Sherry Chandler

Portrait of a warrior

Gilgamesh prepares for a pre-emptive strike against Humbaba, the monster guardian of the Cedars of Lebanon:

from Book III
Then Gilgamesh turned to the young men and spoke:
“Hear me, young me of great-walled Uruk,
warriors and comrades who have fought at my side.
I will journey to meet the monster Humbaba,
I will walk a road that no man has traveled,
I will face a combat that no man has known.
Give me your blessing before I leave,
so that I may come back from the Cedar Forest
victorious, and see your faces again…”

from Book IV
They had reached the edge of the Cedar Forest.
They could hear Humbaba’s terrifying roar.
Gilgamesh stopped. He was trembling. Tears
flowed down his cheeks. “O Shamash,” he cried
“protect me on this dangerous journey.
Remember me, help me, hear my prayer.”
They stood and listened. A moment passed.
Then from heaven, the voice of the god
called to Gilgamesh: “Hurry, attack,
attack Humbaba while the time is right,
before he enters the depths of the forest,
before he can hide there and wrap himself
in his seven auras with their paralyzing glare.
He is wearing just one now. Attack him! Now!”

They stood at the edge of the Cedar Forest,
gazing, silent. There was nothing to say.

        from Stephen Mitchell, Gilgamesh: A New English Version (Free Press, 2004)

The tablets containing the Gilgamesh epic were found over several years of ongoing excavation at the site of the ancient city of Ninevah. The tablets are from about 3,000 BCE or a thousand years before Homer. Ninevah is under the Iraqi city of Mosul. As for the legendary cedar forests of Lebanon, they are nearly all destroyed by decades of war.

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