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What does the Epic of Gilgamesh teach us about friendship?

1 What does the Epic of Gilgamesh teach us about friendship?.After all of his attempts, he fails miserably and decides to go back to Uruk. Instead of running from the inevitable like he has been doing, he has to face his fear of death.

He finally faces the fact that he cannot live forever. Gilgamesh ultimately gives up at this point “for myself I have obtained no benefit.” (95) Gilgamesh ends his journey to see Utanapishtim on a bad note. However, the plant is taken away by a snake. Utsanapishtim gives his a rejuvenation plant in his last will to help Gilgamesh. Unfortunately Gilgamesh fails the task by sleeping the entire week. The challenge was to stay awake for several days without an ounce of sleep if he couldn’t pass this challenge then he couldn’t expect to live forever. Utanapishtim gives him some good advice about death and how “no one sees death, no one sees the face of death, no one the voice of death, but cruel death cuts off mankind.” (82) Utsanapishtim goes on to state, “they did not reveal the time of death.” (83) Gilgamesh is given a challenge to see if he was worthy enough of eternal life. On his quest to search for this form of unreachable eternal life, Gilgamesh learned some lessons. He sets off on this journey with the death of his close friend Enkidu still weighing heavily upon him. Utanapishtim himself is living an eternal life. They cut down trees, “then Enkidu builds a gigantic …show more content… Once they arrived, they found the monster and killed him. Despite Enkidu’s plead, the two continued on their voyage to the forest where Humbaba lives. However, Enkidu tried “vainly to dissuade” (18) Gilgamesh in going to the forest. They planned a trip to the forest of cedars to defeat the monster known as Humbaba so that Gilgamesh could show his power to the citizens of Uruk. From that moment on, the two were very close. The story begins as Shamat the harlot seduces Enkidu and convinces him to go to the city of Uruk and meet Gilgamesh. The story depicts the short lived friendship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a historic story of the king of Uruk, Gilgamesh.