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Destiny in Gilgamesh and The Iliad Stories do not need to inform us of things. From Gilgamesh for example, we know that some of the people who lived in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the second and third millenium's BCE. We know they celebrated a king named Gilgamesh; we know they believed in many gods; we know they were self- -conscious of their own cultivation of the natural world; and we know they were literate. In the story, The Iliad we also know that great rulers and gods ruled and where top priority of the lands.
Point being it can be argued that the story of Gil- -games and the Iliad destinys are quite the same in residence of the wars and the ways of life both of the storys complete to meaningful death. In hand which cost- -itunes to both of the epics. In the story of Gilgamesh, it is important to look careful what happened in the story; that is, look at it as if the actions and people it describes actually took place or existed. The questions raised by a characters actions discuss the implied- -ations of their consequences. But its not to consider how the story is put together rather how it uses the conventions of language, of events with begining's and endings of description of character and storytelling itself to reawaken our sensitivity to the real world. The real world is the world without conventions, the unnameable, under- respectable world its continuity of action, its shadings and blurring's of character its indecipherable patterns of being.
The Iliad and Gilgamesh storys is greatly a reminder of the way life is today; just different in time but neither less to say similiar in goals and destinys. Moreover, in the prologue of Gilgamesh its found to know that he was two- -thirds god and one-third man, and his knowledge is the key that follows. Gilgamesh is a hero more beautiful, more courageous, more terrifying than the rest of us; his desires, attributes, and accomplishments epitomize our own. Yet he is also mortal: he must experiance the death of others and also die himself. How much more must a god rage against death than we who are merely mortal! And if he can reconcile himself with death then surely we can.
In fact, without death his life would be mean- -ingress, and the adventures that make up the epic would disappear. The story begins with the coming of Enkidu. As a young man and a god Gilgamesh has no companion with the people of Uruk. He is their king but not their shepherd; he kills their sons and rapes the daughters. Hearing the peoples lament, the gods create Enkidu as a match for Gilgamesh, a second self: [L]et them contend together and leave Uruk in quiet (31).
The plan works in several ways. First Enkidu prevents Gilgamesh from entering the house of a bride and bridegroom; they fight embrace as friends. Second, Enkidu and Gilgamesh undertake a journey into the forest to confront the terrible Humbaba. There they encourage each other to face death triumphantly: [All] living creatures born of the flesh shall sit at least in the boat of the west/ and when it sinks / when the boat of Maximum sinks/ they are gone but we shall go forward and fix our eyes on this monster. (35) While everlasting life is not his destiny, Gilgamesh will leave behind him a name that endures. [I] will go to the country where the ceder is felled/ I will set up my name in the place where names of famous men are written (32) Thus Gilgamesh turns his attention away from small personal desires to loftier personal desires desires that benifit rather than Uruk. To remember from the prague that the walls of the city, made from cedar taken from the forest, still stand in actuality or image- -nation to proclaim Gilgamesh's fame, and the very first sentence of the epic attest to the immortality of his name.
But the immortality of a name is less the ability to live forever than to die. Third and most important, Enkidu teaches Gilgamesh what it means to be human; he teaches him the meaning of love and compassion, the meaning of loss and of growing older, the meaning of mortality! ! However similar in the Iliad the main theme of the story is also war, unlike Gilgamesh theres two sides having war with each other aswell as themselves and family. The epic begins with an arguement between the greek king and the chief fighter. Homers outlook on the war itself is unique and competing as where the battle between the greeks and the trojans are caused mainly because of a woman. At the period women where belittled and treated like whores and it was all fine.
A war that was so intense the god Zeus was called upon to help, first off Apollo is angry because Agamemnon (king of the greeks) has failed to let one of the gods priests ransome a daughter, Agamemnon had allowed himself as a war-prize. Ag- -a memnon reluctantly gives girl up but insists on taking in her place Briseis (achelles concubine; captured by the greeks) who was originally assigned to Achilles-hence the wrath of Achilles, which is the epics announced topic. Achilles complains to his mother Thetis, who presides Zeus to let the trojans prevail in battle, until Achelles honor is satisfied. Thats the thing about this war between the Greeks and Trojans all of the flat characters of these two stories seems to be their destiny to die with honor. Later to find out in the story of the Iliad when the check fighter Hector leads the Trojans through the greeks wall with vengeance. Poseidon disobeys Zeus and help rally the greeks.
Poseidon keeps Agamemnon from calling retreat to the ships, while hera (borrowing a magic girdle from Aprhodite) seduces Zeus and lulls him to sleep. Hector is wounded by a stone, and the Trojans are driven back. Zeus wakes up mad at his wife and sends Apollo to heal Hector, who comes back and burns the Greek ships. Later on, Hector reproaches himself for not having retreated at the first appearance of the Achilles. He goes out to meet Achilles in single combat and is slain. So he finally met his destiny.
Achilles ties his body behind a chariot and drag it off to the greek ships. Finally, these are some contributes whereas the works of Gilgamesh and the Iliad are the same and virtual look upon as the choosers of their own true destiny and thats DEATH...
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