1969 basım, 99 sayfalık İngilizce versiyonunu okudum. Alıştırma yapmak için başlamıştım ama bağladı kendine ve yürek burkan bi aşk hikayesi ve sonuyla bitti. Glaucus tam bir romantik
Spoiler
IMMORTALITY THROUGH REMEMBRANCE
"The life that you seek you never will find:
when the gods created mankind,
death they dispensed to mankind,
life they kept for themselves.” (Sippar Tablet iii(1-5))
Says Shammash, in The Epic of Gilgamesh. The desire of living is the most fundamental element of being human. Even though it is impossible, throughout history, immortality wanted to be achieved, people desperately searched for it. This desire indeed has been reflected in the literature, especially in The Epic of Gilgamesh and Homer’s Iliad. This essay will cover the different perspectives on immortality and death and their relation in society, for both texts.
To begin with, in The Epic of Gılgamesh, the desire of being remembered forever had been represented by Gilgamesh’s wanting the cut down the Cedar Forest. He claims his thoughts on immortality by saying “I will establish for ever a name eternal!” (Tablet 2, 87) Since he is aware that he cannot live forever, he wanted to be remembered. That is why he wants to cut down the Cedar Forest, and makes a gate out of the trees, so that everyone who sees the gate, will remember him. I argue that his motivation for cutting down the Cedar Forest is just a despondent need of being remembered. He thinks, by doing so, he can be remembered forever, even after he is dead. After his bellowed friend Enkidu’s death, he realizes that he is also mortal and yet, he cannot accept that reality and desperately begins his journey of finding immortality. At this point, I argue that Gilgamesh’s being the King of Uruk, sort of makes him think like he has to live forever, since all warriors and leaders have to be remembered, in his point of view. He cannot acknowledge that he is mortal since he sees himself as the strongest man alive and the