Gilgamesh: The World's First Superhero (& Thereby Hangs a Tale)

Hello everyone –

I’ve been invited to present an original story at this year’s Storytelling Festival, sponsored by the School of Information Sciences, on Saturday, April 15^th at 7:00 PM in Room 126 of the iSchool Building. My tale is entitled “The Lost Years of Gilgamesh: Before the Epic.” Some listmembers may recall that I dressed up as King Gilgamesh for Halloween last fall, and I’ve been working on my story ever since. :)

Here’s an article that I wrote about King Gilgamesh many years ago for the ACES James Scholars, to give you an introduction to this mighty superhero from the days of yesteryear. This is the story about Gilgamesh that most people are familiar with; my own tale of his younger years will reveal how he grew up to become a hero who is still remembered today all over the world.

“Leadership Lessons from Gilgamesh, the World’s First Superhero”

By Rob Chappell, M.A., Assistant to the Honors Dean

Adapted & Expanded from Cursus Honorum VII: 4 (November 2006)

            The Gilgamesh Epic is the oldest extant epic poem in world literature. Based on a series of Sumerian heroic poems from the late third millennium BCE, the epic was compiled in Mesopotamia around 2000 BCE in the Akkadian language. The plot of the epic revolves around the adventures of Gilgamesh, King of the city-state of Uruk, who was a real historical personage (fl. ca. 2650 BCE). The compilers of the epic wove together a cornucopia of heroic tales that had gathered around Gilgamesh into a single action-packed narrative.

            According to legend, Gilgamesh was the son of the human King Lugalbanda and the demigoddess Ninsun. The epic narrative opens with the story of how King Gilgamesh met the wildman Enkidu and describes how the two heroes became steadfast warrior-companions. The poem continues with exciting battle sequences, in which Gilgamesh and Enkidu destroyed the monster Humbaba in the Cedar Forest of Lebanon and slew the Bull of Heaven when it went rampaging through the streets of Uruk.

            The gods were angered by the slaying of the Bull of Heaven, so they afflicted Enkidu with a fatal illness. Gilgamesh was devastated by his warrior-companion’s death and set off on a quest to find the secret of immortality, lest he suffer the same fate as Enkidu. The King of Uruk passed through many perils as he journeyed to Dilmun (an island located far to the east, near the gates of the sunrise), where the sacred garden of the gods lay. There, Gilgamesh met Utnapishtim (the Mesopotamian equivalent of Noah), who along with his wife had been granted immortality after the great Flood.

            Gilgamesh found and then lost the secret of immortality on his way back to Uruk from Dilmun, but he returned to his native city a wiser man. As the epic poet wrote of him:

“He who has seen everything, I will make known to the lands. I will teach about him who experienced all things alike; Anu granted him the totality of knowledge of all. He saw the Secret, discovered the Hidden; he brought information of the time before the Flood. He went on a distant journey, pushing himself to exhaustion, but then was brought to peace. Take and read out from the lapis lazuli tablet how Gilgamesh went through every hardship. He walked through darkness and so glimpsed the light.”

à Gilgamesh Epic (Excerpts)

            What leadership lessons can we learn from Gilgamesh? He had discovered – through finding and loss – that true friendship can change one’s life forever. So leaders need to seek out and share the gift of friendship with the people around them. Gilgamesh had also learned that although death is unavoidable for mortals, we should celebrate life while it lasts and undertake heroic deeds to benefit others. In other words, leaders need to practice servant leadership and grow in greatness by helping other people to solve their problems. Because Gilgamesh exemplified the leadership lessons that he learned on his perilous journeys, he has become a pop culture hero in recent decades, as his story (which was lost for over 2000 years) has now been translated into several modern languages and adapted for the stage.

            Whatever historical truth may lie behind his legend, Gilgamesh is remembered still today because the leadership lessons that he exemplified are timeless truths that appear again and again throughout world literature. Mortality will come to us all, Gilgamesh would say, but while life lasts, let us spend it in service to others through heroic deeds and teaching wisdom by example.

Until next time –

Rob

The Lost Road to Faerie

Hello everyone –

With the annual return of St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow, I wanted to share with you an article – and a poem – about the Fair Folk, those delightful denizens of Keltik (and worldwide) folklore whose memory lives on in countless tales and songs from long ago but not so far away.

The Lost Road to Faerie: Where Science and Folklore Meet

By Rob Chappell, Editor

Excerpted from Cursus Honorum VII: 10 (May 2007)

       From prehistoric times until the rise of modern science, most human beings regarded the world as an enchanted place. Fabulous beasties like dragons and unicorns roamed along the edges of medieval maps; the stars were animated by “intelligences” that guided them in their celestial circuits; and the “Fair Folk” resided in the depths of caves or beneath hollow hills. With the advent of the scientific and industrial revolutions, belief in such things waned throughout much of the Western world, to be replaced by a reliance on science and reason. Traditional folk beliefs have often been derided as superstitious nonsense, but every once in a while, scientific research uncovers evidence that the folk beliefs of yesteryear might once have had a basis in reality.

Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We dare not go a-hunting

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And a white owl's feather.

-- “The Fairies” by William Allingham (1824-1889)

       Such a discovery occurred in 2003, when a team of Australian and Indonesian paleoanthropologists unearthed the fossilized remains of eight prehistoric humans on the Indonesian island of Flores. What is so remarkable about these people is that they stood only three feet tall – yet they were fully-grown adults! They belonged to a newly classified human species – Homo Floresiensis – that lived alongside modern humans (Homo Sapiens) on Flores from 50,000 to perhaps 500 years ago.

       These recently discovered people – hailed as “Hobbits” in the popular press – are apparently an offshoot of previous human populations that had rafted over to the Indonesian archipelago at an even earlier date. According to evidence collected on Flores, these “Hobbits” (named after the halfling heroes in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth legendarium) were fully human in their abilities and behavior. They made sophisticated tools, used fire, hunted, fished, and (based on their anatomy) possessed the power of articulate speech. According to the Flores islanders’ folklore, these prehistoric people might have survived until the arrival of Dutch explorers in the 16th century.

       How do these recent scientific discoveries intersect with ancient folk beliefs? People from all over the world have been telling stories about the “Wee Folk” – faeries, gnomes, leprechauns, etc. – since the beginning of recorded history. These tales tell of small humanlike individuals who dwelt in caves or within hollow hills. These “Fair Folk” or “Good People,” as they were euphemistically called, lived in communities ruled by monarchs or chieftains, and they were adept at many crafts (such as mining or shoemaking). Their alleged healing abilities, musical artistry, and ability to “disappear” without fanfare when one of us “Big People” came wandering along may have led our ancestors to regard them as magical creatures instead of fellow human beings. These habits of the “Wee Folk” may also have had the unfortunate effect of making our ancestors fear and shun them.

       The possible extinction of Homo Floresiensis in historical times might be reflected in a recurrent folkloric motif about the disappearance of the “Wee Folk” from everyday experience, as in the opening lines of Geoffrey Chaucer’s (1340-1400) “Wife of Bath’s Tale”:

In the old time of King Arthur,

Of whom the Britons speak with great honor,

All this land was filled full of Faerie;

The Elf Queen, with her jolly company,

Danced full oft in many a green mead.

This was the old opinion, as I read;

I speak of many hundred years ago,

But now no one can see the elves, you know.

       Of course, the identification of the “Wee Folk” from faerie lore with Homo Floresiensis is somewhat speculative at this point. Nonetheless, we should bear in mind that many legends have been found to have a basis in fact, and that some activities and characteristics of our halfling human cousins might have found their way into traditional faerie tales. Perhaps contemporary folklorists will want to collaborate with paleoanthropologists and reexamine the faerie lore of long ago and faraway to see what “data” might be gleaned from worldwide folklore about our diminutive prehistoric kindred. To learn more about how Homo Floresiensis could have been (mis)perceived by our ancestors, you might enjoy visiting the following resources:

Related Links of Interest

• The Secret Commonwealth (1692) by Robert Kirk (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sce/index.htm) is a fascinating description of the “Fair Folk” and their society, based on the then-current folk beliefs of the Scots-Irish Highlanders.
• The Fairy Mythology (1870) by Thomas Keightley (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tfm/index.htm) contains a vast sampling of faerie lore from around the world.
• Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888), edited and selected by William Butler Yeats (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/yeats/fip/index.htm), is a classic collection of Irish faerie tales from the KeltiK Renaissance.

“Fairy Rings”

by Evaleen Stein (1863-1923)
 

Softly in the gloaming
  Flitting through the vale,
Fairy folk are roaming
  Over hill and dale.

Pixies in the hollow,
  Elves upon the height,
Let us follow, follow
  Through the paling light.

Follow, all unbidden,
  To the grassy glade
Wrapped around and hidden
  In the forest shade.

Hark the elfin tinkle
  Of their little lutes!
Mark the golden twinkle
  Of their fairy flutes!

See them dancing, dancing,
  While the silver moon
Tips their swiftly glancing
  Little silver shoon!

Tripping, tripping lightly,
  Where their footprints fall,
Look! the grass is brightly
  Growing green and tall!

Springing close, unbroken,
  In a fairy ring,
For to-morrow's token
  Of their frolicking!

Happy Spring Break to all our subscribers at the University of Illinois and beyond!

Rob

Spring Is Almost Here!

Hello everyone –

The peoples of the ancient world looked forward to the arrival of springtime just as much as we do in our technomagical age. Although the spring equinox is still a few weeks away (on March 20^th), there are already signs that spring is approaching – including an unusually mild February. (Mr. Groundhog was WRONG!) :) Here are some poems (with commentary) to help you celebrate the changing of the seasons in the month of March.

Celebrating Springtime with Orphic Poetry

By Rob Chappell (Reprinted from Cursus Honorum’s March 2007 Issue)

            The annual cycle of the seasons and its effects on our natural surroundings are recurring themes throughout world literature. The Orphic poets – a guild of ancient Greek philosopher-bards named after their legendary founder, Orpheus – celebrated the changing of the seasons, the wonders of the natural world, and their lofty ideals in poetic chants, several dozen of which were preserved in written form after centuries of oral transmission. In the poetic forms of their prescientific age (ca. 1000-500 BCE), the Orphic poets chose to personify the forces of Nature, the celestial orbs, and abstract ideals in order to explain how and why the natural world and the human social order function in the ways that they do.

            Here is an example of Orphic poetry to welcome in the springtime – a poem to the seasons (here personified as the daughters of Zeus/Jupiter):

Orphic Hymn #42: “To the Seasons”

(Translated by Thomas Taylor, 1792)

Daughters of Jove and Themis, Seasons bright,

Justice, and blessed peace, and lawful right,

Vernal and grassy, vivid, holy powers,

Whose balmy breath exhales in lovely flowers;

All-colored Seasons, rich increase your care,

Circling forever, flourishing and fair:

Invested with a veil of shining dew,

A flowery veil delightful to the view:

Attending Proserpine, when back from night,

The Fates and Graces lead her up to light;

When in a band harmonious they advance,

And joyful round her form the solemn dance:

With Ceres triumphing, and Jove divine,

Propitious come, and on our incense shine;

Give Earth a blameless store of fruits to bear,

And make a novel mystic’s life your care.

“Orpheus” by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Orpheus with his lute made trees

And the mountain tops that freeze

Bow themselves when he did sing:

To his music plants and flowers

Ever sprung; as Sun and showers

There had made a lasting spring.

Everything that heard him play,

Even the billows of the sea,

Hung their heads and then lay by.

In sweet music is such art,

Killing care and grief of heart

Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

Further Reading on the Orphic Tradition

•       The extant collection of 86 Orphic Hymns is archived @ http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hoo/index.htm.

•       The Middle English poem Sir Orfeo – a medieval retelling of the Greek legend of Orpheus (with a happy ending!) – is available (with annotations) @ http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/orfeo.htm.

“O Nobilissima Viriditas” (“O Very Noble Greenness”)

Latin Text from Hildegard of Bingen’s Symphonia, Translated by Yours Truly

        Note: Magistra Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a natural philosopher, pharmacologist, musician, and artist who disseminated her teachings about viriditas (the vivifying “greenness” in Nature) through her extensive Latin writings, which included scientific texts, medical treatises, and polyphonic musical compositions. In “O Nobilissima Viriditas,” Hildegard identifies the source of viriditas as something “rooted in the Sun” – that is, in the life-giving energies radiating from our parent star that make life possible on Earth. In modern scientific terms, we would say that solar radiation is the catalyst for photosynthesis in green plants, which form the base of the food chain.

O nobilissima Viriditas, quae radicas in Sole,

Et quae in candida serenitate luces in rota,

Quam nulla terrena excellentia comprehendis!

Tu circumdata es amplexibus divinorum mysteriorum.

Tu rubes ut Aurora et ardes ut Solis flamma.

O very noble greenness, you are rooted in the Sun,

And you shine in bright serenity in a circle

That no terrestrial excellence comprehends!

You are enclosed by the embrace of divine mysteries.

You blush like the Dawn and burn like a flame of the Sun.

“Welcome to the Sun”

Anonymous – Collected in Scotland (19th Century)

Editor’s Note: In the Germanic, Keltik, and Slavic languages – as well as in Japanese – the Sun is feminine and the Moon is masculine.

Welcome to you, Sun of the seasons’ turning,

In your circuit of the high heavens;

Strong are your steps on the unfurled heights,

Glad Mother are you to the constellations.

You sink down into the ocean of want,

Without defeat, without scathe;

You rise up on the peaceful wave

Like a Queen in her maidenhood's flower.

Until next time –

Rob :)