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what are the problems of a ruler who is going off the rails like Gilgamesh?

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he's starting how sleeping with women on their wedding nights

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overtaxing the population

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he's making young men work to build his great wall around his city

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abusing his own population

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Sumerian kings are usually wonderful

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never do anything wrong

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the king has a council of infinitely wise counselors

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gods, however, are clamorous

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a way of working through tensions in the earthly society

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Gilgamesh

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is an autocrat, nobody knows what to do

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the towns people pray to the gods to help them

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in older Babylonian chronicles

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the king and his wise counselors always know the story their in

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they know what's going on

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nothing ever surprises the good counselor

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the evil king who is your enemy may be taken by surprise

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but never your king or your counselors

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but here the gods send down Enkidu into the countryside who then starts messing up in the countryside

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becomes a mirror image of Gilgamesh

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he's messing up the country as Gilgamesh is messing up the city

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the country people go plead to Gilgamesh

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Gilgamesh sends out the temple prostitute Shamhat

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she seduces Enkidu, he comes back

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Gilgamesh doesn't understand that his clever ploy is actually the god's ploy to bring him under control

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still Enkidu has even less idea what is happening to him

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there is a theme here which is also in Arabian poetry

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country life is better than the city

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the virtuous people are pastoralists in the fields

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Enkidu comes and sees Gilgamesh about to rape a woman on her wedding night

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literature

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literature is on the side of the city versus the country

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literature is on the side of power

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writing is developed for economic, judicial and religious purposes