Epic Of Gilgamesh

In this conclusion of the Epic Gilgamesh has wandered from his home, his wife, his children, his people, has given up his kingdom and power, all that was a comfort and a pleasure, all that meant life to him, because of the death of his brother Enkidu. More than his loss, his inconsolable grief for that lose, it was the realization of his own death that distressed him. He seeks escape. He knows the legend of Ut-napishtim, whose name literally means, “he who lives long.” He seeks him out at the end of the world, through the sacred (and forbidden) passage of the sun, the god who has been his special savior, as the Epic has told us. From Ut-napishtim he hopes to find answers or perhaps the way to avoid dying, just as he had. In the conclusion you are about to hear, he will be told the story of how Ut-napishtim came to his state of undying. He is segregated from man, so he tells, because this generation of men to which Gilgamesh belongs is a new incarnation; he is the sole survivor of an ancient race whom the