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the flood story called attention to the Epic of Gilgamesh

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the flood story was known from the Bible

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the role the flood story plays in Gilgamesh

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comes late in the story

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feels like an interpolated tale, like a story within a story

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it's not the centerpiece of the drama of Gilgamesh and Enkidu

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there is an ancient tradition in the Near East of stories within stories

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in the 1000 and one knights we see this flowering

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they loved nested tales

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it scales up the story of Gilgamesh to the story of humanity

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as if the camera pans out

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the Noah figure with an episteme (something known, from ἐπίστασθαι, meaning "to know, to understand, or to be acquainted with)

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confronting Gilgamesh with the limits of humanity and human mortality

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the counterpoint to the story of Enkidu in the beginning of the epic who becomes human

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now at the end of the epic confronting the limits of humanity

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asks the question: what is the difference between you and me, and the goddess Ishtar or the sun god Shamash

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the gods are immortal and see and know everything

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Utanapishtim

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name means "he who found life"

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episteme is life

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is tasked by Enki to abandon his worldly possessions and create a giant ship to be called Preserver of Life

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to bring his wife, family, and relatives along with the craftsmen of his village, baby animals, and grains

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the oncoming flood would wipe out all animals and people not on the ship, a concept similar to the biblical story of Noah's Ark

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considers the limits of human life in relation to the world of animals and the world of the gods

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a contrast between the under world and the upper world

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when the flood comes, all of mankind is returned to clay

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clay is what people are made up and what your city is made of

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when a flood comes through a baked clay city, it can actually just melt it away

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the city becomes the larger body of the hero

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Utanapishtim becomes the closest thing to becoming immortal, and divine

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he and his wife life forever

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he knows, like Ziusudra (the main character from an earlier flood story), he is exceeding the wise one

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this story is also very realistic

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a serious, sober view

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he lives on a blessed island

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you have to cross the waters of death to get there

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it looks a lot like the Elysian Fields of Homer

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the most moving moment is the death of Enkidu

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and Gilgamesh's lament over him

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he can't accept it

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stays seven days and seven nights

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mirroring the lovemaking at the beginning

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sits by the corpse until a worm comes out of the nose

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stark, realistic detail

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Utnapishtim survived the flood, his God allowed him to live forever

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asks Gilgamesh: who will do that for you

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the gods don't do that anymore

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we have to think of what Homer's attitude is toward these gods and goddesses

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the gods world is not our world

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our contact is very limited with them

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humans are looking forward to the House of Dust

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like the Hebrew Sheol

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not much going on

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drink muddy water for bear

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eat dust for your bread

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no difference between kings and servants

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there is a heap of crowns by the door: leave them as you come in

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there is dust on the doors, since people come in, but nobody ever goes out

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when Gilgamesh meets with Utanapishtim

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comes from a mythic background

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before the flood you had a kind of mythic possibility

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you could sleep with a goddess

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you could become immortal

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after the flood, we are confined by the human world

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the flood separated the world of myth from the world of history