WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY
Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)
Vol. 2, No. 2: November 9, 2022
Welcome to Orion, the Warrior-Hero of the Night Sky!
Editor’s
Note
The constellation Orion the Hunter is rising in the
East by midevening now – one of the most prominent figures portrayed on the
sky’s dome by our distant ancestors. Probably modeled on Gilgamesh, the
legendary King of Uruk in Mesopotamia (early 3rd millennium BCE),
Orion is one of the most easily recognized constellations, appearing as a giant
warrior-hero in the night sky. Here are three classic poems (followed by an
article about Gilgamesh) to welcome Orion back into the evening sky.
The
constellation Orion the Hunter, as portrayed in Urania’s Mirror (1825) by
Sidney Hall. The bright blue star Rigel marks Orion’s left foot.
In Germanic mythology, Orion was known as Aurvandil,
and this name was especially applied to the star Rigel, which represented the
giant’s left big toe that had been frostbitten (hence its blue color) and cast
into the sky by the god Thor. In Old English, the name Aurvandil became
Ëarendel, a herald of hope in the frosty Yuletide season of the year:
“Ëala
Ëarendel, engla beorhtast,
ofer
middan-geard monnum sended.”
“Hail
Ëarendel, brightest of angels,
over
Middle-Earth to humankind sent.”
à
Cynewulf (Old English, 9th Century CE)
Orion
in Aratus’ Phaenomena (3rd Century BCE)
“Aslant beneath the
fore-body of the Bull is set the great Orion. Let none who pass him spread out
on high on a cloudless night imagine that, gazing on the heavens, one shall see
other stars more fair.”
“The
Winter Scene: Part II” by Bliss Carman (1861-1929)
Out
from the silent portal of the hours,
When
frosts are come and all the hosts put on.
Their
burnished gear to march across the night
And
o'er a darkened Earth in splendor shine,
Slowly
above the world Orion wheels
His
glittering square, while on the shadowy hill
And throbbing
like a sea-light through the dusk,
Great
Sirius rises in his flashing blue.
Lord
of the winter night, august and pure,
Returning
year on year untouched by time,
To
hearten faith with thine unfaltering fire,
There
are no hurts that beauty cannot ease,
No
ills that love cannot at last repair,
In the
victorious progress of the soul.
“Stars”
by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall (1883-1922)
Now in
the West the slender Moon lies low,
And
now Orion glimmers through the trees,
Clearing
the Earth with even pace and slow,
And
now the stately-moving Pleiades,
In
that soft infinite darkness overhead
Hang
jewel-wise upon a silver thread.
And
all the lonelier stars that have their place,
Calm
lamps within the distant southern sky,
And
planet-dust upon the edge of space,
Look
down upon the fretful world, and I
Look
up to outer vastness unafraid
And
see the stars which sang when Earth was made.
“Winter
Stars” (1920)
By
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
I went
out at night alone;
The
young blood flowing beyond the sea
Seemed
to have drenched my spirit’s wings —
I bore
my sorrow heavily.
But
when I lifted up my head
From
shadows shaken on the snow,
I saw
Orion in the east
Burn
steadily as long ago.
From
windows in my father’s house,
Dreaming
my dreams on winter nights,
I
watched Orion as a girl
Above
another city’s lights.
Years
go, dreams go, and youth goes too,
The
world’s heart breaks beneath its wars,
All
things are changed, save in the east
The
faithful beauty of the stars.
“Leadership
Lessons from Gilgamesh, the World’s First Superhero” by Rob Chappell, M.A.
Adapted
& Expanded from Cursus Honorum VII: 4 (November 2006)
Read
an English translation of the Gilgamesh Epic @ https://www.jasoncolavito.com/epic-of-gilgamesh.html
and its epilogue at https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr1813.htm.
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 during the
18th century BCE in the Akkadian language. The plot of the epic revolves around
the adventures of Gilgamesh, an early King of the city-state of Uruk (reigned
ca. 27th century BCE). The compilers of the epic wove together a tapestry of
heroic tales that had gathered around Gilgamesh into a single action-packed
narrative.
“Oh,
come, dear naiads, tune your lyres and lutes,
And
sing of love with chastest, sweetest notes,
Of
Accad's goddess Ishtar, Queen of Love,
And
Gilgamesh, with softest measure move;
Great
Shamash’s son, of him dear naiads sing!
Of
him whom goddess Ishtar warmly wooed,
Of
him whose breast with virtue was imbued.
He
as a giant towered, lofty grown,
As
Babel’s great princeling was he known,
His
armèd fleet commanded on the seas
And
erstwhile travelled on the foreign leas;
His
mother Ellat-gula on the throne
From
Erech all Kardunia ruled alone.”
à From the Prologue to Ishtar and
Izdubar by Leonidas Le Cenci Hamilton [1884], Slightly Modernized by
the Editor
According to the epic, Gilgamesh was the son of the
mortal human King Lugalbanda and the goddess Ninsumunak. The 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 ogre 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 a faraway eastern land, near the gates
of the sunrise. There, Gilgamesh met Siduri (an immortal sage and seer),
Urshanabi (the boatman who ferried Gilgamesh across the Waters of Death), and
finally 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 eternal
youth on his way back home to Uruk, but he returned to his native city a wiser
man. He had discovered – through finding and loss – that true friendship can
change one’s life forever. 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. At the end of his long reign as King of Uruk,
Gilgamesh died and was buried, and the Divine Council of the gods made him the
Prince of the Otherworld, where he was reunited with his beloved family and
with his warrior-companion Enkidu. As the Prince of the Otherworld, he meted
out justice and mercy to the dead based on the wisdom and understanding that he
had gained during his lifetime on Earth.
Gilgamesh has become a pop culture hero in recent
decades, as his epic story (which was lost for over 2000 years) has now been
translated into several modern languages. 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. As the Akkadian epic poets wrote of the
world’s first superhero, some 4000 years ago:
“He
who the heart of all matters has proven, let him teach the nation, He who all
knowledge possesses, therein shall he school all the people, He shall his
wisdom impart and so shall they share it together. Gilgamesh — he was the
Master of wisdom, with knowledge of all things, He it was who discovered the
secret concealed. Aye, he handed down the tradition relating to things
prediluvian, He went on a journey afar, all aweary and worn with his toiling.
He engraved on a tablet of stone all the travail.”
à
Prologue to the Gilgamesh Epic (Slightly Modernized by the Editor
from the 1929 Translation by R. Campbell Thompson)
Gilgamesh
(referred to as Izdubar in the above caption) takes leave of Siduri and her
acolyte Sabitu after staying in their “Happy Halls” near the eastern edge of
the known world in Tablet IX of the Gilgamesh Epic. (Image
Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
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