The Epic of Gilgamesh Perseverance

These are nearly the opening lines of the epic, and form part of a longer passage talking about the awesomeness of Gilgamesh, his accomplishments, and his city. But these lines don't just talk about what Gilgamesh accomplished; they also talk about the effort he put into accomplishing them, "pushing himself to exhaustion." By then adding in the next line that Gilgamesh "then was brought to peace," the poem lays out one of its key themes: you have to try everything.

A "league" is roughly 3 miles. This means that Gilgamesh and Enkidu walked 60 miles before taking a break for food, and another 30 miles before they stopped for the night—making a total day's journey of 90 miles. This must show some pretty serious perseverance, right? Well, maybe—unless you're basically a superhero. In that case, we're not so impressed.

The first two lines of this passage come from Humbaba's curses against Enkidu, when he realizes that he can't persuade Enkidu to save his life. The fact that Humbaba can't change Enkidu's mind shows Enkidu's perseverance—or, you know, stubbornness. But Enkidu is afraid that his friend Gilgamesh doesn't have as much perseverance as he does—and calls him out on it.

This passage is fragmentary, but we still think it's possible to get the idea of what's going on. Basically, the Bull of Heaven, sent by Ishtar, is attacking Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Because the Bull is so powerful, its snorts make giant crevices open up in the earth—and Enkidu falls into one of these. But Enkidu doesn't give up the fight; instead, as the passage tells us, he jumps up and grasps the Bull by the horns. So to speak. Then, even though the Bull starts spewing bodily waste in every direction, Enkidu keeps hanging on—and even gives his friend instructions on how to kill the beast. Once again, Gilgamesh does as he's told. Once again, Enkidu's perseverance triumphs. So … is Gilgamesh learning perseverance from Enkidu?

Finally, Gilgamesh has arrived at the end of the earth—but the passage forward is defended by two Scorpion-beings. Gilgamesh needs permission from the Scorpion-beings to proceed further. Although what the first Scorpion-being says at this point is hard to make out (because the tablet is broken), he basically seems to be making the road ahead seems super spooky Gilgamesh will turn back. But Gilgamesh isn't about to back to down—and he gives the Scorpion-being a piece of his mind. When the Scorpion-being sees Gilgamesh's perseverance, it gives him permission to continue—and wishes that he will continue to be brave and persevere on the rest of his journey. Is this a larger message to the Sumerian readers of this text? Is perseverance a trait that we should all be aspiring to as good Sumerians?

Here, Gilgamesh has to travel 12 leagues before the sun comes barreling along the same path, when he will be burned to a crisp. Stopping at any point on this journey is not an option. As you can see, Gilgamesh just barely escapes getting fried—but escapes nonetheless. For modern readers, the way the story is told here might seem a bit repetitious—but we think this might just be the epic's way of acting out Gilgamesh's perseverance.

Here we see more signs of Gilgamesh's perseverance. Even though he's totally worn out, he keeps insisting on learning the way forward. If he can cross the sea, fine. If not, he'll find something else to do. Simple as that. The man doesn't know the meaning of the word "impossible."

Gilgamesh explains to Utanapishtim how he's been able to make his journey—bysealing off his emotions—which he describes metaphorically as bolting a door or caulking a ship with "pitch and bitumen" (basically tar). But does this perseverance make Gilgamesh achieve the goal of his quest—to achieve immortal life? Not quite. But maybe he gets something even better.

Here, we see the most basic kind of perseverance when Gilgamesh uses punting pole after punting pole to push the boat along the perilous Waters of Death. (And let's not forget that Gilgamesh himself just went into the woods and carved these punting poles.) But then we really see what Gilgamesh is made of when the punting poles run out. Does he give up? No way. Faced with adversity, Gilgamesh comes up with a solution: he uses his clothes as a sail, and holds it in place with his arms.

Here, Siduri seems to think that a noble, mighty warrior is never supposed to get tired. We're not so sure about that. Maybe perseverance means getting tired, but forging ahead anyway.