Tablets VIII, IX The Quest

Enkidu's life ends. Gilgamesh mourns, the people mourn. Gilgamesh goes out to seek the answer to one question: How can death be avoided...?"and weeping saying: Enkidu has died. Must I die too? Must Gilgamesh be like that? Gilgamesh felt the fear of it in his belly. He said to himself that he would seek the son of Ubartutu, Utnapishtim, he, the only one of men by means of whom he might find out how death could be avoided." (pg. 48).

Being Gilgamesh a two thirds god, would validate his search. Obviously this makes more sense in a poem like this than it would make to us. But though, this pursuit is quite understandable. Who wants to die? No one, off course. We, as  people might sometimes wonder if there is a way. A way to avoid what is really the only inevitable thing in life. 

Death. What about it? As far as I know, no one knows what it is like, or if it has a face, or a color. Why are we humans so afraid of it? We think there is nothing worse than it. This is the maximum penalty: the end. But it could be the end of one life, and the beginning of another, who knows. Death comes and goes, its the circle of life. 

But about the poem; being Gilgamesh the main character, we think that he can't die (like in the Disney movies...), but before Enkidu's end, we thought that because he was the main character, he would outlive most of the ordinary humans. But no,no,no he died all right. This is what I like about this poem, even thought it is short, it is quick, and unpredictable. So, Gilgamesh seeing the death of his fellow partner, he is afraid, truly afraid. He goes seeking for an answer, for a cure for death, but will he find the impossible potion, the inconceivable cure the inevitable...