The poet laureate’s visceral take on the legendary Mesopotamian hero’s wild adventures is a tour de force
The poet laureate is paid a salary of £5,750 per annum plus a barrel of sherry. No specific duties are attached to the role, but there is an expectation that poets will write verse for public occasions and royal events, a duty that Simon Armitage has fulfilled by writing a poem on the death of Elizabeth II, Floral Tribute, and another to mark the coronation of Charles and Camilla in 2023. Though it’s an awkward time for the royals, no laureate is going to write about them behaving badly (it wasn’t John Dryden, the first laureate, who wrote about Charles II’s bedroom habits, but John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester). And yet with Gilgamesh, Armitage does deliver a poem about royalty’s misdeeds, at least in part.
The epic originated in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) at least 4,000 years ago, and it begins with the eponymous demigod, king of Uruk, lording it over his subjects. Among other bad habits, he exercises the “right of the first night”, which allows him to bed newlywed brides before their husbands. To check his powers, the gods create his counterpart, the wild man Enkidu, who confronts Gilgamesh outside the house of one of these brides. The two rivals turned comrades then embark on a series of extraordinary adventures, including battles with Humbaba, guardian of the Cedar Forest, and with the winged Bull of Heaven, sent by the goddess Ishtar in revenge after Gilgamesh rejects her marriage proposal. Following Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh sets out alone on a desperate quest for immortality that leads him to the very edge of the world.