Pope’s Gilgamesh

That Alexander Pope never completed, or published, his translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, not surprising. Despite the extraordinary critical and commercial success of his versions of Homer’s Iliad (1715–20) and Odyssey (1725–6), there was, in his day, little interest in the ancient Mesopotamian poem. It antedates Homer by 800 years and scholars now consider Gilgamesh a key influence on the development of Greek epic. But in the fraught literary climate of the 1730s it was considered a mere barbaric curiosity, of no relevance to the larger traditions to Western civilisation. Pope’s attempt to add a third translated ancient epic to his portfolio attracted no sponsors, and publishers fought shy of the poem’s various explicit and vulgar elements. Matters were not helped by Pope’s ingenuous confession that, unlike Ancient Greek, he spoke no Akkadian, ‘beyond than knowing how to address the pudendae of the heirodules of Saint Paul’s cathedral’, a jest his friends considered to be in poor taste. In fact it seems Pope relied heavily on an interlinear translation of the original text supplied by his friend Henrietta Lawd, Marchioness of Binfield, who had made ancient Akkadian her particular study.

It has taken 300 hundred years for Pope’s Gilgamesh to see the light, published at last, in a scholarly edition edited by Professor Pierre Delalande. An excerpt is given below.

For comparison, the following modern scholarly translations of this section of the Gilgamesh epic may be compared: 1, 2, 3.

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Great Gilgamesh awoke from easeless sleep
Opprest by dreams and visions from the deep.
He sought his mother, royal goddess crowned,
As much for wisdom as for grace renowned:

“Dame, as I slumber’d in the shades of night,
A dream divine appear’d within my sight;
My strength was magnified, my feet were freed
Past heroes numberless I ran at speed,
I felt the force of life within me rise
Beneath that rolling sun, those starry skies; [10]
When, lo!, a meteor, with ghastly sound,
Dislodged and fell in sparks toward the ground:
As when a boulder at the mountain’s height
Is struck by lightning in a blaze of light
And tumbles, burning, down its cliff of snow
To crash calamitous on all below;
So fell this star from out the skiey geulf —
In madness then I interposed myself,
My shoulders broad arrested its descent
Receiv’d upon my back what heaven sent: [20]
O mother! burden hardest to endure!
My strength like lifeblood gushed upon the floor;
Weakened and stagg’ring, under fate averse
I knew the falling star for Anu’s curse.
Then, in my dream, I saw the suppliants come
Some hero born, from Erech’s land came some,
To bend the knee and kiss the meteor’s edge
Til Erech’s folk made all a heroes’ pledge
To undergird my failing frame, and stop
My weak collapse with strength’ning human propp. [30]
How many put their shoulders to my flank
And lifted up with me what slippt and sank!
In strong Togetherness we bore it on:
The many win what is denied the one.
We carried it, a boat upon our sea,
To offer it in homage up to thee.”

His royal mother, whom all men esteem,
Rose to her feet, and plumbed at once the dream:
Swift to her son the meaning she conveys:
“He has been born; ’tis him that you up-raise; [40]
He has been bred among the mountain’s height:
In darkness thou beholdst what comes to light.
Heroes obeisance do, and kiss his feet
And soon indeed shall thou and he both meet:
Yet slay him not, though thou own enmity:
But spare his life, and lead’st him back to me.”

Thanking his mother, Ninsun goddess-queen,
Great Gilgamesh consider’d what had been.
Returning to the couch within his manse
He sought again the realm of slumbrous trance. [50]
Fast after one dream soon there came another
Which strait-away he carried to his mother.

“A sequell dream, great Mother, filled my eyes:
On every street my likeness did arise
In all Erechian plazas statues rais’d
And every one was Gilgameshan fac’d.
The one you spoke of, he of mighty thew
That I must find and shepherd straight to you
Was there, pursued by crowds through city tracks
A mob where many brandish’d spear and axe. [60]
But harried yet, he fronted nothing loth
And met each axe in hand with face full wroth:
The crowd were cow’d; they scattered, shrieck’d and fled
And he possessed the ground they had dispread.
Rejoicing, I beheld him passing fair
And, he as Woman, I embrac’d him there:
Declared him brother, flesh unto my flesh.”

The godlike mother spoke to Gilgamesh:
“My son, this man that thou a woman claim
Must join with you: Enkidu is his name. [70]
Your life and his no fate could e’er dissever:
For you and he will join in grand endeavour.”
And by this claim of destinies involved
Was Gilgamesh’s dream in final solved.

Now that he understood, he ventured on
Beyond the realm where wilderness begun.
He sought the savage Hero Enkidu
With brightened spirit and a steady view,
And found him, far from any city’s walls
Amongst the woods and vales and waterfalls. [80]
Strongest of men, he pierced the mountain boar,
Ranged the wild deserts red with monsters’ gore,
And from their caves the shaggy Centaurs tore;
O’er the wild summit of the mount he hung,
That kindred eminence from whence he sprung;
And, rushing down the slope, he roamed the plain
His true, as of the wilder beasts’, domain
A land of chasms, pines, scrub, peak and cleft:
As hairy as a Bear, and strong in heft
Devouring uncooked meats and wildland fruit [90]
Eluding capture, wary of pursuit;
Until great Gilga tracked, and found, and caught:
He uttered calmness to him, and so brought
Him from that plain, howe’er he disconcur,
To where the temple and its vot’ries were.
The precinct where the Heirodules are based,
Forever Holy, though for Gods unchaste.
He brought Enkidu to the Temple Room
In which the sacred Harlot greeted him as groom.
The hairy man approacht the hairy gate, [100]
Embraced the girl, braced for impenetrate.
Enkidu soon forgot where he was born
Engaged through each six midnight and six morn:
The savagery drained out, the man increased
The Act of Love so civilised the beast.

Full seven nights with am’rous sport were freighted
Til on the eighth Enkidu was full sated:
Gazelles in flock moved through the dawning day
But, seeing him, veered off and fled away:
At this Enkidu knew — his being changed — [110]
From wildness as from nature now estranged,
And brought by mystic arts and harlot trick
Within the realm of human fellowship.

The breathless Priestess told her paramour:
Words never yet exprest by priest or w — e:
“Enkidu, you I vision like a god:
How strong thy torso and how firm thy rod!
Why waste your life’s nobility concealed,
At one with lowly beast of hill and field?
Come with me to Uruk’s encompast nation [110]
Great town and yet more great civilisation,
Whose wide piazzas and broad streets stand true
And frame the holy dwelling of Anu.
Enkidu rise! Let me conduct thee there
Where dwells the mighty Gilgamesh the Fair
The vital leader strong in force of life
Where thou canst yet embrace him as his wife.
As I, a woman, lovst him, so wilt thou:
From curséd earth to holiest meadow
Arise and clothe you in a garment pure [120]
Whereby you can the love of Gilgamesh ensure.

Tore he his rags and cast them on the ground
And in new garments clad his body round:
Fine cloth and gold embroidered, woven close
The mark of fineness in the finest clothes.
The harlot Shamhat took his massy hand
And led him gentle to a fertile land,
Through pastures rich and sheepfolds full of stock
To feast upon the finest of the flock.
And soon they came to Uruk’s golden walls [130]
Where lyre and drum play constant festivals
Where temple-harlots honour gods their way
Who laugh in worship, and, in loving, pray:
Herein to meet great Gilgamesh the wise
And so to claim Enkidu’s promised prize.