Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

"Actually, this translation didn't find much new stuff. At least the overall situation of the poem is not much different from what archaeologists discovered in the previous generation." After turning on the projector, Liang En pointed at the projector. The content is introduced.

"But since everyone wants to see what our new discovery is like, I will give you a simple translation of the content of this poem word for word."

Although "The Epic of Gilgamesh" has been translated for nearly a hundred years, not many people have actually read it word for word, so now that Liang En is telling everyone this story, it has obviously attracted everyone.

So in the following time, everyone who had nothing to do now sat there quietly and listened to Liang En telling this story. There were even a few officers and non-commissioned officers who could understand English sitting behind the tent.

According to the epic, Gilgamesh, a hybrid between man and god, was born a king, but when he was young, he had a surly personality, bullying men and dominating women, and the people complained.

So the gods made a strong man out of clay and sent him to restrain the king. The strong man's name was Enkidu.

The two of them met and had a fight and cherished each other. After getting new friends, Gilgamesh suddenly found the meaning of life, so he gave up his original low-level interests and decided to do something with his friends.

So the two of them, with the help of the Sun God, ran to Lebanon and killed the monster Humbaba and cut down the cedar forest. Valuable timber was brought back to Uruk.

But because this monster is the forest guardian appointed by the main god Enlil, it offended the divine world. At the same time, while returning to the city, Gilgamesh also received a courtship from Ishtar, the goddess of Venus who protected Uruk.

But Gilgamesh knew that she was passionate, and all her previous lovers died ugly. So not only did he reject the goddess, but he also revealed all his dark history.

From this point of view, humans have done the same thing when encountering emotional problems throughout the ages, and have even extended this type of content to gods.

After all, myths are also made up by humans. So from a certain perspective, what the gods did in mythology was actually a manifestation of human behavior at that time.

However, when gods encounter emotional problems, they cause more trouble than humans. Ishtar, who was rejected and slapped in the face, chose to ask her father for the Bull of Heaven to wreak havoc on the world.

For Gilgamesh and Enkidu, who had just killed Humbaba, killing another cow that caused natural disasters was not a problem, so Enkidu stepped on the cow's tail from behind, and Gilgamesh seized the opportunity. The cow was stabbed to death.

The goddess Ishtar was very unwilling to face this scene and scolded Gilgamesh. In order to stand up for his friend, Enkidu picked up the intestines of the Bull of Heaven and threw them in front of Ishtar.

At the same time, he also warned the goddess with harsh words that if you harass Gilgamesh again, you will end up like this cow. The goddess left the city of Uruk in despair. Gilgamesh and Enkidu became heroes supported by everyone.

Although this seemed very cool, it also put them on the blacklist of the gods, and the gods gathered together to discuss how to punish them. Because Gilgamesh has 2/3 of the blood of a god and is backed by the Sun God, they set their target on Enkidu.

After all, Enkidu was just a puppet made of clay by the gods, and had no background in the divine world, so he was naturally the best scapegoat, and he quickly weakened and died.

Gilgamesh was devastated by the death of his friend. He held Enkidu's body and cried for seven days and seven nights. He did not let go until the body rotted and became infested with worms. Gilgamesh then spends several days giving Enkidu a state funeral.

After doing all these things, he, who was not afraid of anything, began to fear death. He took advantage of the darkness to climb over the Marsh Mountain leading to the sun, ignoring the obstruction of the half-scorpion man Pabirsag, and after using up 120 boats, he After the oar finally crossed the sea of ​​death and reached the destination.

Utnapishtim, who survived the ancient flood, received him, but did not directly answer the question of life and death. Instead, he made him go through a trial of not sleeping for 6 days and 7 nights.

Gilgamesh did not succeed, but because of the kindness of Utnapishidim's wife, he went to the bottom of the sea to get the Grass of Immortality. Normally, a story about a hero getting eternal life would be written here, but this is not how it is written in the epic.

The next story is a bit absurd. Gilgamesh took a bath to relax on his way back, but the aroma of the herbs attracted the snake. The herbs were eaten by the snake, and the snake completed its first molt at this time.

Gilgamesh eventually returned to Uruk empty-handed. He finally understood that even the greatest hero would die one day. After seeing his dead friends at the passage of life and death, he completed a transformation.

From then on, he put aside his pursuit of God and eternal life, worked hard to rule in Uruk, and finally became a virtuous king as a mortal man.

"——For us contemporary people, the section about the Great Flood should be the most attractive. Because it partially overlaps with the content of the Bible." After explaining the entire story, Liang En began to talk about his judgment.

"Another clay tablet we found in the same batch describes the entire flood story in detail. You will find that there are great overlaps in the two stories:

A family favored by the gods built a Noah's Ark and survived, but the flood wiped out all mankind; and when the flood receded, they multiplied new races and spread across the world. "

"It's easy to understand why this story was so popular throughout Sumerian civilization. Lower Mesopotamia must have been plagued by floods.

Needless to say, this put great pressure on the fragile irrigation system on which its prosperity depended, and was an unavoidable natural disaster for humans at that time.

This kind of unpredictable and inevitable flood, but capable of causing fatal damage to the fragile civilization at that time, left a full impression on my mind at that time. This also imbues the entire civilization with a pessimistic fatalism,"

"For example, this epic poem is like this. Gilgamesh did many great things and worked tirelessly to prove his ability as a human being, against the laws set by the gods and convinced that humans would fail.

But in the end the prophecy is correct, and Gilgamesh must prepare to face death. All heroes and wise men are like the new moon, which must have its waxing and waning moments.

People will say: Who has ever ruled with strength and power like him. Just like on a moonless night or when the moon is waning, as long as he is not there, there is no light.

oh! Gilgamesh, this is the meaning of your dream. You have been given the status of king, it is your destiny; but eternal life is not your destiny. "

"At the same time, this also shows from another perspective that although all the Sumerian civilization has completely disappeared, the knowledge we have always inherited may be largely derived from the Sumerian myths about their own prehistory. Reconstruction——"

After the academic lecture period, the officers and non-commissioned officers left because these things were a bit boring to them, but all the scholars listened to Liang En's speech carefully and kept taking notes.