Every culture claims to have a specific beginning and a specific ending, a very literal WHY? Of life, they try to explain why many things are happening always and constantly. In these tablets Gilgamesh in is the pursuit of salvation, seeing that he could not save him un-biological brother, Enkidu he is on the path of saving himself from a similar destiny as Enkidu. Nevertheless I am attracted to the very ending of tablet 10, in which there the basic rules and standards for who lives and who dies are mentioned in such passage.
"How long does a building stand before it falls? How long does a contract last? How long will brothers
share the inheritance before they quarrel?
How long does hatred, for that matter, last?
Time after time the river has risen and flooded.
The insects leave a cocoon to live but for a minute.
How long is the eye able to look at the sun?
From the very beginning nothing at all has lasted.
See how the dead and the sleeping resemble each other.
Seen together, they are image of death.
The simple man and the ruler resemble each other.
The face of one will be darkened like one of the other.
The Anunnaki gathered in assembly;
Mammetum, Mother Goddess, she was with them.
There they have established that there is life and death. The day of death is set, yet not made known.” Tablet10. Pg. 64
Basically it adds up to nothing lasts for ever, we have to die someday, somehow but nothing will tell us. It will happen, and there is nothing to stop it, it is meant to be, the balance of the world will be kept serene if these guidelines are followed. These guidelines may not only apply to the Sumerian culture of the time, but as said previously the Summer legacies carry on through generations and generations, to the point where many religions and beliefs are connected in ideals by this one “common destiny”.
• “Carpe diem”, Seize The day!
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