manner specific enough to be able to impart instructions for building an ark. Ea tells Utnapishtim, “Tear down the house. Build an ark” (Gardner 226).This type of contact is made explicit in the passage where Gilgamesh encounters the goddess “Siduri the barmaid, who dwells at the lip of the sea” (Gardner 209). Gilgamesh seeks entrance and is refused, but when he explains the nature of his quest she lets him in, only to explain why he was being foolish. In this passage she tells him to stop concentrating on death and to go home and live. “Thou, o Gilgamesh, let thy belly be filled! / Day and night be merry, / Daily celebrate a feast, / Day and night dance and make merry! / Clean be thy clothes, / Thy head be washed, bathe in water! / Look joyfully on the child that grasps thy hand, / Be happy with the wife in thine arms!” (Gilgamesh, quoted in Noss, 72). John Noss observes that “Here breathes the spirit of the people of Babylonia. They had no hopes such as the Egyptians had of pleasantness in the world beyond. All joy was in this life” (Noss 39).This cold fact became painfully real for Gilgamesh as he had to confront the death of his best friend, Enkidu. After Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh is confused, and terrified. “We [Enkidu and I] overcame everything. . .Six days and seven nights I weep over him...[not burying him] (Gardner 210).” He cannot deal with the fact that someone so dear to him, so much a part of his life, should be so utterly gone. Enkidu’s death has become as if it were Gilgamesh’s own, not only because their friendship has been extinguished, but because Gilgamesh has been brought face to face with his own mortality. When he dies, he will indeed be like Enkidu.. Weeping, he cries out, “Me, shall I not lie down like him, never again to move ” (Gardner 221). Surely there must be some antidote to this terrible fate! Gilgame...
