IV. The Lesson of Immortality❋

[kingofallkings]

IV. The Lesson of Immortality.

At last I've thoroughly investigated Gilgamesh's legend, all the way to the end. A golden king. An absolute being who doesn't see people as people. A man who obtained everything in the world, though it was the dawn of civilization. There have been many great rulers and leaders in human history. There was a conquering king who journeyed east tearing through the lands. There was an emperor who first raised a gigantic empire. But Gilgamesh indeed stands out even among that number.

He put himself before his subjects and his country. He had no particular desire for conquest or curiosity. Perhaps from the beginning he had too many things, so he thought of himself first. So in the end it came to his quest for immortality. In mankind's oldest story, "The Epic of Gilgamesh," there is an anecdote concerning a magical herb that can grant eternal life and youth.

Gilgamesh: Hm? What is it, your face is clouded. Is it your useless worries again? It's fine, you needn't pain yourself. Tell me about it.

Fortunately Gilgamesh seems to be in a good mood. All right. In that case I should ask him. I wouldn't feel right if we went to face our final battle together with things as vague as they are now. So then --

[>] Why did you relinquish the elixir of immortality?

Gilgamesh: -- what?

Or no, why did he search for immortality in the first place? It says in the legend that he became afraid of death, but I really can't imagine this heroic spirit with such a good personality!

Gilgamesh: I see. So you've made it all the way through my epic, then. Then I won't ask why you question. However, that question touches my deepest level. I will answer if you want to know, but are you prepared? You will be making me tell that irritating story. You'll incur a debt you will never be able to repay even if you spend your whole life trying. Do you still want to hear it?

...it's an unexpected twist. Gilgamesh's speech sounds neither angry nor amused. It's a plainer tone than I've ever heard from him before. Which means he's serious. I --

Gilgamesh: Then I'll tell you. What, it will be quick. After all, the facts are just what it says in the epic.

So you're just going to start on your own after all that -- !? What is this Gilganism, I didn't even get the choice of "yes" or "no!"

Gilgamesh: Lower the lights. This is a grossly insufficient stage, but we can at least improve the ambiance.

I was born to Lugalbanda, the king of a distant era, and the goddess Rimat-Ninsun. I was granted the highest class of body a human could have, and wisdom to reach the truth. Apparently I was something of a good person in my childhood. After all, it seems the people of Uruk loved me as their flower, their butterfly, and rejoiced that they had the greatest of all kings.

...no, wait a minute. "Apparently," "it seems," those aren't words you need to use when talking about your own past. I can't really talk, given all the damage to my own memories, but is it that the King of Heroes' memories of his childhood are vague?

Gilgamesh: Vague, indeed! My childhood self and my current self have entirely different natures. I can't even picture what I was like as a child. I think it would be the same for the child me. If he knew he would grow up to be me, he might have even stopped growing. That is nothing but a hypothetical, though.

I grew up, and I determined my own plan. I would not live as a king who governed people. I would live as a storm to remonstrate them. What followed afterward is as it says in the epic. I stole and hoarded as I pleased. My people and my country both belong to me. All the treasures, all the possibilities that they bore I gathered and made my own.

Why? That's obvious. To judge. Humans were invention incarnate, but they had no common standard. No, because they had no common standard, they continued to create new things. So they needed an absolute basis. An adjudicator who was human yet above humanity, affiliated with the gods but not a god, that is. If only to govern, a human would have been fine. If only to menace, a god would have fine. The gods never did understand that.

Adjudicator... now that you mention it, Karna did call Gilgamesh that. To ascertain. To judge. The incarnation of punishment, unswayed by human values. Is that what Gilgamesh bases himself on...?

Gilgamesh: This was before the Code of Ur-Nammu was established. That Hammurabi did establish a few more little things later, but the root is the law by which people may raise their complaints against other people. I based my life on nothing but myself. I gathered treasure, laid with women, fought with my friend, and overthrew all the evils of the earth. Then, when all of that work was finished, a certain life returned to dust. Or to put it plainly, accepted death. Until then, I had never lamented death, nor feared it. I don't think I was even conscious of it. Yet before my eyes, someone with power equal to my own had vanished. I knew that death comes to everyone, no matter who, but that was the first time I truly felt it.

I guess the "equal" Gilgamesh refers to is Enkidu. According to the Epic, seeing Enkidu perish before his eyes, Gilgamesh realized that he too would one day die, and became afraid. So in the end, in order to escape death, he went to pay a visit to the traveler who was said to have conquered death. The last adventure of the King of Heroes. It was the quest to Kigal, the netherworld, in search of immortality.

Gilgamesh: Of course, it wasn't as if I'd never considered an elixir of immortality before. I did need to furnish my treasury with all the treasures of the earth. Even if he had not returned to dust, I would eventually have had to search for it. But now I also had a reason. I hated death, which had stolen him away, and I feared it. For the first time in my life, I feared my own death.

The journey that followed was, in a word, laughable. They said that in the underworld lived a man who had conquered death. So for a length of time equal to my whole life prior, I wandered the wild lands, always aiming for the underworld. So? Just as the legend says, isn't it? Wretched, fearing death with all my heart, I crawled the earth. For the same reason all of you do. For in the face of death, even a child of the gods is no different from any other human being.

However, even my foolishness was above of the rest of yours. ...unsightly though it was, I continued to be consumed by my own misery. I knew not for what, or for whom, I would overcome death. I just kept cursing at the sky, that I had to be eternal and indestructible.

He speaks as if nostalgic. For however many decades, Gilgamesh wandered the wilderness. He threw away his pride as king, his honor, and his authority. All because he was consumed with fear of death, with not wanting to die.

-- but is that really true? It seems he really did fear death. But wasn't that just one reason? Why did he hate "death" in the first place? Was he angry at his friend's death? Was it the fear brought on by knowing even his equal could die? ...No. I have no grounds for it, but I can assert that that's wrong. I'm sure that he wouldn't have allowed himself to abandon his duty. He decided to see it through. He decided to be the people's adjudicator. He decided to ascertain not daily happiness, but people's lives and ultimate fate. That was his way of kingship. Which means -- In order to see things to their "conclusion," he sought an indestructible body, that would persist until the end of the world.

Gilgamesh: When I reached the underworld, I learned the secret of immortality from the sage. It was nothing to speak of. He had simply joined the ranks of the gods and so received long life. Truly laughable. The sage had become part vegetable. That's what it means to join the gods. I had to become immortal while still holding human desires. What could possible come of living forever in a body that does not feel desire? I left the underworld behind. I thought to return swiftly to Uruk, to complete my collection of treasures. However. The sage had perhaps become faint of heart, so negating his own being. So he told me of a certain secret.

Or perhaps, being estranged from Gilgamesh who refused god-granted immortality, he wanted to fall to that level again. That sage said, "I know that you will not submit to the gods. I will not tell you to beg mercy from the Anunnaki. Instead -- I will tell you a secret."

The sage told Gilgamesh of a way to become immortal without begging for pity from the gods. The root of a magic herb that grew in the abyss. That was the secret of immortality.

Gilgamesh: Of course I had no interest in becoming a vegetable no matter what he said, but what he spoke of was certainly a rare treasure. As an elixir of immortality it would certainly enhance my treasury. I stopped by the abyss, packed the magic herb into a bottle, and returned to earth. That's everything. I returned to Uruk, completed the city's fortifications and my treasury, and went to sleep. The reason I sought immortality was something like this. Indeed. As you can see, it is exactly according to legend, the unvarnished truth! Now, the story is over. I will consider what compensation will be required for this questioning in due time. Look forward to it, all right?

What...? N, no, not that! And plus, I object to Gilgamesh's attempt to close the curtain here. What I wanted to know wasn't "the reason he sought immortality." It was why, after he finally obtained the magic herb, he let it go!

Gilgamesh: ...Hakuno, how many times do you intend to make me say "just as the legend says." I let the snake have it. While I was bathing, conceited wretch, immortality was snatched away. I, who approves of desire, had the rug pulled out from under me by a snake that crawls the plains. By the simple desire of "hunger." The snake that consumed the herb gained the ability to shed its skin. It was a power not of immortality, but of rejuvenation. Not a bad elixir, I do have something of the sort in my treasury?

That's it. I've finally figured it out. This is what I noticed -- no, what drew me in. According to the Epic, the snake stole the magic herb from Gilgamesh. The strange part was after that. He didn't then go to the netherworld again, but instead returned to Uruk. He spent half his life chasing immortality, so why did he give up there? What did Gilgamesh see at that time, that's what I want to know.

Gilgamesh: Such a pointless detail -- but, well, it is indeed mysterious. I myself can't put into words what was in my mind back then. I needed no immortality modeled after the gods. So I said, but in some corner of my heart I hoped.

When I returned to earth, I smiled at my accomplishments. With this I could overthrow death. I could clear the shadow of my friend's death. At the same time I imagined the voices of the people of Uruk. If I brought immortality to them, their praises would be greater than any before. In the end, I was a child of men, made of flesh... you see. They call it youthful indiscretion. But at the same time, vanity showed its face. Just then I took notice of the shabbiness of my appearance, which I had until then paid no mind to. Thinking to cleanse myself before returning to Uruk, I recovered from my exhaustion in a nearby spring.

It was an exhaustion that had built and built for decades. The water was like the winds of heaven, like the snow of a sacred mountain, warming, cooling, softly it healed me. -- peace, you might call it. It was as if my body and soul were both freed from long stagnation. I have never felt as drunk on my own achievements as I was then. I was so intoxicated I wanted to scream. To confess, that was the first time I knew joy. Collecting treasure is in my nature. It is something like breathing. It isn't joy. However -- that time was different. For the first time I was delighted and thankful that I was born into this world. Though I had often declared I had the perspective of humanity, until that moment, I was not human. I was released from everything. I was no longer lost, no longer afraid, I had no attachments and no obligations, and I trembled with an overwhelming feeling of omnipotence.

This is the pulse of life. This is the reward of selfishness. This joy that you could call the conclusion of the birth of the universe, I could go on wanting it eternally.

But what awaited me, fool I was, was that snake's thievery. The magic herb was lost. The snake gained a new body and left. -- what coursed through me then was laughter. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. It was strange and crazy but I couldn't stop. Look, this is how it ends! I laughed long and loud at my own foolishness. What had I obtained, what had I boast of but "nothing." Indeed, I gained nothing, didn't I? In the end my hands held nothing -- and I understand that that was the only reward for my efforts.

The fulfillment I'd felt for the first time, the joy of life, they were things that could vanish, just like this, in an instant. That is what the human world was. That is what I had to grasp.

As an immortal being, what could I ever know of this true bliss? In the end immortality is a mistake of the mediocre. It's nothing more than a dream for mongrels who cannot reach an ending unless they live long.

I had no need for eternal life. These eyes foresee the future to begin with. I had no reason to fear death. I could simply be there, in that era, presently invincible, and gaze upon the distant future with no need for the passage of time.

--mankind's oldest story. My duty as hero who would be spoken of in ages to come would be fulfilled. That's all there is to the story.

I was born as a human being, and after tasting joy, as a human being I died.

I'm sorry. Earlier I said that I have been perfect since my birth, which was inaccurate. Even I was once immature. I spent almost my whole life growing. My body matured during my days with my friend, and this was when my spirit reached maturity. My long childhood had finally ended. I looked up at the sky and it spread out forever. All I needed was my own eyes, and I could see through many months and many years. In that time, my body would be rotting away. But mankind's world would still be growing. I could even perhaps see a light of many millions of years to come.

...such a future I saw. My heart danced at the sight. You might think of it as if I lost my drive. I had collected everything I had to collect. There was no more pleasure to be had in the present era. So all that remained was to perish gracefully.

I could taste of death over and over again. And afterward I could return as much as I'd like. To that time, to see that era. Until the end of the world. Until the day mankind goes beyond my garden, the world... begins rowing into the great dark sea -- until they reach the end of the sky, and find their conclusion.

...that was his final dream. Gilgamesh laughed at the magic herb the snake had stolen. Next he knew, the sun had risen. Smiling at the truly human that had bloomed within in for but one moment, he began he way back to Uruk. That was the end of Gilgamesh's journey. After that he governed Uruk as king over heroes, and left this world. As humanity's most ancient hero. As the illustrious king who was the first to have "become a legend."

His long story is finished. What Gilgamesh felt back then reaches me through the bond between Master and Servant. Compared to the truth he found in that moment, an elixir of immortality really had no meaning.

Gilgamesh: -- well, after Uruk was completed, I did secretly travel to the abyss and retrieve it. It is a rare treasure, if nothing else.

He retrieved it!? He's never been freed from selfishness at all...!

Gilgamesh: Hmph. Don't say that, gathering treasure is like an instinct for me, just let it go without comment. They say that if you're well prepared you have no need to worry. At least I won't have any trouble if a situation arises where I need to rejuvenate into a child?

Oh, I see. I'm going to pray that such a situation never occurs. ...but I think I've figured it out at last. Whether judgment that appears equal to the truth of the universe, or the misgovernment of drunken oblivion, if he performs it, it becomes the unquestionable ruling of the king. That's what it means to be an absolute monarch. That is the true nature of the one who has lead me this far.

Gilgamesh: Oh? Are you looking at me with reverence now? Good. Look as much as you wish. If you'd prefer a change of clothes, I wouldn't mind?

No, I'm fine, I refuse with all my might. And I don't revere him anyway. It's just that, as his Master, I've come to understand Gilgamesh, and endeavored to be able to use him well in battle. So, I don't really... I'm just kind of glad to know that what lies at his root isn't evil. Ah, no, I'm certainly not saying that Gilgamesh is a good person, that's still as much of a headache as it --

Gilgamesh: Heh. So you were the first to give in. Isn't that what this is?

It is not! I never express my emotions in such embarrassing ways!

Gilgamesh: Don't try to hide it so much, it will only make you more obvious. You'll embarrass even me. But this is a fine place to stop. The old stories end here. Let us return to battle, Hakuno. To continue this conversation would lead only to self-conceit.

Gilgamesh stands up with a pleased smile on his face. I clear my throat, pull myself together, and nod, "of course." In a brief moment of peace, I've obtained the answer I wanted. All that remains is to return to the battlefield alongside Gilgamesh, as his Master.

 

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