Anonymous ID: 31c6b7 Sept. 17, 2018, 8:19 a.m. No.3057100   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>7139

Gilgamesh up

 

Way back when,

when men were still a novelty,

and what towns there were

were smaller than a ball park,

smaller, often, than a pitch and putt

and no one sentimentalized the out of doors;

when every man was a man of few words

because there were only a few,

and those so open ended and adaptable

that to pin them down required great force

and weighted presentation,

so there was no such thing as a meaningless gesture

and people watched each other —

but there were still, believe me, many secrets

and no one was any the wiser –

many years ago and far away

in the ungenerous badlands of a distant country

were the hot sun addled what the cold night froze

and things were rough all over,

there stood what seemed to its inhabitants

a very splendid city.

It boasted walls, fine walls, made out of stone,

and terrible tall,

and monuments, lots of monuments -

and most remarkably a gigantic king.

The city's name was Uruk, or Uruk of the Walls,

and the king was called King Gilgamesh.

King Gilgamesh had a passion for marvels –

and since king Gilgamesh was something of a marvel himself,

the men of Uruk were at pains to keep him comfortable.

For King Gilgamesh was governed by only his passions

and the city of Uruk

only by king Gilgamesh.

The story of Gilgamesh whom gods called cousin and men called king, is part of our story, with Enkindu, the wild man, who ran with animals until tamed by a whore, and scorpions, more whores of course and the monster Humbaba and Ishtar, the goddess of passion and ancient Utnapishtim

who could remember days before the flood. But it's mainly the story of Gilgamesh

who made a friend,

lost him, then got scared.

It is the oldest story.

Anonymous ID: 31c6b7 Sept. 17, 2018, 8:25 a.m. No.3057139   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>7579

>>3057100

Gilgamesh: I am sorry for Enkindu that he died,

he was my brother.

And I am sorrier still that I lost Enkindu

Whom I least of all wanted to lose

and with whom I was friends.

But I am doubly sorry

that I, who have until now never lost anything

Should be stolen from in this manner,

For while I have made selections

Which are a kind of loss,

I have never before been denied.

And I am sorriest of all

And the reason I am crying is

That the death of my brother Enkindu

Has suggested to me that I'll die too

Someday

And I'm scared.

Anonymous ID: 31c6b7 Sept. 17, 2018, 8:26 a.m. No.3057143   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Last of Gilgamesh?

 

The Old Man: And so King Gilgamesh

 

the great King Gilgamesh

 

was bested by a little thing

 

an unheroic snake

 

and he broke down altogether

 

and he wept the tears of a furious child

 

for he knew himself to be a failure

 

and he held himself cheap

 

and there wasn't a thing which he cared to do

 

and there wasn't a thing for which he cared

 

and he knew the frustration

 

of one who cannot have

 

what he thinks he wants

 

and he knew the shame

 

of one who knows that at least in part

 

he was himself the author

 

of his own undoing

 

and he knew the rage

 

the hideous rage

 

the helpless, hopeless rage

 

of somebody who's been stolen from

 

who knows he will always be stolen from

 

because he's here

 

because he's human

 

and because he must be off his guard

 

from time to time.

 

But as bad as these things were -

 

and they were very bad-

 

they did not trouble him so much as did the cold and awful

 

certainty

 

that he had not truly wished for

 

this bauble he had been denied.

 

That it would not and could not have made him happy.

 

That the only joy it promised wasn't joy at all

 

But tremulous relief

 

at being spared the pain of its loss.

 

And it was this ironic knowledge of

 

his own, his inconsolable vanity,

 

Which made him hate his life and everything he had.

 

And it was this self-same knowledge

 

Which later gave him the strength, the presence of mind,

 

And the imagination to act out the rest of his life

 

As decent and productive man.

 

So it was with Gilgamesh.

 

So it has always been.