Tablet IX
Gilgamesh fled into the desert with a cry from the heart. Reaching the sandy hills, he fell on the ground. Then, he fell asleep, but sleep did not return Enkidu. Waking up from a roar of a lion, he sees that the lions frolic playing like cubs.
– Why do you not know sorrow? – Gilgamesh turned to the lions. – Where is your friend, with whom you came together to the watering hole? Enkidu, who saved you all by destroying traps?
He did not wait for an answer from the lions, grabbed the ax, and started crushing the light-hearted animals.
Again, he walked in the desert, until the mountains, the World’s border, had appeared. In front of him, a cave was pierced in the rock. The cave was locked with a copper door and guarded by the most terrible guards, of whom people can hardly imagine. They have the thin legs of a scorpion, a shaggy body, and a human head. The hero felt afraid, but overcoming the fear with courage, Gilgamesh said to the guard:
— Open the doors for me if you can. I have no life between living people. I want to see a friend, who has become dust.
— There is no way in for the living nor the dead people. Shamash comes out from here and, going around the world, enters from the other side. Think – how will you walk by the path of Shamash himself?
— I’ll do, – Gilgamesh replied, – while sadness came into the heart. I will go with a sigh and cry, with only one thought, about Enkidu…
The doors opened noiselessly, giving up to an inexorable will. Gilgamesh entered the cave, and darkness surrounded him.
And he went on, counting the steps to measure the road that the Sun passes in the darkness from sunset to sunrise. What was one short night for the Sun, became a dozen years without light for Gilgamesh.
Finally, the dawn raised and the breath of the wind touched Gilgamesh’s cheeks. So, walking towards the wind, he left the gloomy cave. A grove appeared in front of him. Fruits, similar to those of the living World, hung from the trees delighting the heart with their wondrous beauty. Reaching out to them with his hand, Gilgamesh wounded his fingers, leaving droplets of blood on the fruit-like cadaver. It became clear to him that the trees were petrified, the trunks became black stone, and the leaves were lapis lazuli, the fruits were topaz and jasper, ruby and carnelian. This garden was dead, and it was created like that, to remind the souls of the upper life.