‘Does Beauty and the Beast Date Back to Ancient Mesopotamia?’
We have been told that the fairy-tale of Beauty and the Beast is ‘a tale as old as time.’ However, some scholars in the fields of Classics, History and English Literature have suggested that the notorious narrative may have had its origins in the ancient work of ‘The Golden Ass’ by Lucius Apuleius, which depicts the infamous myth of Cupid and Psyche in the 2nd Century CE. Indeed, this article would like to put forward that the tale of Beauty and the Beast is in fact ‘a tale as old as time,’ which takes us even further than the Roman Empire to the fascinating culture of Ancient Mesopotamia BC, where the earliest surviving great piece of literature and second oldest religious text in the history of human civilisation sits in the shadows of fairy-tale studies. ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ has not been examined in relation to this infamous fairy-tale, despite researchers from the University of Durham and the University of Lisbon claiming that fairy-tales ‘may’ be traced as far back as the Bronze Age in 2016. This article will posit that ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ contains the one of the first (and much more racy) versions of Beauty and the Beast.
Shamhat and Enkidu/Beauty and the Beast:
I believe that Beauty and the Beast in this Ancient Mesopotamian rendering go by the names of Shamhat and Enkidu. Beauty is no longer the fair maiden that the European tradition has weaved throughout later centuries, but she takes on the form of a ‘harlot’ whose ‘allure is a match for even the mighty’ at the beginning of human civilisation in the Ancient Near East. Whilst the Beauty that we find in Ancient Mesopotamia stands in juxtaposition to the virginal Beauty that has come to dominate the Western world, the Beast in Ancient Mesopotamia and the Beast in later traditions remains recognisable. Indeed, ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ depicts its ‘wild’ protagonist Enkidu as possessing a ‘body matted with hair,’ ‘long tresses like those of woman,’ with ‘his locks of hair’ that ‘grow thickly as barley.’ This is how we have also come to comprehend the Beast. Interestingly, it is not only the Beast’s physical depiction that possesses striking similarity with our own society’s notion of the Beast, but also his attributes. The ‘troubled, subdued and silent’ hunter who first spots Enkidu is struck by the ‘might’ of the ‘wild man’ and ‘strength he possesses.’ This can be regarded as akin to the language that is wielded by Gabrielle-Susanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s ‘La Belle et la Bête,’ which was written in 1740, where Villeneuve writes that her Beast is ‘fierce’ and ‘strong,’ much like ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’s’ Enkidu who is as ‘mighty as a rock from the sky.’
Enkidu and the Beast’s Creation:
Another captivating likeness that can be extrapolated between Enkidu and the Beast is their creation. In the Western world, we are familiar with the notion that it is a witch/fairy who appears and morphs the handsome prince into a beast. However, ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ presents us with a depiction of Enkidu’s creation, which is not far from this understanding. Instead of a ‘witch,’ we find that this enticing piece of Ancient Mesopotamian literature provides us with a ‘goddess’ by the name of Aruru (also known as Ninhursag/Damgalnuna) who was one of the seven preeminent deities of Sumer and a mother goddess of the mountains who was commonly associated with fertility and the earth. Aruru, ‘the great one’ is provided with the task of fashioning a human being like the one that Azu has thought of, a man who can be a ‘match’ for the King of Uruk’s ‘heart’ because the legendary king who is ‘most handsome by the standards of other men’ has ‘no equal.’ This leads to the people of Uruk’s ‘complaint’ being ‘carried up to the furthest heaven’ about Gilgamesh’s ‘tyranny’ because Gilgamesh ‘lets no son go home to his father’ and ‘lets no girl go free to her bridegroom.’ It is the ‘gods of heaven, the lords of initiative’ who behest that Aruru craft a human being who can ‘vie’ with Gilgamesh in order to ‘give Uruk a rest.’ The text informs us that Aruru ‘washed her hands,’ ‘took a pinch of clay,’ and ‘threw it down in the wild.’ If we examine these words more closely, I believe that we can find the same kind of plot developing, which has potentially been echoed across the centuries. The imagery of Aruru throwing Enkidu with the ‘gazelles,’ ‘herd’ and ‘beasts’ is not as distinct as one might imagine from our twenty-first century comprehension of the witch casting the Beast into exile and out of the reaches of society. Both the Western portrayal of the Beast and the Ancient Near Eastern illustration of Enkidu similarly paint their ‘wild’ protagonists as both wandering beyond the boundaries of civilisation. Another significant element to consider from the description of Aruru creating Enkidu from ‘clay’ using her ‘washed’ hands is that this imagery of a female figure forming the shape of this man possesses an apparent sense of mystic and magic, which has possibly been a feature that has carried through time. Just as Aruru uses her powers of divinity to ‘knit’ this ‘god of the animals,’ we find the later archetypal witch/fairy wields her own magical abilities to transform the prince into a beast, just as the earlier Mesopotamian goddess morphs the clay into a ‘wild’ creature. Is this a potential echo of ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh?’
Shamhat and Beauty’s Influence:
After Enkidu has been tossed into the wild, similar to the way that the fairy-tale Beast we all know today is also cast away from society, we encounter the female figure of Beauty crossing the threshold between civilisation and the lack thereof. In our contemporaneous rendition of Beauty and the Beast, we are accustomed to Beauty entering the Beast’s palace, which is a detail that we find in the interpretations of Villeneuve’s ‘La Belle et la Bête’ from 1740 and Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ dated to the 1750’s. However, the story of Shamhat first encountering our Ancient Mesopotamian beast does not occur within a palace, but takes place in the natural world at a ‘water-hole.’ We are informed in ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ that when Shamhat the harlot ‘saw him, the child of nature,’ she ‘unfastened the cloth of her loins, she bared her sex and he took in her charms. She did not recoil, she took in his scent: she spread her clothing and he lay upon her.’ The significance of this explicit sexual encounter between the beautiful harlot, Shamhat and ‘the savage man from the midst of the wild’ is less within the sex itself and more about the symbolism buried within this passage. It is Shamhat, just like the European rendering of Beauty whom captivates and enchants the ‘wild’ man. The Ancient Near Eastern Shamhat and the modern Western Beauty both use their physical characteristics in order to charm the ‘man of nature,’ Shamhat ‘bares her sex’ and Beauty uses her ‘handsomeness and innocence’ in a manner more becoming of a lady from the 18th century. Nevertheless, Shamhat and Beauty both ‘treat’ their ‘beastly’ male counterparts to extremely different notions of ‘the work of a woman,’ which leads to a similar outcome for the ‘wild’ man.
Wild Man/’Handsome’ God and Beast/’Handsome’ Prince:
The Ancient Near Eastern tale of ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ and the more modern European fairy-tale of Beauty and the Beast arguably possess the same conclusion. The transformation of the ‘man of the wild.’ We are all aware that the fairy-tale from Villeneuve’s ‘La Belle et la Bête’ and Beaumont’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ concludes its narrative with the Beast being returned to his true ‘handsome’ form, where it is shockingly revealed that he is a prince. Indeed, if we return to examine the literary work of ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh,’ we will find a corresponding occurrence as a result of Enkidu and Shamat’s ‘coupling’ after ‘six days and seven nights.’ Enkidu, in a similar vein to the plight of the Beast in later fairy-tale tradition also goes through a transformation. Not only do ‘the beasts of the field shied away from his person’ after he had ‘defiled his body’ with Shamhat, but Shamhat significantly leads him into a state of civility. Enkidu becomes ‘just like a god’ in her eyes, just as the Beast becomes a ‘prince’ in the eyes of Beauty. The notion of ‘living happily ever after’ is introduced with Shamhat ‘the harlot’ whispering about how she ‘will lead’ Enkidu to ‘Uruk-the-Sheepfold, to the sacred temple, home of Anu and Ishtar.’ The ‘Happily Ever After’ of Ancient Mesopotamia… The world of urbanisation.
It is up to you to go make a judgement as to whether the tale of Enkidu and Shamhat within ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ could have been the potential beginnings of Beauty and Beast… You will have to go read this truly captivating text in order to make up your mind.
Written by Sophie Bea Louise Overton.
