At the House of Ūtanapišti (pre-print, Fs. NN).

At the House of Ūtanapišti. An Interpretive Essay. Nathan Wasserman The Hebrew University of Jerusalem To NN Tablet XI of SB Gilg. starts with the story of the Flood and ends with Gilgameš’s journey back to Uruk. In between, there is a fascinating scene that takes place at the House of Ūtanapišti. This essay – presented in friendship and with appreciation to NN – offers an exegetical reading of this scene. HOW TO TREAT GILGAMEŠ? Toward the end of the story, the two main characters of tablet XI, Ūtanapišti and Gilgameš, are joined by another protagonist: Ūtanapišti’s unnamed wife. She appears twice: to serve the freshly-baked bread to the slumber-stricken Gilgameš, and to ask her husband, at the end, what he gave to the departing guest. Although a side character, she demonstrates an independence of will when acting as a sympathetic agent towards Gilgameš, even against her husband’s wishes. Her role in this part of the epic is not insignificant.1 The first time Ūtanapišti’s wife comes to the fore is when her husband has finished telling his incredible story to Gilgameš and asks him sarcastically: “Now, as for you, who will gather gods for you so that you will find eternal life that you seek?” (XI 207–208).2 The sleeping test follows, and the guest fails it instantly (XI 209–211). It is then that Ūtanapišti’s wife asks her husband to stop the trial and wake the weary traveler up. Why? Isn’t it common courtesy, when a wanderer knocks on the door, exhausted from the long road, to let him rest to regain his strength? Her motivation for the plea is implied by her words: “Touch him, let the man awake! (By) the road he came let him go back in safety, (by) the gate he came out let him return to his land!” (XI 216–218). She knows that this sleep will do Gilgameš no good, so she wants to put a stop to the ordeal and send him home to safety posthaste, even if he is still worn down. Parenthetically, Ūtanapišti’s wife does not know how Gilgameš arrived at their abode. Her words indicate that she assumed he reached Pī-nārātim directly from Uruk, and so she My understanding of Ūtanapišti’s wife differs therefore from that of Harris, who considers her “passive, acted upon” (Harris 1990, 225). 2 Unless noted otherwise, all references to the epic follow the editions of George 2003 and Wasserman 2020. 1 1 suggests that he return by the same route. This misconception reflects a lack of communication between Ūtanapišti and herself, because Gilgameš recounted his adventures at length to Ūtanapišti when they first met (X 220–265).3 Apparently, he never shared this information with his wife. The tension between the couple breaks out into the open when Ūtanapišti directs an outburst toward his wife and belittles her with a sagacious saying: raggat amēlūtu iraggigki “Mankind is evil! It will ill-treat you!” (XI 220).4 This ends the discussion about rousing the traveler, and Gilgameš’s sleep continues undisturbed. In her confrontation with Ūtanapišti, his wife joins other feminine characters in the epic who were supportive of Gilgameš, advising him to return or remain in Uruk.5 At the beginning, it is his mother Ninsun; by the end, it is Siduri; and in the middle, to a certain point, it is even the infatuated Ištar. Contrary to his wife’s empathetic attitude, Ūtanapišti sees Gilgameš not as an individual, but merely as a representative of humankind. He views him negatively and condescendingly (although Gilgameš did not provoke or offend him in any way). By this point, Ūtanapišti is apparently fully assimilated in the community of the gods and has internalized Enlil’s reaction, upon seeing the boat on Mount Nimuš and realizing that someone has, against all odds, survived the Flood (XI 175–176). In other words, once he has been admitted by Enlil to the community of the gods (XI 199–204), he behaves more like his new divine patron rather than like Ea, the more human-oriented god, whom he had worshiped originally.6 NOT SLEEPING OR NOT EATING? Ūtanapišti rebuffed his wife’s request and did not wake Gilgameš. Instead, he devised the ingenious idea of placing a freshly baked loaf in front of the sleeping hero every day, as a means to count the time elapsed. The task of baking and serving the rounds of bread was, expectedly, assigned to his wife. The scene in which Gilgameš sleeps for seven days and does not consume the bread offered him mirrors the beginning of the epic, where Enkidu, after lying with Šamḫat for seven days (SB I 194), is served bread for the first time (SB II 44–51). Both As he did when meeting Siduri (X 29–66) and Ur-šanabi (X 120–143). Translation based on CAD R 62 (ragāgu is attested only here). Harris (1990, 226) describes it aptly as “jaundiced proverb”. A similar pessimistic view of human nature and morality, connected directly to the Flood, is found in the Gen. 8: 21: “And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humans, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth…’” (translation of biblical texts, here and below, follows the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition). 5 See Harris 1990. 6 On the hidden tension in the pantheon, between Enlil and the rest of the gods, see Wasserman 2020, 149–152. 3 4 2 scenes concern an unmindful, recumbent hero, to whom bread is presented (in the case of Enkidu, his tasting of the bread is separated from his lying with the harlot). In both scenes, the hero is about to pass the threshold of humanity: Enkidu, after having laid with Šamḫat and eaten the bread, is rejected from the wild and thrust into urban civilization; Gilgameš, failing to be accepted to the divine sphere, is forced to return to human culture. Simply put, both heroes – after lying down for seven days (having sex, or sleeping) and being confronted with bread – turn human against their own will. The logic underlying the two antipodean episodes is ‘joined eating → joined living,’ or simply put, ‘you stay with those with whom you eat.’7 If we combine this principle with the myth of Adapa, who unwittingly refused to eat and drink the comestibles that Anu offered him in heaven and thus missed out on eternal life, a new understanding of the test of Gilgameš emerges. As I understand the scene, Gilgameš was not denied eternal life because he could not stay awake. (Why would this be a problem? Aren’t the gods drowsing and napping happily?) The problem lay in the fact that he did not eat the divine food presented to him. In other words, against the surface-level reading, the bread served by Ūtanapišti’s wife was not just a tool to measure the days spent asleep. Quite the opposite: the uneaten bread was a crucial element in the scene, the true mechanism of the trial. That is, the sleep was the obstacle that prevented the hero from eating the bread, the ambrosia, so to say, that would have granted him access to the community of the gods. In this light, Ūtanapišti’s wife, who wanted to wake Gilgameš and stop the sleeping ordeal, appears even more supportive of Gilgameš. THE OLD COUPLE: ŪTANAPIŠTI AND HIS WIFE VS. ABRAHAM AND SARAH A surprising parallel to Gilgameš’s stay at the house of Ūtanapišti in tablet XI is found in Gen. 18:1–15. In Jewish tradition, the importance of these verses (commonly referred to as the Visit of the Angels) lies in the divine promise to Abraham that he will have a son. The Qur’anic tradition (Al-Hijr 51–54) similarly focuses on the good tidings of the soon-to-be-born son. Christian exegesis focuses instead on the three visitors who come to the patriarch, who are understood to prefigure the Holy Trinity. All three traditions, though, stress Abraham’s hospitality (Philoxenia, in Christian writings). The biblical text reads as follows: The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that 7 For a new volume on different aspects of commensality, see Weiss et al., forthcoming. 3 you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them, and he stood by them under the tree while they ate. They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I be fruitful?” The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “Yes, you did laugh.” The thematic parallels between the two plots are striking, and the differences all the more revealing. (1) In both stories, the Mesopotamian epic and the biblical account, an old and childless couple who are living in an isolated location receive a guest or guests unexpectedly, whereby (2) the divine and the human planes of existence meet. In Gilg. XI, the hosting couple is divine and the guest is human; in Gen. 18, it is the other way round. (3) In both stories, the member(s) of the divine sphere – Ūtanapišti in Gilg. XI and the angelic visitors in Gen. 18 – are indistinguishable from human beings. It is their knowledge, the unique message they bear, that distinguishes the divine from the human. (4) In both stories, bread (alone, or with other foodstuffs) is prepared to the guest(s). In Gen. 18, there is no explicit mention of the food being served or consumed; in Gilg. XI, the bread is served but left untouched (see above). (5) In both stories, tension arises between the old man and his wife, which is triggered by the arrival of the guest(s). In Gen. 18, Abraham is showing hospitality to the guests while his wife, Sarah, is half-hearted; in Gilg. XI, Ūtanapišti is hostile to the guest, while his wife is friendly. (6) In both stories, at the departure of the guest(s), a promise of eternity is proclaimed by the divine party. in Gen. 18, the departing mysterious guests promise Abraham and Sarah that they will soon have a son, through whom “Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him” (Gen. 18:18). In Gilg. XI, Gilgameš receives a magic plant of rejuvenation. When the plant is lost, Gilgameš is forced to accept the fact that for him there is no eternity except through procreation. But the correspondence between the two accounts runs even deeper. Ms. z of the story of the Flood (a Late Babylonian or Achaemenid fragment) includes a striking passage: “Enlil went up into the b[oat]. He took my hand and escorted me from the boat: ‘You are Zisudra, (from now on) let [your name] be 4 Ūtnapištīm’”.8 No other Mesopotamian source known to me records a name change by a god. The immediate parallel that comes to mind (so already Wasserman 2020, 109) is in Gen. 17, where God changes the names of both Abraham (originally Abram) and Sarah (originally, Sarai). Topical and structural parallels, even if significant, are not enough to prove a genetic relationship between two accounts. However, given the many well-known and undeniable resemblances between the Mesopotamian and biblical stories of the Flood, in both general structure and specific details, it is not impossible that the post-diluvian scene of Gilgameš’s visit to the house of Ūtanapišti was known to the biblical author. He would have used its general frame for his purposes, reshaping the Mesopotamian scene centered on Ūtanapišti, the new founder of the human race, and shifting it to Abraham, the founder of the Israelite nation and religion. A SLEEPING ORDEAL AFTER ALL? Glassner (1990) drew attention to representations of hospitality in Mesopotamian literature. Examining the descent of Ištar/Inanna to the netherworld, other myths dealing with different gods visiting their peers, accounts of people arriving to nonnative cities and of envoys residing at foreign courts, Glassner detected a basic pattern of receiving guests: commensality. By contrast, when a stranger wishes to settle down permanently in a new locale and integrate into local society, a different pattern can be identified: the guest is challenged, even forced to fight with a representative of the local group. Only then – if the stranger is overcome – he may be embraced. In Glassner’s view, the prototypical example is Enkidu entering Uruk. Only after confronting Gilgameš and being overpowered by him is he accepted in Uruk as the king’s friend (Glassner 1990, 65–71). Taking Glassner’s conclusions as a point of departure, the meaning of the trial to which Gilgameš is subjected should be reconsidered. Faced with his guest’s hope to permanently join the divine community, Ūtanapišti challenges Gilgameš as a way of assessing his suitability. (Again, the myth of Adapa is helpful for comparison. There was no need to test Adapa’s fitness to be a god, since his magic powers were already proven by breaking the wings of the South Wind.) Gilgameš is faced with an impossible challenge, which he fails, and his hopes to become a god are dashed. īlâma [dEnl]il ana libbi e[leppi] iṣbat qāta [u]ltēlânni ul⌈tu⌉ libbi e[leppi] att[am]a mZisudra lū Ūtnapištīm [šumka] (Wasserman 2020, 107: 15'–17'). 8 5 If this is how we should analyze the scene, then the sleeping test, and not leaving the bread untouched, is, after all, the key element of the scene. It is hard to reconcile the two interpretative options, and I would prefer not to abandon one in favor of the other. The thick weave of the myth, with its multiple layers of meaning, can accommodate these two seemingly opposite readings. CHANGING CLOTHES Having failed the sleeping test and realizing that death awaits him, as to every mortal (XI 242–246), Gilgameš begins preparations for the journey home. He is taken to the bath and his shaggy clothes are replaced with garments suited for royalty (XI 250–270). The bathing and changing of clothes clearly evoke Siduri’s earlier counsel to Gilgameš to keep his clothes clean, to always wash his head, and to regularly bathe in water (OB VA+BM iii 10–11).9 Changing into royal attire even before reaching Uruk seems unusual, for it would be difficult to keep the robes clean on the long road to the city (cf. 260–261, 268–270).10 The change, however, is logically necessary to mark the end of Gilgameš’s existential quest. There is no intermediate position to occupy: if he is no longer a savage vagabond, he must restore his old status as monarch at the heart of civilization without delay. The same process of dressing up and putting royal attire appear in the first lines of Gilg. VI, immediately after Gilgameš and Enkidu return triumphantly to Uruk from the Cedar Forest: “He washed his matted hair, he cleaned his equipment, he shook his locks down over his back. He cast aside his dirty things, he clothed himself with his clean things, he wrapped himself in cloaks, tied with a sash. Gilgameš put on his crown (VI 1–5).11 Here too, as in the scene we treated in of this paper, Gilgameš stops being a wanderer and turns back to be a king. His clothing reflect his status accurately. AMBERGRIS? The epic stresses en passant that Gilgameš should “let … cast off his hides and the sea carry (them away)!” (XI 255, cf. 264). This detail is peculiar. Beyond being a sign of the definitive return of Gilgameš to civilization, I propose that it hides an etiological clue, referring to a specific marine substance that is washed ashore. (Note that Tablet XI already contains 9 George 2003, 278. See George 2003, 522–523. It is interesting to compare these lines to the text commonly called “At the Cleaners” (UET 6,2, 414, see Wasserman 2013), where the complex process of cleaning luxurious garments is described. 11 George 2003, 619. 10 6 other etiologies of natural phenomena: the magic plant – perhaps a thorny coral – and the snake shedding its skin).12 I suggest it should be identified with ambergris, an enigmatic waxy substance produced naturally by sperm whales (coprolite), which can be found floating on the surface of the ocean or on beaches all over the world (including the Indian Ocean).13 It takes the form of boulders reaching tens or even hundreds of kilograms in weight. When fresh, its color is dark purple or blackish, but when it dries out, it becomes light grey (whence its appellation, ambre gris, “grey amber” in Old French, next to ambre jaune, i.e. true, “yellow amber”). It is at this stage that its fecal, repulsive smell becomes a delicate musky odor.14 Through the ages, ambergris was used in deluxe perfumery (e.g., in the courts of Queen Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici).15 Other attested uses are as medicine and as an aphrodisiac.16 As far as I know, no word for ambergris exists in Akkadian or Sumerian, nor has anyone suggested that it is attested in cuneiform sources. The rarity of this substance and its direct connection to the ocean may be the reasons for this lexical silence – a silence that I hesitantly propose to fill with Gilg. XI 255 and 264.17 A FAREWELL GIFT? Upon the very departure of Gilgameš and Ur-šanabi, an unexpected event occurs. Ūtanapišti, prompted by his wife, gives Gilgameš a parting gift (XI 273–286). Why the sudden change of heart, and what exactly is the nature of his gift? Welcoming receptions to guests arriving at a new location, in the form of ceremonial meals, are known in cuneiform sources. 18 But gift-giving to departing guests is not part of ancient Mesopotamian etiquette. 19 If we look westward to archaic Greece, there is ample 12 See, convincingly, George 2003, 524–525. Dannenfeldt 1982. 14 “Unique, illusive of precise description, the odour of ambergris has been said to suggest fine tobacco, the wood in old churches, sandalwood, the smell of the tide, fresh earth and fresh seaweed in the sun. I myself am reminded of brazil nuts” (Clarke 2006, 10). 15 Rowland/Sutton/Knowles 2019. 16 Clarke 2006, 7. 17 Is it possible that the rare medical substance úḫ a.ab.ba, lit. “spittle of the sea”, perhaps a variant of ka a.ab.ba = imbû tâmti “algae, scum” (CAD R 437, s.v. ru’tu, end of article) designates ambergris? Another candidate is misis tâmti “Meerschaum(mineral)” (AHw 659 and CAD M/2, 111 – suggested to me by Marten Stol). None of these, however, are said to have a special odor. 18 A fine example of a welcome party for recently-arrived guests, which is not mentioned in Glassner (1990), is the MB Ištar-Dumuzi composition (JAOS 103, 26–27 = Wasserman 2016 no. 7), where young Ištar’s parents, Sîn and Ningal, offer an affluent meal to Dumuzi, visiting with his boys. The social hierarchy is clear: Ningal and her daughter Ištar serve sweet cake to Dumuzi, who in turn is taking care of his dogs and shepherds (in this order!) who stayed outside. 19 George (2003, 523) summarizes this scene saying that giving “departing guest [a] farewell gift [was] evidently required of good hospitality”, but besides this passage in Gilg. XI, no other such example is known. 13 7 literary evidence of this social practice – so much so, that some scholars apply the term ‘Gift Economy’ to ancient Greek society.20 An important characteristic of Homeric civilization is that gifts were, in principle, reciprocal. A host gave a sumptuous gift to his guest, knowing that one day, perhaps a generation later, the right occasion would arise and the guest, or his descendants, would give him a gift in return. 21 But an ancient Greek parallel to our case is lacking. First, in Gilg. XI, reciprocity is unreasonable. Gilgameš will never return to Pīnārātim, nor will Ūtanapišti and his wife – who are childless – ever visit Uruk. The whole point is that the two loci are not just remote, but two separate realms: the former belonging to gods (even if only parvenus), the latter to humans. Secondly, the abstract nature of the gift – a secret of the gods – prevents mutuality: what could Gilgameš possibly give to Ūtanapišti in return? Another secret? It would appear that Ūtanapišti’s gesture was not a farewell gift at all – for the simple fact that no actual gift was given, nor was one expected. It was, as I see it, a coda, a concluding act of his encounter with Gilgameš. As noticed by George,22 Ūtanapišti’s words to Gilgameš: lupte Gilgameš amāt niṣirti u pirišta š[a ilī kâšu luq]bīka “I will disclose, Gilgameš, a secret matter, and [I will] tell you a mystery of [the gods]” (XI 280–281), repeat verbatim his opening words to Gilgameš, before telling him about the Flood (XI 9–10). This repetition may be considered a scribal parsimony. But more importantly, pirištu ša ilī is the term used by the epic to designate Ea’s warning before the Flood that he leaked to Ūtanapišti. Explaining himself before the angry Enlil, Ea says: anāku ul aptâ pirišti ilī rabûti “I myself did not reveal the secret of the great gods” (XI 196, cf. 197). The same term is found also in the OB version of the story, where Enlil is furiously asking the gods: ayyānu ūṣi pí-ri!-iš-tim “Whence did the secret escape”? (C1(+)C2 vi 9).23 One could construe these echoes as simple stock phrases, typical of epic writing. Still, I wish to claim that this echoing is not merely technical but carries a message. It conveys that toward the end of Gilgameš’s meeting with Ūtanapišti, and the conclusion of the entire epic, the transmission of divine mystery does not stop. What started as a secret passed from Ea to Ūtanapišti continues with a secret passed from Ūtanapišti to Gilgameš.24 He, Gilgameš, is now the bearer of esoteric divine lore that is crucial for humanity. 20 The literature on different gifts and gift-giving in the ancient Aegean world is vast. I will only mention here a few papers which I found clear and instructive: Bertelli 2014 and Mifsud 2007. 21 Donlan 1982; Beidelman 1989; Cook 2016. For a more nuanced view of reciprocity, see Hooker 1989. 22 George 2003, 894 ad. ll. 281–282. 23 Wasserman 2020, 28, 36 with comm. on 56f. 24 It is perhaps no accident that Ūtanapišti tells Gilgameš his secret, when the latter is already standing on the boat. Both secrets – the one Ea told Ūtanapišti, and the one Ūtanapišti told Gilgameš – are therefore connected to eleppum. 8 The irony, of course, is that what Ūtanapišti revealed to Gilgameš, viz., the existence of the magic plant of rejuvenation, did not help him much, as the plant was snatched by the snake. Nonetheless, Gilgameš did receive the secret of the gods, and through his travels he did learn much about life, death, eternity, perpetuity and transient existence. Accordingly, he is the one “who saw the Deep, the bases of the land” (I 1). 9 Bibliography Beidelman 1989: T. O. Beidelman, Agonistic Exchange: Homeric Reciprocity and the Heritage of Simmel and Mauss, Cultural Anthropology 4, 227–259. Bertelli 2014: L. Bartelli, The Ratio of Gift-Giving in Homeric Poems, in: F. Carlà/M. Gori (eds.), Gift Giving and the ‘Embedded’ Economy in the Ancient World (Akademiekonferenzen 17), Heidelberg: Winter Verlag, 103–134. Clarke 2006: R. 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