/lit/ - Literature

>>18004151
You're totally missing the part where he becomes best ever bros with Gilgamesh and they have awesome adventures and fuck a lot, but like, in a super manly way.
Dumbass.

>>18004174
100% irrelevant.

>>18004174
When do people like Achilles and Patroklos or Gilgamesh and Enkidu end up having gay sex like so many modern people state? Must have skipped those pages.

>>18004208
I'm pretty sure "they needed each other to live and were willing to die rather than be without the other and they became close in every way two people can become close" is pretty fucking obvious to everyone not being intentionally obtuse.

What do you want? Do you need to have diagrams drawn for you?

>enkidu gets a fever and in his malaise he starts shit talking to the cedar door he made
Literally what did they mean by this?

>>18004226
Of the ancients intended for those people to be gay they would have like 10 verses dedicated to their gay anal sex (especially the greeks)

>>18004208
thats why they had to go on the immortality quest because as gay men they could not find immortality through reproduction, utnampishtim was immortal because he had his wife with him so he can make offspring.

>>18004233
Aren't there enough amphorae with then staring lovingly at each other's dicks?

>>18004228
I like the part where Gilgamesh cuckolds the entire city of Urk to make the men work harder

Man Mesopotamian literature is so good, it's pure in a way nothing else can be

>>18004151
The temple prostitute is a representative of the temple, which is itself the heart of the city. It's not sex that destroys the man - it's the city. And the city doesn't just wield sex against him; it also seduces him with food and wine and clothing. Also, it's not a coincidence that Enkidu dies of disease, which is the consequence of living in such close-quarters with so many other people.

>>18004151
Women are evil

>>18004208
It's literally just modern projection. There's no reason to believe either broship was gay, but Madeline Miller needs to make money somehow.

>>18004226
Have you never had a close make friendship before?

>>18004324
*male

>>18004226
this is a supremely modern coomer take

>>18004226
Except in all other regards, sex is treated as if it's some spiritual experience sent by the gods. Shamhat is a literal priestess who's function is to fuck worshippers. Gilgamesh has a "divine right" to fuck brides before the groom. Your interpretation of the line "they became close in every way two people can become close" is based on how we, in our modern society, view sex and not how they viewed sex in one of the first major cities that ever existed.

>>18004246
Quote the passage where they’re staring at eachother’s penises

>>18004208
they had gay sex in the lost tablets

this >>18004342 should be a banner

>>18004151
>What did the Mesopotamians mean by this?
That love and friendship are the only things that make us human, different from beasts
It's a very simple and easy read, and a good place to start learning to read

>>18004226
>They were very good friends
>See?! That undeniably means that they fucked

Why are americans like this?

>>18004226
>rambling faggotry
behold, der Coomer

>>18004303
>>18004324
>>18004333
>>18004338
>>18004342
>>18004389
>>18004391
seethe harder

>>18004389
>>18004391
Burgers are just as repressed and homophobic as you poor tykes
You start with the Greeks for a reason. No one will take you seriously when you blush like little boys at the thought of peeners touching.

>>18004432
>>18004445
now kiss

>>18004432
>>18004445
You never answered, have you ever had a close male friendship?

>>18004432
>>18004445
Ihr werdet niemals Frauen sein

>>18004208
faggot projection

I am a actual faggot. Gilgamesh was straight and Achilles was bi at most

>>18004508
Based fag

>>18004465
I'm not who you were talking to
>>18004466
>Greeks and Sumerians were effeminate

>>18004432
awww, looks like we hurt its wittle feelings

>>18004508
You're a modern faggot, which makes you an outcast in a heterosociety. In ancient societies, the woman was the outcast. You are reading the texts like a woman.

>tfw too stupid to learn 𒅴𒂠 so I can read 𒀭𒄑𒉋𒂵𒈨𒌋𒌋𒌋 in the original
I can't even read 𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑

To be honest, it could be either way. It's well documented that homosexuality was not generally frowned upon before the Abrahamic religions propagated, and the two were described as being extremely close. However the text doesn't explicitly state that they were lovers, while it very easily could have.

>>18004616
The whole point is that sex was simply natural before the Abrahamic religions and the notion of it being sinful or dirty. It is nothing noteworthy.
Which makes it hilarious that thirty incels who pine over getting laid also are scared of notion or hint at homoeroticism.

>>18004151
Weird how similar this is to the Adam and Eve narrative
>Man frolics in nature, happy and free
>Woman comes along
>She fucks everything up
>Civilization begins and it sucks
I guess it's possible that the Jews and Mesopotamians shared an oral source for the two stories? Or maybe both peoples were trying to explain the wickedness of civilization next to the simplicity of nature?

>>18004226
>sex is described in detail when enkidu is having sex with that sex priestess
>but of course the mesopotamians were incapable of even mentioning it when it was between enkidu and gilgamesh

>>18004695
>I guess it's possible that the Jews and Mesopotamians shared an oral source for the two stories
Many of the Bible stories are ripped off of Mesopotamian myths since the Babylonian Captivity

>>18004705
Sex between men was natural and to be expected, sex between men and woman was only ritual. Why do you think they had the whole sacred prostitution thing going on?

>>18004616
>it's well documented before the abrahamic religions
Nope, lost me.

>>18004720
>NOOOOOO i'm not a freak of nature and an evolutionary parenthesis I promise

>>18004727
I have more kids than you do, incel

>>18004732
Pets don’t count tranny

>>18004508
Fuck yeah

>>18004753
>Having a dick so tiny you have to imagine everyone likes to dress up in panties
No wonder you are scared of men

I interpret Enkidu as a Beauty and the Beast archetype, as seen in stories like the princess and the frog or even King Kong. Beastly men are tamed by their desire to please a woman who is more civilized than themselves.

>>18005160
Retarded take. No offence

>>18004817
Based

>>18004208
>>18004303
>>18004333
>>18004487
>>18004342
>You abjured the holy sacrament of the thighs! You spurned a profusion of kisses!
Achilles to Patroclus' corpse in Aeschylus' Myrmidons

>(Aeschylus actually talks nonsense when he asserts that it was Achilles who was the lover of Patroclus: Achilles was not only more beautiful than Patroclus but also more beautiful than all the rest of the heroes, and still beardless; and according to Homer he was much younger.) As a consequence the gods, out of extreme admiration, honoured Achilles to an exceptional degree for having such a high regard for his lover. Although the gods show particular honour to the kind of excellence that comes from passionate love, it is those cases where the beloved shows his devotion to his lover rather than the other way round that they appreciate and admire more and reward more generously, because a lover has a god within him and he is thus more akin to the divine than the beloved. This is why the gods paid more honour to Achilles than to Alcestis and sent him to the Isles of the Blest.
Phaedrus' speech in the Symposium by Plato

>No one used to despise those who had a passionate nature: love affairs were such an open and everyday matter that the great poet Aeschylus, and Sophocles too, put sexual themes on the stage in their tragedies, Aeschylus showing Achilles’ love for Patroclus, Sophocles love of the boys in Niobe(which is why some people call this play Paiderastria)—and their audiences enjoyed such themes.
Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae

>>18004151
The prostitute symbolized civilization. Without becoming civilized however he would not have become friends with Gilgamesh and gone on great adventures, and without the friendship Gilgamesh would not have realized his own mortality and sought eternal life. Humanity has been seeking a way to cope with death ever since it tasted greatness in itself.

>>18004267
This this this

>>18004151
Overly simplistic and personalized. Like the Garden of Eden, the story is symbolic of man's awakening into consciousness and realization that life is toil.

>>18006296
sure niggas who lived 400 BC know about this, when poem was composed about 800 BC and describes events about 1200 BC

>>18004208
Based, exactly my thoughts and they never give an answer.

>>18004151
He was the axe at my side
in which my arm trusted.
He was the sword in my belt
and the shield in front of me.
He was my festive robe,
and the whole of my delight.
An evil wind has risen up
and stolen him from me!

>>18006296
Aeschylus is the only plausibly damming evidence here, but who doesn't mire another bros thighs? And being southern Europeans, they kiss a lot more.

>>18004151
It’s a story about trying to convince you that you can’t kill women whenever you want to. Of course you can kill women whenever you want to. Just kill the detectives who try to investigate. Sooner or later, society realizes that men are dying because some dude wanted to kill a woman, and it just isn’t worth looking into. It’s a mind trick to keep you from killing women.

fucking faggots will never understand agape and philia
these degenerates just project eros onto everything because they never experienced proper storge

>>18006654
>implying eros is only sexual
That's the faggoty thing to do my man.

>>18004226
So, siblings can grow incredibly close through hardship, they need each other and become closer than possible, are they fucking too?
Such a silly interpretation you have there.

>>18006654
seethe. the greeks LOVED eros between men. read them.

>>18006829
Congratulations, you're a victim of modern liberal propaganda.

>>18006834
>modern

>>18006654
>agape isnt sexual
>implying

>>18004609
The Gilgamesh poem is an Akkadian original. Earlier sources drawn from were both Sumerian and Akkadian.

>>18004616
>It's well documented that homosexuality was not generally frowned upon before the Abrahamic religions propagated
Rather, the documentation for condemnation of homosexuality is scarce. Lack of evidence is not evidence for lack.

>>18006894
There's a lot of neutral and positive descriptions of it as a normal public occurrence however.

>>18006901
Source?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd7qeP3R5vw

>>18004151
They believe that a goddess stole civilization from the leader of the pantheon by seducing him then gave it to humans before the built the first city of Ur, kind of like a sexy Prometheus. The story of Enkidu and the dancer is a refiguration of that origin myth.

>>18006907
Well I think mainly of Xenophon and Plato's casual depiction of so many same-sex couples and affections in their dialogues. Agathon and Pausanias. Socrates pursuing Alcibiades. Alcibiades trying (unsuccessfully) to bed Socrates. trying to woo Lysis. Socrates erotic interest in Charmides and Phaedrus. Critobulus trying to kiss Alcibiades' son. Critias trying to seduce Euthydemus. Plus the way they describe the custom as a rather common thing. Then of course you have all those distinguished poets who wrote pederastic poetry, like Ibycus, Bion, Theognis, Pindar, Theocritus, and so on (and of course, their influence upon the love poems of Romans like Virgil, Catullus, Horace, etc).

>>18006917
Inana and the Mes?
>>18004151
It is a simple allegory for the ''civilizatory'' awakening of man - sexual activity in ritual and pleasurable contexts (which Shamhat represents) separate man from beast. Enkidu crosses this line when he ''enjoys Shamhat's charms'', because this very act is representative of the civilized man and his activities. Procreation is animalistic, sex is human.

>>18004616
>It's well documented that homosexuality was not generally frowned upon before the Abrahamic religions propagated
no it's not. however, they do not conceive of it as a 'sexuality' so the logic is completely different. the notion of sexuality and identity comes about from particular recent western history. yet one thing that remains nigh absolute is that men who take a passive role in homosexual sex are necessarily effeminate and strongly hated.

>>18006965
>yet one thing that remains nigh absolute is that men who take a passive role in homosexual sex are necessarily effeminate and strongly hated.
Except for eromenoi. Whereas the Romans didn't have any acceptable life periods where one could be the passive partner.

>>18005160
Enkidu is man without culture/society. He demonstrates that man without it is an animal. He becomes a human along with all that entails (society and gods). He is killed by this.

>>18006296
no one is denying that some greeks didn't develop homoerotic literary ideals and practice pederasty hundreds of years later. there is simply no evidence in the source material or source culture for it.

also, you would interpret anything even slightly affectionate as homosexual because you are an oversexualised westoid coomer who cannot comprehend other cultures. you don't even understand the greeks you're quoting. typically westoid instinctively trying to colonise everything with his personal flavour of subcultural hedonism.

>>18007016
>there is simply no evidence in the source material or source culture for it.
I'm not saying Achilles and Patroclus have an erotic relationship in Homer's version of the Iliad, just demonstrating that the interpretation isn't remotely "modern".
>also, you would interpret anything even slightly affectionate as homosexual because you are an oversexualised westoid coomer who cannot comprehend other cultures. you don't even understand the greeks you're quoting. typically westoid instinctively trying to colonise everything with his personal flavour of subcultural hedonism.
I think it is you who is doing the colonising, coper.

>>18004226
t. Never had a close friend in their life

>>18007020
>just demonstrating that the interpretation isn't remotely "modern".
yes it is because ancient greek homosexuality is not contemporary western homosexuality or sexuality at large. you don't understand it and only care to claim it.

>>18007023
>yes it is because ancient greek homosexuality is not contemporary western homosexuality or sexuality at large
I didn't say it was.

>>18006839
>Nietzsche “... the lower it sank with women”
Extreme, but effective anti-simping remedy, apparently

bump

>>18006912
Why does he have background music to the instrument and singing? It makes it sound too modern.

>>18006839
There's also that passage in Herodotus where he claims Persians learnt male-on-male love from the Greeks.

>>18006609
>He was the sword in my belt

>Dicks in bums

>>18007405
>background music
they're ancient wind instruments

>>18004616
>It's well documented that homosexuality was not generally frowned upon before the Abrahamic religions propagated
Show me

fuck you for reminding me that i have to translate some Gilgamesh for tomorrow

>>18004432
>Everything is about Coom because I read Cooming into everything!!!

>>18004151
>What did the Mesopotamians mean by this?
Don't mess with Ishtar's shit and her priestesses. That bitch keeps fucking everyone up.

>>18004208
They don't. Classicists are just braindead retards.

>>18008768
see >>18006296

>>18004226
Never had a best friend, have you?

>>18008756
sex

>>18004226
>he’s never had a bro
I feel bad for you