Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven: Themes in Tablet VI

Introduction

Tablet VI of the Epic of Gilgamesh, in its late version, contains the story of Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu's battle with the Bull of Heaven. As translated by Gardner and Maier, the passages describe an epic fight between man and beast and the struggle of humanity against the divine. Determined to kill Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the goddess Ishtar demands that her father, the great god Anu, create the Bull of Heaven.

Ishtar's Wrath and the Threat to Cosmic Order

The Bull is presented as a terrible threat, made plain by Ishtar's warning of wholesale destruction if the Bull is not created:

"If you do not give me the bull,
I will smash in the gates of the netherworld;
I will set up the [ruler] of the great below,
And I will make the dead rise, and they will devour the living,
And the dead will increase beyond the number of the living."
(VI.iii.96–100)

This passage presents Ishtar as possessing terrible capacity for vengeance. Her hatred of Gilgamesh and Enkidu is so extreme that she is willing to overturn the entire order of the cosmos in order to satisfy her wrath. In threatening to "smash in the gates of the netherworld," she is prepared to break down the very boundaries that separate gods from humans. Gilgamesh's defiance of the great goddess is, in this reading, tantamount to an overthrowing of that same order. As chief god, Anu must decide what to do: give in to the wrath of his daughter, or risk the destruction of law and order.

Anu's Warning and the Material Foundations of Civilization

Anu warns Ishtar of the consequences of releasing the Bull of Heaven:

"If you ask me for the bull,
for seven years the land of Uruk will harvest only chaff.
Have you stored up grain for the people?
Have you grown grass for the animals?"
(VI.iii.102–106)

These lines make clear that the Bull represents a force even more terribly destructive than the horrors threatened by Ishtar. Worse than the elimination of law and order, or the moral chaos that Ishtar's threats would represent, the loosing of the Bull appears to bring about the physical annihilation of the means of existence. The Bull would consume all the grain and all the grass, causing both men and animals to starve. All the creatures of the earth would die, and the gods would be left without support.

The Battle with the Bull of Heaven

It is with this concern in mind that Anu asks Ishtar whether she has ensured that food has been stored up for those who dwell on earth. Anu's question is significant because it reveals the physical underpinnings of the cosmic order. A civilization's values may be important, but that civilization cannot exist without the material things that sustain it. Anu comes across as concerned with the totality of creation, while Ishtar is concerned only with the satisfaction of her own desires — as befits a goddess of sexual urges and warfare.

At length, Anu releases the Bull of Heaven, and Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight it as they have every other obstacle that has come their way. The hero and his friend represent the power of human strength in taming wild nature. The Bull is nature at its worst — destructive and terrible. As the Bull was brought into being at Ishtar's behest, it is clear, once again, that she stands for the unbridled passions that lurk beneath the surface of cultured society. Gilgamesh and Enkidu attack the Bull as they would any dangerous animal:

After they had killed the bull they tore out his heart.
They set it before Shamash.
They withdrew and worshipped Shamash.
They sat down, blood-brothers, the two of them.
(VI.v.153–156)