Epic of Gilgamesh: Tablet X — How Gilgamish Reached Uta-Napishtim · 4 of 4 · tr. R. Campbell Thompson
Tablet X, Section 1d
(Thus) did Ur-Shanabi [answer] him, [(yea), unto Gilgamish, (saying)]: "Gilgamish, take the .
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away .
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Let not the Waters of Death touch thy hand .
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Gilgamish, take thou a second, a third, and a fourth pole (for thrusting), 5.
Gilgamish, take thou a fifth, (and) a sixth, and a seventh (for thrusting), Gilgamish, take thou an eighth, (and) a ninth, and a tenth pole (for thrusting), Gilgamish, take an eleventh, a twelfth pole!" He ceased from (his) poling, (Aye) with twice-sixty (thrusts); (then) ungirded his loins .
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Gilgamish .
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(?), and set up the mast in its socket.
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Uta-Napishtim look’d into the distance and, inwardly musing, 15.
Said to himself: "(Now), why are [the sails(?)] of the vessel destroyéd, Aye, and one who is not of my .
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(?) doth ride on the vessel?
(This) is no mortal who cometh: nor .
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I look, but (this) is no [mortal] .
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I look, but .
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I look but .
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: 23.
Gilgamish (thus) continued his speech unto Uta-Napishtim, "Then [I bethought me], I'll get hence and see what far Uta-Napishtim 25.
Saith (on the matter) .
(And so), again (?) I came through all countries, Travell’d o’er difficult mountains, (aye), [and] all seas have I traversed, Nor hath (ever) my face had its fill of gentle sleep (?): (but) with hardship Have I exhausted myself, (and) my flesh have I laden with sorrow.
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Ere I had come to the [House(?)] of the Wine-Maker, spent were my garments, .
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Owl, bat, lion, pard, wild cat, deer, ibex, and .
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[Flesh] of them (all) have I eaten, (and eke) their pelts have I dress’d (?) [me]." : 26.
"Shall we for ever build house(s), for ever set signet (to contract), Brothers continue to share, or among [foes (?)] always be hatred?
(Or) will for ever the stream (that hath risen) in spate bring a torrent, Kulilu -bird [to] Kirippu -bird .
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Face which doth look on the sunlight .
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presently (?) shall not be .
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Sleeping and dead [are]r alike, from Death they mark no distinction Servant and master, when once thy have reach’d [their full span allotted], Then do the Anunnaki, great gods, .
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Mammetum, Maker of Destiny with them, doth destiny settle, Death, (aye), and Life they determine; of Death is the day not revealéd."
Themes
◆Anthropomorphismtheology
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The gods and immortals are depicted with human characteristics such as looking, musing, speaking, and settling destiny like a council.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The passage explicitly states that the Anunnaki gods determine destiny and settle the fate of life and death.
The living practitioner's deliberate trance-journey into spirit, underworld, or upper realms — Lemminkainen's descent into Tuoni and Wainamoinen's entry into Wipunen's body in the Kalevala, the Siberian shaman's drum-mediated travel, Inuit angakkuq's submarine journey to Sedna, classical katabasis as ritual technique. The practitioner returns with knowledge, songs, lost-words, or a recovered soul. Distinct from psychopomp_journey (which guides the *dead* soul through afterlife realms) and from spiritual_ascent (which is the soul's *upward* return to source); shamanic_journey is the *living* practitioner crossing into ordinarily-inaccessible domains as a worked technique.
Gilgamesh, a living practitioner, undertakes a deliberate journey across difficult terrain and the Waters of Death to reach an inaccessible otherworldly realm.