and The Iliad have similar destinies in relevance to the wars and ways of life both stories portray, leading to meaningful death.
In hand, this contributes to both of the epics. In the story of Gilgamesh, it is important to look carefully at what happened in the story, that is, look at it as if the actions and people it describes actually took place or existed. The questions raised by a character’s actions discuss the implications of their consequences. But it’s not about considering how the story is put together; rather, it uses the conventions of language, events with beginnings and endings, descriptions of characters, and storytelling itself to reawaken our sensitivity to the real world. The real world is the world without conventions, the unnameable, unrepresentable world – in its continuity of action, its shadings and blurrings of character, its indecipherable patterns of being. The stories of The Iliad and Gilgamesh are a great reminder of the way life is today; just different in time but nonetheless similar in goals and destinies.
Moreover, in the prologue of Gilgamesh, it’s found that he was two-thirds god and one-third man, and his knowledge is the key that follows. Gilgamesh is a hero – more beautiful, more courageous, more terrifying than the rest of us; his desires, attributes, and accomplishments epitomize our own. Yet he is also mortal: he must experience the death of others and also die himself. How much more must a god rage against death than we who are merely mortal! And if he can reconcile himself with death, then surely we can. In fact, without death, his life would be meaningless, and the adventures that make up the epic would disappear.
The story begins with the coming of Enkidu. As a young man and a god, Gilgamesh has no compassion for the people of Uruk. He is their king but not their shepherd; he kills their sons and rapes the daughters. Hearing the people’s lament, the gods create Enkidu as a match for Gilgamesh, a second self: “Let them contend together and leave Uruk in quiet” (31). The plan works in several ways. First, Enkidu prevents Gilgamesh from entering the house of a bride and bridegroom; they fight, embrace as friends. Second, Enkidu and Gilgamesh undertake a journey into the forest to confront the terrible Humbaba. There, they encourage each other to face death triumphantly: “All living creatures born of the flesh shall sit at least in the boat of the west, and when it sinks, when the boat of Magilum sinks, they are gone but we shall go forward and fix our eyes on this monster” (35). While everlasting life is not his destiny, Gilgamesh will leave behind him a name that endures.
I will go to the country where the cedar is felled. I will set up my name in the place where names of famous men are written.” (32) Thus, Gilgamesh turns his attention away from small personal desires to loftier desires that benefit Uruk rather than himself. It is important to remember from the prologue that the walls of the city, made from cedar taken from the forest, still stand in actuality or imagination to proclaim Gilgamesh’s fame, and the very first sentence of the epic attests to the immortality of his name. However, the immortality of a name is less about the ability to live forever than to die. Third and most importantly, Enkidu teaches Gilgamesh what it means to be human. He teaches him the meaning of love and compassion, the meaning of loss and growing older, and the meaning of mortality.
In contrast, the main theme of the Iliad is also war, but unlike Gilgamesh, there are two sides having war with each other as well as themselves and their families. The epic begins with an argument between the Greek king and the chief fighter. Homer’s outlook on the war itself is unique and compelling, as the battle between the Greeks and the Trojans is caused mainly because of a woman. At that time, women were belittled and treated like whores, and it was considered acceptable. The war was so intense that even the god Zeus was called upon to help. First, Apollo is angry because Agamemnon (king of the Greeks) has failed to let one of the god’s priests ransom his daughter, whom Agamemnon had allotted himself as a war prize. Agamemnon reluctantly gives the girl up but insists on taking Briseis (Achilles’ concubine, captured by the Greeks) in her place. She was originally assigned to Achilles, hence the “wrath of Achilles,” which is the epic’s announced topic. Achilles complains to his mother Thetis, who persuades Zeus to let the Trojans prevail in battle until Achilles’s honor is satisfied.
That’s the thing about this war between the Greeks and Trojans; all of the flat characters in these two stories seem destined to die with honor. Later, in the story of the Iliad, when the chief fighter Hector leads the Trojans through the Greek wall with vengeance, Poseidon disobeys Zeus and helps rally the Greeks. Poseidon keeps Agamemnon from calling a retreat to the ships, while Hera (borrowing a magic girdle from Aphrodite) seduces Zeus and lulls him to sleep. Hector is wounded by a stone, and the Trojans are driven back.
Zeus wakes up mad at his wife and sends Apollo to heal Hector, who comes back and burns the Greek ships. Later, Hector reproaches himself for not having retreated at the first appearance of Achilles. He goes out to meet Achilles in single combat and is slain. So he finally met his destiny.
Achilles ties Hector’s body behind a chariot and drags it off to the Greek ships. Finally, these are some contributions, whereas the works of Gilgamesh and the Iliad are the same and virtually look upon as the choosers of their own true destiny, and that’s DEATH. Mythology.
