Siduri

Siduri keeps a bar at the end of the world and bolts the door when she sees Gilgamesh coming, which is a reasonable response to a man in a lion skin. What she then says to him, in the Old Babylonian version, is the oldest carpe diem speech we have: the gods kept life for themselves, so fill your belly, keep your clothes clean, wash your head, hold your child's hand, let your wife enjoy you. This is the whole answer to the epic's question, offered in Tablet X by a tavern-keeper, and Gilgamesh ignores it and goes on to Utnapishtim to be told the same thing at greater length. The standard Akkadian version cuts the speech down, which later readers have regretted.

Variant accounts

• Siduri's famous counsel belongs to the Old Babylonian version and is abridged in the standard one.The advice to eat, drink and be content — the passage usually quoted as the first statement of the carpe diem theme — is preserved in the Old Babylonian fragment. The standard Akkadian recension keeps Siduri and her tavern but reduces her speech, so which Siduri a reader meets depends on which text is in front of them.Reference treatment of Siduri, noting the Old Babylonian advice passage and its interpretation as the first occurrence of the carpe diem theme. (secondary)

Domains

• brewing
• wisdom

Relations

• guide of: GilgameshShe is the last person who tells him the truth before he gets what he asks for: that the crossing is possible, and that it will not give him what he wants.Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet X: Siduri tells Gilgamesh where to find Urshanabi and how the crossing to Utnapishtim is made. (primary)

Sources

• Siduri is the divine alewife of the Epic of Gilgamesh, keeping a tavern at the edge of the sea, who counsels Gilgamesh to accept death and enjoy his life, and directs him onward to Utnapishtim.: Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet X; Old Babylonian Meissner fragment. (primary); Reference treatment of Siduri as the alewife who lives in a tavern at the edge of the ocean and advises Gilgamesh to accept mortality. (secondary)