Gilgamesh : A New Rendering in English Verse by David Ferry Page A

known mainly from the Nineveh recension on tablets of the seventh century B.C.E . Babylonian tradition credited it to a poet-editor by the name of Sin-leqe-unninni, “Sin (the moon god), accept my plea.”
    It is this relatively late, standard text, with occasional assistance from the Old Babylonian version, that is the basis of the poem by David Ferry that follows. And let it be stated at once: it is David Ferry’s poem. It is not Sin-leqe-unninni’s or anyone else’s, any more than The Vanity of Human Wishes is Juvenal’s and not Johnson’s. He has given us, not a translation, not at least as that term is ordinarily understood, but a transformation. He does not compete, therefore, with the earlier translators, whose contribution to his own work he generously acknowledges, nor should his work be compared with theirs. He has given us what they have not and what as authors of word-for-word translations they could not aspire to. He has given us a work of verbal art. He has thereby communicated to us some sense of the beauty of the original and some sense of the emotions that reading or hearing the original must have aroused. In this respect, however free his version on one level may be, on another and deeper one it seems remarkably faithful to the original. It is, therefore, a major contribution to our understanding and appreciation of this ancient and moving poem.
    WILLIAM L. MORAN
    the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities,
    Emeritus, Harvard University
    Brunswick, Maine

GILGAMESH

TABLET I
    i
    The Story
    of him who knew the most of all men know;
    who made the journey; heartbroken; reconciled;
    who knew the way things were before the Flood,
    the secret things, the mystery; who went
    to the end of the earth, and over; who returned,
    and wrote the story on a tablet of stone.
    He built Uruk. He built the keeping place
    of Anu and Ishtar. The outer wall
    shines in the sun like brightest copper; the inner
    wall is beyond the imagining of kings.
    Study the brickwork, study the fortification;
    climb the great ancient staircase to the terrace;
    study how it is made; from the terrace see
    the planted and fallow fields, the ponds and orchards.
    This is Uruk, the city of Gilgamesh
    the Wild Ox, son of Lugalbanda, son
    of the Lady Wildcow Ninsun, Gilgamesh
    the vanguard and the rear guard of the army,
    Shadow of Darkness over the enemy field,
    the Web, the Flood that rises to wash away
    the walls of alien cities, Gilgamesh
    the strongest one of all, the perfect, the terror.
    It is he who opened passes through the mountains;
    and he who dug deep wells on the mountainsides;
    who measured the world; and sought out Utnapishtim
    beyond the world; it is he who restored the shrines;
    two-thirds a god, one-third a man, the king.
    Go to the temple of Anu and Ishtar:
    open the copper chest with the iron locks;
    the tablet of lapis lazuli tells the story.
    ii
    There was no withstanding the aura or power of the Wild
    Ox Gilgamesh. Neither the father’s son
    nor the wife of the noble; neither the mother’s daughter
    nor the warrior’s bride was safe. The old men said:
    â€œIs this the shepherd of the people? Is this
    the wise shepherd, protector of the people?”
    The gods of heaven listened to their complaint.
    â€œAruru is the maker of this king.
    Neither the father’s son nor the wife of the noble
    is safe in Uruk; neither the mother’s daughter
    nor the warrior’s bride is safe. The old men say:
    â€˜Is this the shepherd of the people? Is this
    the wise shepherd, protector of the people?
    There is no withstanding the desire of the Wild Ox.’”
    They called the goddess Aruru, saying to her:
    â€œYou made this man. Now create another.
    Create his double and let the two contend.
    Let stormy heart contend with stormy heart
    that peace may come to Uruk once again.”
    Aruru listened and heard and then created
    out of earth clay and divine spittle the double,
    the