Enkidu
Mesopotamian · mortal · mythic · Recorded classification
Enkidu was missing, which is the single most conspicuous absence in a registry that already held Gilgamesh, Ninsun and Lugalbanda. He is made in the wilderness as the king's equal — the gods' answer to a complaint about Gilgamesh's tyranny — and he lives with the animals until Shamhat takes him out of that life, after which the herd will not have him back. The epic is unusually clear that becoming human is a bargain with a loss in it. He and Gilgamesh kill Humbaba and then the Bull of Heaven, the gods decide that one of the two must die for it, and Enkidu is the one. Everything after Tablet VIII — the journey, Siduri, Utnapishtim, the failure to stay awake — happens because a man watched his friend die and could not accept it.
Domains
- wilderness
Powers
- to graze and drink with the wild animals, and to undo a hunter's traps
Relations
- counterpart of: GilgameshMade deliberately as Gilgamesh's double and counterweight — the epic's premise is that Uruk cannot be governed until the king has an equal. The pair then become inseparable; recorded here as counterpart rather than companion because Gilgamesh's record belongs to the seed core and cannot carry a reciprocal.Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet I: the gods have Enkidu made as an equal to Gilgamesh, so that Uruk may have peace. (primary)
- enemy: HumbabaUrges the killing of Humbaba and takes part in it; it is the first of the two acts the gods punish.Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet V: the killing of Humbaba in the Cedar Forest. (primary)
- enemy: GugalannaKills the Bull of Heaven with Gilgamesh and then insults Ishtar with its haunch — the second killing, and the one that settles the sentence against him.Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet VI: Enkidu and Gilgamesh kill the Bull of Heaven, and Enkidu throws its haunch at Ishtar. (primary)
Sources
- Enkidu is the wild man created by the gods as a match for Gilgamesh, civilised by Shamhat, who becomes Gilgamesh's companion, helps kill Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven, and dies as the gods' penalty for those killings.: Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablets I-VIII. (primary); Reference treatment of Enkidu: created by the gods as a rival to Gilgamesh, tamed by Shamhat, companion of Gilgamesh, condemned to death after the killings. (secondary)