Trickster and Hero: Two Characters in the Oral and Written Traditions of the World

8. Gilgamesh and Beowulf

Both Gilgamesh and Beowulf are structurally and temporally in two parts: one at the height of the heroes’ lives, the second during their declining years. In Gilgamesh , part one deals with Gilgamesh and Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven; in Beowulf, part one consists of Beowulf’s struggles with Grendel and Grendel’s mother. Part two of Gilgamesh focuses on Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim; part two of Beowulf reveals Beowulf’s struggles with the dragon. “Hero” is defined by the relationship between the two parts of each of the epics. That definition emphasizes a being who is not godly, not eternal, but one who is mortal. “Life is transitory. . . .” Gilgamesh The poems that make up the Gilgamesh epic were found on clay tablets discovered in the nineteenth century in Nineveh. The origin of the epic was Sumerian. In the Sumerian king list, Gilgamesh is identified as fifth in the first dynasty of Uruk. He reigned for one hundred and twenty-six years. The epic poems “antedate Homeric epic by at least one and a half thousand years.”51 In the early parts of the story, the focus is on Enkidu. There is a story-within-the-story: the account of the flood. But mainly, the center of attention is Gilgamesh. He is a mature human at the beginning of the epic, in the sense that his position as king of the city of Uruk is already secure, and one of the works for which he was to be remembered, building the walls of the city, is already in the past. In another sense, his physical maturity and his status are only the background for his education, which takes place in two distinct stages. In the first half of the epic, Gilgamesh must establish a name for himself, a process of individuation  8 Gilgamesh and Beowulf Gilgamesh and Beowulf  that demands preparations for an initiating encounter with the demonic Humbaba . In the second half of the epic, Gilgamesh, having lost his friend and brother, must pass through stages of melancholia and dissolution of the self, a dark night of the soul, from which he emerges intact but profoundly different from the boisterous and arrogant champion who made up riddles about his name after he defeated the Bull of Heaven. Gilgamesh is also the story of the double. If Gilgamesh is two-thirds god and only one-third human, his double, Enkidu, seems to reverse the ratio. If Gilgamesh is outwardly the same at the beginning and end of the epic, the story of Enkidu everywhere emphasizes change. For Enkidu, it is a story of birth, development in the wild, a step-by-step initiation into the life of a civilized man, courageous acts, and death. It is the story of everyman. It is also the story of the emergence of humankind from the wild, a parable of culture, Mesopotamian speculation about the First Man. The epic is the tale of a hero. The hero, a part of the old, a part of the new, changes the society. The hero is leading his people into a new dispensation. To do this successfully, he must be a part of both worlds. He represents the people, Gilgamesh A Movement to a Union with Enkidu Key Characters: Gilgamesh and Enkidu The Basic Movement: Bringing Gilgamesh and Enkidu together as one The Mechanics of the Movement: Myth: the gods Tale: Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven (pattern) Commentary: Siduri et al. Trickster, the Engine of the Movement: the gods and Enkidu Disguise: Enkidu as Gilgamesh Hero: Gilgamesh (move to union with Enkidu) Physical Strength of the Hero: fight with Enkidu, Humbaba, Bull of Heaven, gods Frailty of the Hero: overweening pride and arrogance, mortality; a sense of loss A Diminished Nature: his loss of immortality New Possibilities: confronting and moving beyond his limitations (mortality), a rebirth, finding stature in that Definition of Hero: a character who, in his movement to oneness with Enkidu, reveals the possibilities of triumph over human infirmity (age, frailty, etc.) but his vision takes him, and his people, into the new world. He is vulnerable , he could die, again emphasizing the transitoriness of life. During the course of the epic, he learns the fact of his mortality. The theme is communicated through dualism: Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the one part god and part man, the other part man and part animal. There is a movement of the...