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Love Relationships In Gilgamesh

Serious   relationships have always been complicated.   Love is to some the supreme form of joy in life, but to others it only leads to destruction and tragedy.   Individuals must be aware that the crest of love is great but the pitfall is even greater.   One must never forget that although love is able to change a person for the better, it can also have the reverse effect and cause a person to behave in horrifying ways due to jealousy and heartbreak.   This essay will show that most of the different love relationships found in Gilgamesh lead to the destruction of at least one of the two parties.   Just as love is often depicted in mythology and epics, love is something to be avoided since it is often one of the flaws that contributes to the tragic ending of the hero.  
Enkidu was one of the first characters of Gilgamesh to fall in love.   He was raised in the wilderness among the wolves and the gazelle.   He knew nothing of women or of civilization.   When he first saw the harlot that was taken to seduce him, he felt like a man and after they consummated their relationship, he was mesmerized by her for he longed for a companion more than for anything else.   He listened to everything she said and would do anything she wished, even if it meant fighting Gilgamesh of Uruk, who was two-thirds god and one-third man.   After Enkidu made the woman his, he was more man than ever before: “Enkidu was grown weak, for wisdom was in him, and the thoughts of a man were in his heart.”   Part of his wild inner being was taken away by the desires and conduct of men.   Enkidu was no longer part wild beast, for even his kin, the creatures of the wilderness, rejected him.   Enkidu lost his home, way of life, wildness, and innocence after falling in love with the woman that was taken to the forest to seduce him.   He was enticed to do as she wished and went to Uruk for her content.   Enkidu later blames her for his wretched fate: “let you be stripped of your purple dyes, for I too once in the...