/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15816273]

What the fuck was this

[Anonymous No.15816285]

The answer to the crave for immortality

[Anonymous No.15816294]

>>15816273
Drunk sumerians betwixt orgies anon just like every artist

[Anonymous No.15816295]

>>15816273
The Based Enkidu vs The Virgin Gilgamesh

[Anonymous No.15816311]

>>15816273
Homer's inspiration

[Anonymous No.15816314]

>>15816311
No

[Anonymous No.15816322]

>>15816314
Cope

[Anonymous No.15816361]

>>15816311
Also the inspiration for the bible

[Anonymous No.15816382]

>>15816361
You mean the story of the flood?

[Anonymous No.15816408]

>>15816382
And the snake

[Anonymous No.15816419]

>>15816408
Yes. But that's only Genesis.

[Anonymous No.15816433]

Which translation should I read? Annotated?

[Anonymous No.15816454]

>>15816433
Read this one friend

[Anonymous No.15816466]

one of the best literary works even to this day

[Anonymous No.15816556]

>>15816466
Why?

[Anonymous No.15816569]

>>15816556
It’s about friendship and shit.

[Anonymous No.15816571]

the most epic epic ever written in the human history

[Anonymous No.15816598]

>>15816556
It has homosexual erotica

[Anonymous No.15816611]

>>15816454
Okay this is a good book, but I do have to offer a warning for first time readers of Gilgamesh.

This edition is more scholarly and academic focused. Instead of a “complete” narrative pieced together from fragments (which other translations do), this instead offers different versions of incomplete texts, and it shows where breaks and missing chunks are. It’s good for trying to understand the historical and cultural context, as well as the difficulties of translating ancient texts.

This is not to say it’s a BAD version, just that it’s not as easily “readable” for a newcomer. No translation is perfect, but some of the other popular ones such as David Mitchell are worth considering if you want something more readable and entertaining, but less strictly scholarly.

[Anonymous No.15816629]

I wish there were more works before ideology and philosophy took over and corrupted the minds of all artists and authors

[Anonymous No.15816685]

>>15816556
From the structural standpoit it generally was pretty well-made, I liked how it manged to focus on relatively selective amount of characters and properly depict their relationships while also profoundly integrating elements of cosmogony and developing the plot. But most of all I liked the fact that it had a great focus on Gilgamesh's individuality, which is rather rare for old epics. Individual aspect in Western art took off only with adoption of Christianity, because most Greeks used to consider humans to be creatures at the hands of fate rather than individuals, so seeing elements of it in a work this old is quite exciting. I guess you could even say it was humane for its time, in a way.

[Anonymous No.15816719]

>>15816556
It covers so many things.

The conflict between Civilization and Nature, represented first in Gilgamesh vs Enkidu, and, later, in Gilgamesh and Enkidu vs Humbaba, where it can then be read as Civilized Man and either recently civilized Man or Uncivilized Man vs Nature, as Humbaba is, after all, an appointed guardian of the cedar forest. In this way, Gilgamesh is the first "narrative of industry", a statement only magnified by the state of the cedar forest today.

It's about growing up. His selfishness and wanting to claim every bride as his, before the beginnings of male friendship, the rejection of growing up manifested in the rejection of Ishtar's proposal, the forced confrontation of it in the death of Enkidu, and eventual acceptance of death signifying the acceptance of age.

It's about death. It's about the struggle that we, some odd 6000 years later, can still relate to. "Go up, Urshanabi!' says Gilgamesh, as he begins to relate to him what he has built and how great it is. It's about our inability to live forever and the things we can do to make that bearable-either through our great achievements, as Gilgamesh did, or through our way of living, as Siduri says: "When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping. As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.” aka, enjoy yourself, especially given that the Babylonian afterlife is a bleak wasteland of general ennui, where you eat clay for meat and drink ash water, and may only drink wine if your descendants pour it out for you, in your name. There is no question of good or bad, all go to the same place. An old Sumerian proverb even says the same: "Go up to the ancient ruin heaps and walk around; look at the skulls of the lowly and the great. Which belongs to someone who did evil and which to someone who did good?"

[Anonymous No.15816754]

>>15816719
>The conflict between Civilization and Nature,
More like it shows there's no human/civilization vs nature but that they're the same

[Anonymous No.15816765]

>>15816719
>6000 years later
Lol what

[Anonymous No.15816815]

>>15816754
I mean, feel free to stick to your own interpretation mate.

>>15816765
Shit, meant 4000.

[Anonymous No.15816839]

what's so epic about it idk

[Anonymous No.15816914]

>>15816839
a lot of things, but for me, it's rejecting Ishtar

[Anonymous No.15817033]

>>15816273
How do you guys feel about the andrew george translation? I've been meaning to read it.

[Anonymous No.15817099]

>>15816273
You are not worthy to understand, mongrel!

[Anonymous No.15817118]

>>15817099
baste

[Anonymous No.15817165]

>>15817099
>>15817118
die. Fate is absolute garbage and this stupid fucking twink is a terrible "artistic interpretation" of the masculine, filled with vital essence demigod that is Gilgamesh. If he could see this shit he'd snap Nasu's neck like he broke those trees.

[Anonymous No.15817395]

>>15817165
Fate is okay for what it is (i.e. magic drama) and I think you should be more concerned about king Arthur being a teenage girl rather than Gilgamesh being a gayboy

[Anonymous No.15817450]

Watching anime is 100x more gay than having sex with men

[Anonymous No.15817470]

>>15817450
it's a VN + anime website

[Anonymous No.15817519]

>>15817395
>king arthur

I don't give a fuck about british "history" so I couldn't care less. Mesopotamia actually has a culture of worth.

[Anonymous No.15817550]

>>15817450
What if i do both

[Anonymous No.15817553]

>>15817519
Edgy

[Anonymous No.15817566]

>>15816273
A guy running around the middle east for a bit worrying about death??

[Anonymous No.15817594]

>>15817519
then you're just a retard who spergs over historical inaccuracies in a VN about magical fights with a mouthbreathing protag
and while we're at it, British "history" is precisely the reason why you're typing in English right now

[Anonymous No.15817704]

>>15816273
the tightest shit you've ever read

[Anonymous No.15817706]

>s-shut up mongrel, Gilgamesh's depiction in Fate was inaccurate, he was a real bro as evidenced in Epic of Gilgamesh
>go read your pleb shit, worm
>Mesapotamia #1, all other civilisations kneel before its wealth and might

[Anonymous No.15817720]

>>15816273
The worlds first ever epic gamer moment

[Anonymous No.15817723]

>>15816408
No. Very different snakes

[Anonymous No.15817725]

>>15817723
That's what she said lmao

[Anonymous No.15817760]

>>15817706
earliest civilization and best

everyone else is just mad because they can't claim descent from the lugal-an-ub-da-limmu-ba

[Anonymous No.15817825]

>>15817760
I, too, really like it, but I don't think it's a valid reason to make a console war out of civilizations

[Anonymous No.15818359]

>>15816311
paaus

[Anonymous No.15818440]

>>15817450
That's why it's based.

[Anonymous No.15818520]

>>15816719
Good review. The fight against Humbaba is also a good critic about technology's predation of nature: after defeating him they cut the cedars and flow the trunks down the Euphrates and later we understand that the door of Enkidu is made from the same wood. Interestingly enough we can't really draw anything from it. They seem to have noticed how man predates nature for its own interest but couldn't see how far it would go.

[Anonymous No.15818664]

>>15818520
Indeed. And all of this actually, as I forgot to mention in my original post, comes to a beautiful little ouroboros, a nice spot of self reference in the fact that what will give Gilgamesh immortality is an herb, an object of plant life and verdure, and stolen away by a snake, a creature of the forest. In a way, it's Humbaba's last joke.

[Anonymous No.15818767]

>>15818664
I've just read it and didn't see it but I like what you draw from it and it seems coherent enough. Nonetheless I felt like the snake wasn't really depicted as being from the same environment as Humbaba. The snake was more of a creature of the ground itself while Humbaba was more nature as a transcendent being (a mix of soil and air in a way). Of course this may be an issue with translation since I've read a French one. Would you agree with this difference or does the English translation draw more parallels?

[Anonymous No.15819515]

How do Christians cope with the fact that this exists and is older than the old testament?

[Anonymous No.15819535]

>>15819515
The Old Testament mentions numerous older gods, it just says that Yahweh is better. Same premise here

[Anonymous No.15819565]

>>15816719
Didn’t read.

[Anonymous No.15819799]

>>15816719
This conception of death is very present in the akkadian texts we have today, i.e Ishtar's descent

[Anonymous No.15819824]

>>15819799
epic of gilgamesh is good way to start off /lit/ lol
i bet egyptians didnt read it neither

[Anonymous No.15819909]

My favorite part is when my nigga Enkidu is in a fever haze and starts taking to the door he made like it was his second best friend in the entire world

[Anonymous No.15820379]

>>15816314
Wrong

[Anonymous No.15820764]

>>15816685
good comment anon

[Anonymous No.15821581]

Did you understand why and how exactly Enkidu and Gilgamesh become friends? It seemed to me that it was through mutual respect of their force but I'm not sure

[Anonymous No.15821623]

>>15821581
Sexual tension

[Anonymous No.15821652]

>>15821581
>It seemed to me that it was through mutual respect of their force but I'm not sure
Pretty much. This is how all men became friends before they started putting estrogen in plastic water bottles.

[Anonymous No.15821686]

>>15816273
The fever dream of a newly literature civilization of brown people, jotted down by a lunatic schizophrenic scribe with high priestly authority, and then refined and copied down by other scribes, fed on a happy diet of chick peas and lamb stew, and lentils, and fish.

[Anonymous No.15821695]

>>15816311
Literally no..... none of the themes, symbols, or events recur in the Greek epic cycle, or are ripped from Gilgamesh.

I mean there were cthonic Earth deities from Anatolia that derive from Mesopotamia that found their way into the Greek pantheon.

Ishtar > Asatru > Astarte > Aphrodite (also the root word for Easter, and spring fertility celebrations)
Zagreus > Bacchus / Nysus > Dionysus

But like..... the stories themselves are completely different, Gilgamesh has nothing to do with Achilles and Odysseus.

[Anonymous No.15821716]

>>15821695
>Literally no.....
>But like.....
1) Go back
2) Kill yourself

[Anonymous No.15821728]

>>15821716
That literally means nothing.... like literally like duh

[Anonymous No.15821771]

>>15816719
>As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.” aka, enjoy yourself, especially given that the Babylonian afterlife is a bleak wasteland of general ennui, where you eat clay for meat and drink ash water, and may only drink wine if your descendants pour it out for you, in your name. There is no question of good or bad, all go to the same place. An old Sumerian proverb even says the same: "Go up to the ancient ruin heaps and walk around; look at the skulls of the lowly and the great. Which belongs to someone who did evil and which to someone who did good?"
ok i get it, people were already hedonists back then. no wonder libtards like this.

[Anonymous No.15821807]

>>15816273
Pagan bullshit. I would smash each and every remaining clay tablet if I had the chance

[Anonymous No.15821810]

THERE IS NO PERMANENCE

[Anonymous No.15821816]

>>15821807
No one cares autist

[Anonymous No.15821851]

>>15816273
What edition has the most current archaeology behind it? I would prefer one with a cohesive narrative, but I also don’t want fan-fic

[Anonymous No.15821864]

>>15821816
>*fagan sweating on the keyboard*
You are only allowed to exist because current society is decadent. You WILL perish at the Second Coming

[Anonymous No.15821877]

>>15821864
take your meds

[Anonymous No.15821926]

>>15821877
lololololololo take ur medsssss amiritee lololololol hahaahah hehehehehe

[Anonymous No.15821929]

>>15821807
based

[Anonymous No.15821930]

>>15821926
>>15821877

[Anonymous No.15821996]

>>15816273
An allegory about how women ruin everything. Also stay loyal to your bros and accept your mortality.

[Anonymous No.15823029]

>>15816556
the problem of mortality

[Anonymous No.15823034]

>>15817033
it's the definitive edition, also contains translations of the Old Babylonian fragments

[Anonymous No.15823045]

Gilgamesh is interesting because it shows that a lot of the mythology that went into Christianity is mythology that has existed for a long time. It opens up a whole Jungian analysis of, well, human culture that’s fascinating. A must read for comparative literature enthusiasts, people into mythology, and people into archetypal theory.

[Anonymous No.15823048]

>>15821807
say goodbye to your treasured hebrew literature then

[Anonymous No.15823063]

>>15821771
All life is hedonistic. It's just subversive desert cults that teach otherwise.