Gilgamesh and the Bull of Term Paper

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At length, Anu releases the Bull of Heaven and Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight it as they have every other obstacle that has come their way. The hero and his friend represent the power of brute strength in taming wild nature. The Bull is "nature" at its worst, destructive and terrible. As the Bull was brought into being at Ishtar's behest, it is clear, once again, that she stands for the unbridled passions that lurk beneath the surface of cultured society. Gilgamesh and Enkidu attack the Bull as they would any dangerous animal:

After they had killed the bull they tore out his heart.

They set it before Shamash.

They withdrew and worshipped Shamash.

They sat down, blood-brothers, the two of them.

VI.v.153-156

The heart symbolizes the seat of passion and of the soul. The Bull is not merely killed in the physical sense - it is dismembered and deprived of the spirit that empowers it. By setting the heart before the god Shamash, Gilgamesh and Enkidu show that they are prepared to dedicate their feats of strength to the higher pursuits of life and enlightenment. Shamash is the god of the sun. The sun and its light symbolize the life force within the universe, and also the illumination that leads to greater knowledge and wisdom.

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The death of the Bull is a triumph of the forces of light over darkness - a common theme in Western religious and literary traditions in the millennia to follow. Gilgamesh' slaying of the Bull also indicates that the hero is his own man - a being independent of the gods who is free to think and act as he pleases, He is not bound by the will or the whim of Ishtar.

The independence of human thought and action is central to much Western thought, appearing again and again in the Biblical injunctions "thou shalt." Human beings are not simply debarred from performing unethical actions; they are given the choice not to perform them.

It is this spirit of independence which has allowed women and men to question the world and society around them, and to look toward something better. The Epic of Gilgamesh, and in particular, the story of the Bull of Heaven, encapsulates major themes in the drama of human existence and the relationship of human beings to the wider cosmos sacred and profane.

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