4.8: Humanity’s Estrangement from Nature as the Cost of Civilization

In the Theogony, Works and Days, and “Genesis,” the separation of humans from the nature of the divine is blamed upon a woman. Earlier traditions, such as the Mesopotamian epics, hold a more reverential view of women and their mystical attachment to primordial conception and birth. As priestesses, they served as spiritual midwives, transitioning the savage parts of the psyche into the rites of civilization. Gilgamesh, one of the earliest heroic epics, the companionship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu illustrates the necessary edification of the savage masculine, as each man reconciles his brutal nature with the demands of the civilized world. Similar to Zeus' edict to fashion Pandora and the jar of painful miseries to constrict humanity’s achievements and mastery of fire, the Babylonian gods breathe life into Enkidu, a truly natural man who lives amongst the animals as their protector. Programmed to be a challenger and distraction to Gilgamesh, Enkidu draws the ruthless king’s attention away from the destruction and cruelty he enacts upon his own people. In Enkidu, Gilgamesh faces his equal and opposite self: a man who appears beastly, hairy, unkempt and wild in all aspects, but who is driven to guard the animals of the forest. As such, he is deeply connected to his inner nature, yet this keeps him at odds with society, as he foils the traps set by hunters, thus interfering with men’s domination of nature. After the outcry from the hunters, the gods respond by sending a priestess of Ishtar who initiates Enkidu in the rites of humans, including intimate relations, which draws him closer to humanity but severs his kinship with the natural world. To the animals, he now smells too human, and knowing the threat of man, they flee from him leaving him in between worlds.

Gilgamesh, though he wears the crown of state, practices none of the responsibilities or dignities of leadership. He engages in a tyrannical assault of his people, protecting no one and nothing but his own darker impulses, demonstrating little aptitude for leadership. Their first meeting unsurprisingly finds them in a wrestling match, which allows each to show his fitness for battle. Being marginalized from their native cultures, the men join in heroic escapades against monsters and beasts that represent the injurious aspects of nature, including the earthshaking “bull of heaven” and volcanic fire god Humbaba.

In slaying these destructive elements, Gilgamesh’s violence is channeled into more productive arenas, creating space to appreciate Enkidu’s companionship and loyalty. But when he rebuffs a proposal from Ishtar, goddess of love and war, in favor of his relationship with Enkidu, she retaliates by striking Enkidu with a fatal sickness. With his last breath, he curses the priestess for entangling him in the trap of civilization and severing his ties to nature. The lament is intercepted by the Shamash, the sun god, who sagely advises Enkidu of the many benefits he earned from social assimilation, including everlasting fame from their adventures and the unending friendship of Gilgamesh, which surpass his primitive existence within nature. Receiving this, Enkidu reverses his imprecation against the priestess, and offers a blessing to the woman who ushered him toward the greater potential of life amongst humanity.

Unlike Gilgamesh, Hesiod’s two major poems, along with “Genesis,” fail to reconcile the divine feminine within Pandora and Eve, instead casting both first women as femme fatales, beautiful but deadly figures who exist primarily to drain male supremacy, leaving them impotent and essentially dead. As a fixture of Athenian males’ honor-based culture, Greek gods and heroes largely view the feminine principle as another barrier to their success, a distracting seductress like Circe, a dangerous witch like Medea, an intellectual threat like Metis, or a warrior foe to be conquered like the Amazons.

However, both Gilgamesh and Enkidu evolve as heroes more aligned with their humanity because of their interaction with women, despite the initial threat Ishtar and her priestess suggest.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Ishtar, shown with her symbols of war, is a formidable agent, both tempting and threatening to the burgeoning bond between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Her offer of love to the king is a test of his fidelity to Enkidu, a man who sacrificed his unity with nature for the adventurous life Gilgamesh promised. In this role she aids in solidifying their partnership. “Ishtar on an Akkadian Seal.” (Sailko, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)