Anonymous (Akkadian) · a new plain-English translation from the Akkadian
"My friend, why did the great gods take counsel [...]?" [...] Enkidu opened his mouth to speak, saying to Gilgamesh: "Come, my friend, [...] in [...] the door [...] because [...] [...] [...] in [...] [...] [...]" Enkidu [...] lifted up his eyes.
With the door he spoke as if [...]. Door of the forest, in whom there is no [...], whose understanding is not [...]! For twenty leagues I chose your wood, until I saw the towering cedar [...]. Your wood has no equal [...]. Six rods is your height, two rods your breadth, one cubit your thickness; your \[door-jambs?\], your pivot, and your bolt-socket are all of one piece. I made you, I hoisted you up, in Nippur I raised you on high. Had I known, O door, that this was your reward, had I known, O door, that this was your favor, I would have raised an axe, I would have cut you down, [...].
[I would have had] a boat carry you to Ebabbar, I would have brought you to Ebabbar, the house of Shamash, I would have planted you as a cedar [in] Ebabbar, I would have set up an eagle at its gate. [...] your entrance [...], I would have [...] of the city [...] Shamash, and in Uruk [...] because Shamash heard my words. On the day [...] he gave the weapon. Now I am the one who made you a door, I am the one who [...] you; I am the one who [...], I am the one who tears you away. May a king who comes after me reject you!
May [...] fasten you [in place] anew, may my name be removed and his name be set there! He tore it away [...], he threw it down. He kept hearing his own words, and swiftly, quickly, his tears flowed. Gilgamesh kept hearing the words of Enkidu his friend, and swiftly, quickly his tears flowed. Gilgamesh opened his mouth to speak, saying to Enkidu: "My friend, [...] renowned, [one] endowed with understanding, sound of mind — [in one] year you have changed [...]. Why, my friend, does your heart speak such changed things [...]? The dream was precious, yet the terror was great; [your lips?] buzzed like flies.
"The fears are many, the dream is precious. For the living one, wailing is left behind; [for] the dead, wailing is left for the living to grieve. Let me pray, let me beseech the great gods, let me seek out your god, let me turn to him. Let me entreat Anu, father of the gods, in your presence; may Enlil, the great counselor, hear my prayer in your presence! I will make a statue of you, gold beyond measure I will make your image [...]. My friend, you shall not give silver, you shall not give gold [...]. What Enlil has decreed is not like what the gods [...].
What he has decreed does not turn back, does not unravel; what he has set as a bright thing does not turn back, does not unravel. My friend, fates are allotted [...]; people go about according to what is not their destiny. As soon as day dawned, at first light, Enkidu lifted his head and wailed before Shamash; before the rays of Shamash his tears flowed. "I appeal to you, Shamash, on behalf of my precious life, because of that hunter, that wrongdoing man, who did not let me gain as much as my friend gained. May the hunter not gain as much as his friend! Let his profit be destroyed, his strength diminished,
let his share before you be cut short! [...] wherever he enters, may he go out defeated! After he has cursed the hunter to his heart's content, his heart carried him to curse Shamhat the harlot as well: "Come, Shamhat, I will decree a fate for you, a fate that will never end, forever and ever! I will curse you with a mighty curse, may my curse strike you swiftly, at once! May you never build a house for your delight, may you not [...] the company you love, may you never sit enthroned among young women, may your fine garments be soaked in the dirt of the ground,
may the drunkard splatter your festival robe with filth, may you never acquire [a house of...] and fine things, [...] of the potter, may you desire nothing [...]; may the couch, the chair, and the well-spread table, the pride of the people, never be set in your house; may the [...] of your delight instead be the bench; may the crossroads of the highway be your dwelling; may the wasteland be your resting place, the shadow of the wall your station; may thistle and thorn strip your feet raw; may drunkard and thirsty man alike strike your cheek; [...] may she who is lady of judgment cry out against you; may the roof-beam of your house never be laid by a builder,
[...] may it lie down together [...]; [...] let no] funeral feast [be held ...]. [...] [...] [...] like [...] [...]. [...] a garment of dark blue [...]. [...] a lap [...]. Whose lap [...]. "Because of me, pure one, you were brought low, and because of me, pure one, you were brought low upon me, on the steppe." Shamash heard the utterance of his mouth, and from that moment on, suddenly, a voice called down to him from heaven.
"Why, Enkidu, do you curse the harlot Shamhat, who fed you bread fit for divinity and poured you fine beer fit for kingship, who clothed you in a great and goodly garment, and who gave you Gilgamesh, goodly companion, as your friend? And now Gilgamesh, your brother, your dear one, will lay you on a great bed — on a fine, honored bed he will lay you, he will seat you in the seat of ease, the seat at his left hand, so that the princes of the earth may kiss your feet. He will make the people of Uruk weep for you and grieve over you, and he will fill the joyous people with mourning for you."
"And he himself, after you, will let his body go unkempt, he will put on the skin of a lion and roam the wild steppe." When Enkidu heard the warrior Shamash's word, his raging heart grew still, his furious heart grew still, and he said: "Go, Shamhat, I will fix a fate for you: may the mouth that cursed you instead turn and bless you; may governors and nobles come to love you. Let the man at one league's distance slap his thigh for you, let the man at two leagues shake loose his hair for you. Let no soldier's belt withhold itself from you — let him loose it for you."
"Let them give you obsidian, lapis lazuli, and gold in exchange, earrings and a pendant be your gift. May Ishtar, mightiest of the gods, bring you in to a man whose storehouses are secured, whose granaries are full. For your sake may the wife, mother of seven, be forsaken, be abandoned." — For Enkidu's belly was sick; he lay alone through his allotted span. He spoke, telling everything on his heart to his friend: "Listen, my friend, to the dream I saw in the night. The heavens cried out, the earth answered; and I was standing between them. There was a man whose face was dark.
His face was like that of the Thunderbird. His hands were the paws of a lion, his claws were the talons of an eagle. He seized me by my hair, he overpowered me. I struck him, but he sprang back like a skipping-rope; he struck me and capsized me like a raft, he trod me down like a mighty wild bull. [...] venom [...] my body. 'Save me, my friend' [...] [...]. You feared him and [...] [...]. You [...] [...]. [...] [...]. [...] [...]. [...] [...].
He struck me and turned me into a dove; he bound my arms like a bird's. He seized me and led me down to the house of darkness, the seat of Irkalla — to the house whose entrants never leave, on the road whose journey has no return, to the house whose dwellers are deprived of light, where dust is their sustenance and clay their food. They are clad, like birds, in coats of feathers, and they see no light, dwelling in darkness. On the door and the bolt, dust lay strewn; over the house, silence was poured out. When I myself entered the house of dust,
I looked about and saw crowns heaped up. There sat the crowned kings, those who had ruled the land since days of old, now serving roasted meat before Anu and Enlil, setting out baked bread, pouring out cool water from the waterskins. In that house of dust that I entered there sat high priest and acolyte, there sat the purification priest and the lumahhu-priest, there sat the anointed priests of the great gods. There sat Etana, there sat Shakkan; there sat the queen of the underworld, Ereshkigal — before her Belet-seri, scribe of the netherworld, knelt, holding a tablet, reading aloud in her presence.
She lifted her head and saw me. 'Who has taken this man away?' 'Who [...] brought him here?' [...] made him weep [...] [...] the grave. [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] Ereshkigal [...] the flood [...] [...] [...] [...].
[...] [...] I looked upon his body. [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] all the sicknesses that I have gone through with you [...]. Remember me, my friend — everything I have gone through, do not forget. "My friend, I saw a dream that was not [...] [...]."
On the day he saw the dream his vigor drained away, and Enkidu lay down; one day he was sick, a second day […] Enkidu on his bed […]. A third day and a fourth day […] of Enkidu […]. A fifth, a sixth, and a seventh, an eighth, a ninth, and a tenth, of Enkidu's sickness […]. An eleventh and a twelfth day […]. Enkidu on his bed […]. He called out to Gilgamesh: "[…] it has turned against me, my friend, […] as when in the thick of ba[ttle he fell? …] I feared the battle, and […]."
"My friend, who in the ba[ttle fell …], I in the b[attle …] […]."