Gilgamesh and Enkidu: Can They Really be Considered Equals?

The Epic of Gilgamesh, translated by Andrew George, is initially focused on Gilgamesh’s tyrannical rule over Uruk. Many of the residents of Uruk complain that true rulers and kings should be there to guide its people in the right direction, protect the people from harm, and rule with equality and justice, as described in the introduction to the epic. However, as we see in the first tablet, Gilgamesh indeed does not do that at all, but is instead a cruel, brutal tyrant. He oppresses the people by sleeping with newly-married wives (he dictates that this is his right as a ruler), and he exhausts the men by forcing them to games that test out their strength, by sacrificing warriors through fighting (Gilgamesh always wins), by forcing them to do random, menial projects, etc. Thus, the gods listened and created an equal to Gilgamesh, called Enkidu. He is very barbaric and large, and judging by his appearance, physical strength, and size, he surely must be considered to be Gilgamesh’s equal. In fact, the purpose of his creation was to counter Gilgamesh and distract him so that the people of Uruk would be less oppressed.

As we continue along with the story, we see that there is a trapped who spots Enkidu uprooting his traps, and his father tells him to go to Gilgamesh and get a temple prostitute to come and seduce Enkidu. Indeed, when the trapped returns, the prostitute is able to quickly seduce him, and they make love for about a week. When Enkidu’s lust finally quells, he returns to the forest where he once was, but the other creatures in the wild reject him (probably because of his sexual experiences with the temple prostitute), and he is forced to follow the prostitute back to Uruk. This is very interesting because technically, Enkidu was just bested by the temple prostitute, a lowly woman whose only job is to make love, have sex, and be a sex servant/slave. Even though Enkidu did not realize this since he was confused at the time, he is truly not as powerful as Gilgamesh. If we recall from the first tablet, one of the activities that Gilgamesh does is sleep with newly-married wives, the wives of nobles of Uruk, and I am presuming he also sleeps with the temple prostitutes as well.

That is probably the main argument of my paper- can we truly consider Gilgamesh and Enkidu as equals? Even in tablet 2, we can see that Gilgamesh ultimately does win over Enkidu in terms of fighting each other, and somehow, they become the best of friends. I am unsure how this could occur- yes, Enkidu might have more strength than the others in the city, but certainly, he is no match for Gilgamesh. It is my understanding that the sole purpose of Enkidu was to be an equal to Gilgamesh so that they become “friends” or “buddies” who will do activities and will be distracted enough to not rule the land with an iron fist. So far, we have seen that Enkidu is physically weaker, sexually weaker, etc., and so, can we still consider them equals? I don’t think so, and it truly is a puzzling story of how they actually become friends- in addition, Enkidu gets in a fight with Gilgamesh because he is sleeping with newly-married wives, and yet, he just slept with a temple prostitute for a week! So, Enkidu has very interesting and odd values, and the story of how Gilgamesh and Enkidu become friends also become questionable because I thought that Enkidu was mad at Gilgamesh for sleeping with these women in the first place.

In all, we see that the whole friendship is very questionable in terms of how Gilgamesh and Enkidu became friends all of a sudden even though they have different values, Gilgamesh is still superior in pretty much every way possible… so how is this FRIENDSHIP possible? We will probably see, though, in future tablets how Enkidu can influence Gilgamesh, and that will probably when Enkidu has an upper hand over Gilgamesh, which would bring them together more in terms of equality over each other.