h and he wishes to know where to find Utnapishtim, the only man with eternal life. To find him, Gilgamesh must locate Urshanabi, the ferry woman. She then proceeds to take him over the Ocean and over the waters of death. So Gilgamesh finds himself in Dilmun, the place where Utnapishtim resides. Utnapishtim asks why he has come. Gilgamesh proceeds to tell Utnapishtim the whole story about Enkidu dying, how far he has traveled, who he has met, and finally that he wants to know how to become immortal like him. "There is no permanence," Utnapishtim states, "It is only the nymph of the/ dragonfly who sheds her larva and sees the sun in her glory." This statement is saying that only woman live forever through reproduction. Utnapishtim continues to tell Gilgamesh how he got here and asks "As for you, Gilgamesh,/ who will assemble the gods for/ your sake, so that you may find that life for which you are searching?" Utnapishtim offers him a test and all he has to do is stay up for six days and seven nights. Gilgamesh can not do it, and he immediately falls asleep. Utnapishtim wakes him after seven days and tells Urshanabi to take Gilgamesh to be cleaned, then send him back to where he came from. But before Gilgamesh could leave, Utnapishtim told him of a plant underwater that would restore a mans youth. Gilgamesh then left to find this marvelous plant before he headed home. He found it and brought it with him. Urshanabi and Gilgamesh traveled a long ways before stopping for the night. While stopped, Gilgamesh went to go bathe in a well. But, deep in that well there was a serpent. "It rose out of the water and snatched it/ away, and immediately it sloughed its/ skin and returned to the well." Gilgamesh is left with nothing. The serpent was a symbol of a woman, and now Gilgamesh see that he can not have the power to bear everlasting life.In short, Gilgamesh ends up dying, like all men must do. He learned that there is no immortal life for men and ...
