the story of Gilgamesh. Tell me how your version ended," I asked. I simply couldn't resist the question. "You know we have only fragments now, and we don't have the old script that you had."
"It ended the same way as your modern versions. Gilgamesh couldn't resign himself that Enkido could die. Enkido did die, too, though I don't remember quite why. Gilgamesh acted as if he'd never seen anybody die before, and he went to the immortal who had survived the great flood. The great flood. Your flood. Our flood. Everyone's flood. With us it was Noah and his sons. With them it was an immortal who lived in the land of Dilmun in the sea. He was the great survivor of the flood. And off to see him, to get immortality, goes this genius Gilgamesh. And that ancient one-who would be the Hebrew Noah for our people-says what? 'Gilgamesh, if you can stay awake for seven days and nights, you can be immortal.'
"And what happens? Gilgamesh instantly fell asleep. Instantly! He didn't even wait a day! A night. He keeled over! Smash. Asleep. So that was the end of that plan, except that the immortal widow of the immortal man who had survived the flood took pity on him, and they told Gilgamesh that if he tied stones to his feet and sank down in the sea he could find a plant that, once eaten, gives you eternal youth. Well, I think they were trying to drown the man!
"But our version, as yours, followed Gilgamesh in this expedition. Down he went and he found the plant. Then he comes up again. He goes to sleep. His worst habit apparently, this sleeping . . . and a snake comes and takes the plant. Ah, what utter sadness for Gilgamesh and then comes the old advice to all:
" 'Enjoy your life, fill your belly with wine and food, and accept death. The Gods kept immortality for themselves, death is the lot of man.' You know, profound philosophical revelations!"
I laughed. "I like your telling of it. When you would stand up in the tablet house, did you read it with that same fervor?"
"Oh, always!" he said. "But even then, what did we have? Bits and pieces of something ancient. Uruk had been built thousands of years before. Maybe there was such a real king. Maybe.
"If I have a point in all this right now, let me make it. Madness in kings is common. In fact, I think sanity in kings must be rare. Gilgamesh went crazy. Nabonidus was crazy. You ask me, Pharaoh was crazy in every story I ever heard about him.
"And I understand this. I understand it because I have looked into the face of Cyrus the Persian and into the face of Nabonidus, and I know that kings are alone, utterly alone. I have looked into the face of Gregory Belkin, a king in his own right, and I saw this same isolation and terrible weakness; there is no mother, there is no father, there is no limit to power, and disaster is the portion of kings. I have looked into the face of other kings, but that we will pass over quickly later on, because what I did as the evil Servant of the Bones does not matter now, except that every time I killed a human life, I destroyed a universe, did I not?"
"Perhaps, or you sent the evil flame home to be cleansed in the great fire of God."
"Ah, that is beautiful," he said to me.
I was complimented. But did I believe this?
"So, let's go on with my life," he said. "I worked at the Court as soon as I left the tablet house, and then my writing and reading were of the utmost importance. I knew all languages. I saw many strange documents and old letters in Sumerian and was useful to the King's regent, Belshazzar. No one much cared for Belshazzar, as I said. He couldn't hold the New Year's Festival, or the priests didn't want him, or Marduk wouldn't do it, who knows, but he wasn't destined to be loved.
"Yet I can't say this made for a bad atmosphere in the palace. It was fairly congenial and of course the correspondence was endless. Letters were pouring in from the outlying territories complaining about the Persians being on the march, or about the Egyptians being on the march, or about the stars as seen by various astrologists predicting very bad or good things for