The Story

of him who knew the most of all men know;
who made the journey; hearbroken; 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 the 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, this is Uruk, the city of Gilgamesh
the Wild Ox, son of Lugalbanda, son

of the Lady Wildcow-Ninsun, Gilgamesh
the vangaurd and the reargaurd of the army,

Shodow of Darkness over the enemy fields,
the Web, the Flood that Rises to wash away

the walls of alien cities. Gilgamesh
the strongest one of them all, the perfect.

It is he who opened the passes through the mountains;
and he who dug deep wells on the mountainside;

who measured the world; and sought out Utnapishtum
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 lapiz lazuli tells the story.

- The Prologue to "Gilgamesh"