Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest known extended narrative poem, composed in Akkadian and surviving in multiple recensions across more than a millennium. It follows Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, who is two-thirds divine and one-third mortal. The epic opens by praising Gilgamesh as a man of great wisdom who had seen all things. After the death of his closest companion Enkidu — a wild man created by the gods to balance Gilgamesh's restless energy — the king is shattered by grief and for the first time confronts his own mortality. He journeys to the ends of the earth in search of Utnapishtim, the sole mortal granted immortality by the gods after surviving a great flood. Utnapishtim recounts the flood story — a divine council's decision to destroy humanity, his warning from the god Ea, the construction of a great boat, the survival of animals and family, and the resting of the vessel on a mountain. Utnapishtim challenges Gilgamesh to resist sleep for seven days; Gilgamesh fails. He is offered a plant of rejuvenation from the ocean floor but a serpent steals it during his return journey. Gilgamesh returns to Uruk with nothing but the city walls he built, which will outlast him. The work meditates on friendship, the fear of death, the limits of human ambition, and the consolation of lasting achievement.