Gilgamesh, Sumerian Cycle: Death of Gilgamesh

The text of the poem designated tentatively as "The Death of Gilgamesh", is still quite fragmentary (Bibliography [C], pp. 50-52). From its meager extant portions, only the following contents are recognizable: Gilgamesh still seems to be on his quest for immortality. He is informed, however, that eternal life is impossible to obtain. Kingship, prominence, heroism in battle - all these have been decreed for him, but not immortality. Fragmentary as it is, the available text of our poem shows an indubitable source relationship to the portions of the 9th, 10th, and 11th tablets of the "Epic of Gilgamesh". These tablets contain Gilgamesh's plea for eternal life, and the rejoinder that it is death, not immortality, which is man's fate. As for the Sumerian description of the death of Gilgamesh, strangely enough it has no counterpart in the extant versions of the Babylonian "Epic of Gilgamesh".