Epic of Gilgamesh: Tablet XII — Gilgamish Enquires of the Dead · 3 of 3 · tr. R. Campbell Thompson
Tablet XII, Section 1c
"Tell, O my friend, O tell, O my friend, (O) tell (me, I pr’y thee), What thou hast seen of the laws of the Underworld?" "(Nay, then,) O comrade; 90.
I will not tell thee, (yea,) I will not tell thee—(for), were I to tell thee, What I have seen of the laws of the Underworld,—sit thee down weeping!" "(Then) let me sit me down weeping." .
"(So be it): [the friend(?)] thou didst fondle (Thereby) rejoicing thee—[into his body(?), as though ’twere a] mantle 95.
Old, hath the worm made its entry: (in sooth, then) [the bride(?)] thou didst fondle, (Thereby) rejoicing thee—fill’d with the dust [is her body] .
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he hath spoken and [into the"' ground (?) is he sunken, .
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he hath spoken and [into the ground (?) is he sunken." "[He who fell in .
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[Didst thou see him?]." "(Aye), I saw .
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118.
"As a pillar beautiful [Props?] an inner por[tico (?)] .
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145.
"He who falleth from a pole Didst thou see him?
"(Aye), I saw]: Straightway for .
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By removal of a plug .
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." "He whom death .
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"Didst thou see him?" "[(Aye) I saw]: He's at rest upon a couch, Limpid water doth he drink." "(Then, the hero) slain in fight, Didst thou see him?" "(Aye) I saw: 150.
Father, mother raise his head, O’er him wife [in bitter woe]." "He whose corpse in desert lieth, Hast thou seen him?" "(Aye), I saw; Not in earth doth rest his spirit." "He whose ghost hath none to tend, Didst thou see him?" "(Aye), I saw, Lees of cup, and broken bread Thrown into the street he eateth." THE END OF THE EPIC OF GILGAMISH.
SHARP AND SONS, BATH
Themes
◆Ancestor Venerationpraxis
Ritual maintenance of relationship with the dead as ongoing presences whose favour is cultivated and whose offence is propitiated. Shinto uji-gami and obon, Norse disir and the alfablot, Celtic samhain and the feast for the deceased, Roman lares and parentalia, Chinese ancestor rites, Vedic śrāddha. Practice-coded rather than belief-coded: distinct from soul_migration (cosmological doctrine of soul-transmigration) and theosis_deification (deification trajectory); ancestor_veneration centres the living's ongoing ritual obligation to the dead.
The passage explicitly links the well-being of the dead to whether they have living relatives to tend them and provide offerings, highlighting the ritual obligation of the living.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The dead are described as exiled from the living world, with spirits not resting in the earth and ghosts eating refuse in the street.