An episode of the Epic of Gilgamesh, recorded on its sixth tablet, in which the goddess Ishtar, spurned and insulted by Gilgamesh after proposing marriage to him, persuades her father Anu to send the Bull of Heaven against Uruk in revenge, threatening to raise the dead to overrun the living if he refuses. The bull's first two snorts tear open chasms that swallow hundreds of men, but Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu together kill it, and Enkidu compounds the insult to Ishtar by tearing off one of the bull's hindquarters and hurling it at her from the city wall. The episode marks the height of the two heroes' combined power and pride, and the gods' council convened afterward to weigh the deaths of Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven condemns Enkidu, rather than Gilgamesh, to die for them, turning the poem from heroic adventure toward Gilgamesh's grief and his search for immortality.
Facts
History
Historical NoteAfter the bull is killed, Enkidu tears off one of its hindquarters and hurls it at Ishtar on the city wall, taunting her that he would do the same to her if he could reach her, an insult the gods' council cites when they decree that one of the two heroes must die for the bull's killing. 2 Historical NoteThe bull's death is marked by Gilgamesh and Enkidu offering its heart to the sun god Shamash, a ritual gesture of piety toward the deity credited elsewhere in the epic with guiding and protecting the pair through their earlier journey to kill Humbaba. 1 Historical NoteThe episode's consequence, Enkidu's death, is what turns the epic from heroic adventure toward Gilgamesh's confrontation with mortality 1 Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly NoteAfter Enkidu hurls the bull's hindquarter at her, the tablet has Ishtar gather her cult attendants, the courtesans and temple women in her service, to mourn formally over its severed limb, a ritual lament scholars read as underscoring how thoroughly Enkidu's insult humiliates her standing as a goddess before her own city. 1 Scholarly NoteAssyriologists read Ishtar's marriage proposal and Gilgamesh's public catalogue of her past lovers' ruin as built from the conventions of a hymn of praise turned inside out, an insult constructed from the very form a suitor would be expected to use in courting a goddess. 1 Sources
Primary SourceEpic of Gilgamesh, Tablet VI 2 Meaning
Central MotifA rejected proposal answered with public insult; divine vengeance visited on a city; a hero's death decreed by divine council rather than in battle 1 Controversy
Point in DisputeAn earlier Sumerian poem on the same episode gives a substantially different account of Inanna's motives and the bull's origin than the later Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh's Tablet VI, one of several places where the Sumerian poems and the Standard Babylonian epic diverge rather than simply telling the same story in different languages. 1 Learn More
Ishtar's Proposal, and Gilgamesh's Insult
Fresh from his and Enkidu's victory over the monster Humbaba, guardian of the Cedar Forest, Gilgamesh washes and dresses himself in splendor, catching the eye of the goddess Ishtar, who proposes marriage and offers him wealth, a gold chariot, and the tribute of kings and countries in exchange. Gilgamesh refuses her in the bluntest possible terms, reciting a list of her previous lovers, mortal and animal alike, and the disasters that befell each of them, from Tammuz, condemned to yearly mourning, to a shepherd turned into a wolf and driven off by his own dogs, framing her proposal as an offer that has ruined everyone who ever accepted it.
Ishtar, humiliated before the assembled gods, goes to her father Anu and demands the Bull of Heaven to punish the insult, and when Anu objects that releasing the bull will bring seven years of famine to the land, she threatens to break open the gates of the underworld and let the dead outnumber and consume the living if he refuses her. Anu relents, and Ishtar leads the bull down to Uruk herself, where its first snort opens a chasm that swallows a hundred men, and its second swallows two hundred more, before Gilgamesh and Enkidu together move to bring it down.
The Bull's Death, and the Judgment That Followed
Enkidu seizes the bull by its tail and horns while Gilgamesh drives his sword between its neck and shoulder blade, killing it, and the two heroes offer its heart to the sun god Shamash in thanks. Ishtar, watching from the walls of Uruk, curses Gilgamesh for the bull's death, and Enkidu answers her curse by tearing off one of the dead bull's hindquarters and hurling it at her, taunting that he would do the same to her if he could reach her, an act of open defiance against a major goddess that the poem does not present as costless. The city celebrates the twin victories over Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven with a great feast, and Gilgamesh, at the height of his fame, sleeps that night with an untroubled heart.
The gods do not let the matter rest. Convened in council to weigh the deaths of Humbaba, whom the two heroes had killed against the wishes of the god Enlil, and now the Bull of Heaven, a creature belonging to the divine order itself, the gods determine that someone must die for the offenses, and rule that it will be Enkidu rather than Gilgamesh, since Gilgamesh alone is destined to be king. Enkidu falls sick and dies over the tablets that follow, and it is grief at his death, and terror at the prospect of his own, that sends Gilgamesh on the quest for immortality that occupies the remainder of the epic.
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Enkidu's death, decreed as a consequence of this episode, is what sends Gilgamesh on the quest for immortality.
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