Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Prose - 104. "Gilgamesh leaves no son with his father"
What one needs to know first is that Gilgamesh was a bad king. The people cried for relief, and received it from the gods. The immortals created a perfect partner for Gilgamesh to tame him and raise his city state to greatness. This is the basic, irrefutable substance of the tale.
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Gilgamesh and Enkidu 01 –
Abed Azrié’s performance and translation
Prologue:
[min. 2:40]
I want my country to know
Of one who has seen all things; [of]
He who was wise and knew of everything.
He who saw secret things
And disclosed what was hidden.
He who passed on to us a knowledge
Of days before the Flood. [He]
Went on a long journey,
Came back weary but serene.
He then engraved on a stone
The story of his labors.
He built the wall of Uruk –
The Enclosure, the abode
Of Anu and Ishtar –
The sacred of Enna.
Climb on the wall of Uruk
And examine well the brickwork.
See if it is not [fired] bricks;
The gods themselves [tempered] Gilgamesh.
Shamash, moreover,
Endowed him with fairness;
Adad, with courage.
Gilgamesh, the demigod
In him was two thirds god,
One third man, for none
Can bear the brunt of his arms.
The men in Uruk constantly
Stood in awe of him:
‘Gilgamesh leaves no son with his father,
Day or night his violence rage.
He who is the shepherd of Uruk,
He who is our shepherd leaves
No virgin to her lover,
Be it the daughter of a hero,
Or the promised maid
Of a simple warrior.
Day or night his violence rage.’
Their repeated lament reached
To the ears of the gods of heaven.
They appealed to Aruru, the goddess:
‘You made him, Aruru,
Now create his equal.
Let him be as stormy as he is;
Let them contend together,
And leave Uruk in quiet.’
Aruru conceived the image
Of Anu in her him mind.
She dipped her hands into water,
Took some clay, let it fall
In the wilderness and thus
Was created Enkidu, the hero
Creature of nightly silence,
[Of] Ninurta’s descent.
Enkidu, his beginning
He was hairy; the whole
Of his body was covered in hair.
[That atop his head] was like a woman’s:
His hair and [the] ears of grain looked alike.
He knew nothing of countries or people.
He was clad like Sumuqan;
He ate grass with the gazelle;
With the wild beasts,
He drank at the water[ing] hole. […]
—Abed Azrié,
from the March 2011
live performance at the
Institut du Monde Arabe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ARRP5i2nw8&t=631s
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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