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Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse
Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse
Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse
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Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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A new verse rendering of the great epic of ancient Mesopotamia, one of the oldest works in Western Literature. Ferry makes Gilgamesh available in the kind of energetic and readable translation that Robert Fitzgerald and Richard Lattimore have provided for readers in their translations of Homer and Virgil.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 11, 2014
ISBN9781466885028
Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse
Author

David Ferry

David Ferry, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for his translation of Gilgamesh, is a poet and translator who has also won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, given by the Academy of American Poets, and the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, given by the Library of Congress. In 2001, he received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ferry is the Sophie Chantal Hart Professor of English Emeritus at Wellesley College.

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Rating: 3.8070000488 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It was ok. good for an essay.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    As a history buff, I proudly rated the Epic of Gilgamesh a 5/5. Since the author(s) is long dead and unknown, I don’t expect much blowback. This story is really timeless and while it has a niche audience, I do recommend everyone reads at least part. It is, after all, the first poem in recorded history. It provided great insight into the human mind and society as it has been for thousands of years.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It is rather confusing that this page displays reviews of multiple renderings and translations of the eipic. This review is of the version by David Ferry. It is hard to judge when I have not read any actual translations that do not attempt to reahape the text, only another interpretation by Stephen Mitchell.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I was intrigued to read a "closer to the source" edition of Gilgamesh after my recent discovery of Stephen Mitchell's "Gilgamesh: A New English Version" which is considered controversial as Mitchell was not translating it but simply adapting it based on the translations of others and fills in any missing sections with his own poetic extrapolations on the text. Mitchell does use this present 1999/2003 edition by A.R. George as his primary source.Andrew George has done a spectacular job assembling here as complete an edition with all variant sources as existed 20 years ago. It is evident from the missing sections and the continued discoveries that even further reconstruction is possible in the future. The notes and the pictures (some photos, some drawings) are a bonus enhancement of the experience.It is fascinating to know how this has all been assembled from thousands of clay tablet fragments found throughout mostly present-day Iraq. The work and its variants was so popular that it was a standard text used in scribe schools for reproduction, thus increasing the likelihood of 4,000+ year old fragments being discovered in recent centuries.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Zeer interessante inleiding. Prozavertaling, bewerkt, van het gedicht, zowat het oudste fictiegeschrift dat bewaard is gebleven.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Zeer interessante inleiding. Prozavertaling, bewerkt, van het gedicht, zowat het oudste fictiegeschrift dat bewaard is gebleven.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was my first experience of Gilgamesh, the ancient Sumerian epic that predates Homer's Odyssey by about 1500 years. What a brilliant, simple story; no wonder it has survived. I found Herbert Mason's verse narrative brief and easy to read, but deeply impactful. Gilgamesh is a king of Uruk (historically, fifth in line after the Great Flood, which the poem mentions). He lives a self-absorbed life, driving his people harshly or neglecting them, using the women, building the walls, but mostly just being idle. He awakens from this life when he meets Enkidu, a man from the wild who has been tamed by a prostitute. Enkidu and Gilgamesh become friends in the most inseparable sense, equals in all. When Gilgamash is possessed by a desire to destroy the brutish god Humbaba, Enkidu is seized with fear. He knows from his time in the forest of Humbaba's dark power, and pleads with his friend not to go. But Gilgamesh is resolved, and Enkidu accompanies him. Enkidu is killed, and Gilgamesh finally discovers what human sorrow is. Spent with grief, he embarks on a winding quest to bring his friend back to life. What will be the end?I love the prayer of Ninsun, Gilgamesh's mother who was a minor goddess. She says to the god Shamash, ...Why did you give my sonA restless heart, and now you touch himWith this passion to destroy Humbaba,And you send him on a journey to a battleHe may never understand, to a doorHe cannot open. You inspire him to endThe evil of the world which you abhorAnd yet he is a man for all his powerAnd cannot do your work. You must protectMy son from danger. (33)It captures the futility of humanity in our quest for transcendence, our spiritual discontent which we cannot remedy. All our good deeds come to nothing, and the last appeal is always to the deity. Striking also to me was the monotheism of Utnapishtim, the wise man Gilgamesh seeks out to save his friend. Mason hints in the afterword that this expression of monotheism may cause some controversy among scholars... interesting. Casual readers like me always wonder, when we pick up a work like this of which there are so many versions and translations, if we have chosen The Right One. If we have maximized our reading experience, if we have latched on to something of which those who know would approve. I have to let worries like this go and simply enjoy the book, whichever version it is, that has fallen to me. I don't know what other translations are like, but I found this one intensely human and accessible. Strangely powerful, from across thousands of years Gilgamesh draws us into its story and remains with us. It is, of course, the universality of loss, the desperation of sorrow, and the long road home of acceptance that make Gilgamesh's journey ours. Recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I am taking on the subject of Babylonian Civilization this summer. To get started, I'm rereading the oldest story ever written by humans. How old? Try 4000 years old. Not only is it the oldest, but it is written in a dead language and it was buried for a couple thousand years before some British archaeologists dug it up in the Iraqi desert in the mid 1800's. It took another 50 years before it was translated into English. I've read an adaptation of Gilgamesh before but never a scholarly translation that was directly translated from the cuneiform tablets. Andrew George's translation is considered one of the standards and I found it very readable even though there are gaps here and there to represent where the tablets are broken. In a sense, this made the work of translation more apparent and interesting. In fact, there is a whole system in place that emphasizes when and where certainty and speculation are used in the story. Italics and brackets are all over the place, but once you figure out the code, it adds a lot to the reading experience. In addition to the standard Gilgamesh tablets, there are older Sumerian tablets that are translated and included in this Penguin edition. The Sumerian tablets are older but translated from Sumerian and not Akkadian. They tend to be less standardized, with characters switching names or roles here and there. The notes help sort all this out. The introduction is also very interesting and helps lay some crucial groundwork for placing this story in context to the history of the Babylonian Empire. If you are like me and love Homer and all the other early epics you will want to familiarize yourself with this most excellent story. Just as interesting is the story of its discovery. Check out The Buried Book by David Damrosch to learn more about that. If you want to learn more about the ancient history of the area in audio format, check out Dan Carlin's podcast "Hardcore History -King of Kings" series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the grandmama of all written epic stories. Its influence can be read in Judeo-Christian and Roman stories. The Flood story is of particular interest to many since the bible story very nearly mirrors every detail as found in Gilgamesh.Gilgamesh goes on a quest to find eternal life and commits heroic deeds, only to discover there is no such thing as eternal life to those not fully gods.Worth reading if you really like epic stories. Also worth reading for the historical influence on literature through the ages.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The story of Gilgamesh is the oldest in the Western world, it is also (perhaps especially in Stephen Mitchell's translation?) remarkably easy to read - simple, short and to the point. Gilgamesh is a part-god warrior/king/superhero who terrorizes his people to the point where they pray for divine intervention. The gods create a partner for Gilgamesh in the form of Enkidu, a wild man who runs with the animals and is also superhumanly powerful and awesome. After civilizing the wild man Enkidu with the powers of Shamhat, one of the goddess Ishtar's sacred prostitute-presitesses, Enkidu journeys to the city of Uruk and, after having a very intimate battle with King Gilgamesh, becomes his inseparable companion. The relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu far surpasses platonic friendship - that's right, the first epic story of gods and warriors is also an epic gay romance:[Gilgamesh] went to his mother, the goddess Ninsun,and asked her to interpret the dream."I saw a bright star, it shot acrossthe morning sky, it fell at my feetand lay before me like a huge boulder.I tried to lift it, but it was too heavy.I tried to move it, but it would not budge....This boulder, this star that had fallen to earth -I took it in my arms, I embraced it and caressed itthe way a man caresses his wife."...The mother of Gilgamesh, Lady Ninsun,the wise, the all-knowing, said to her son,"Dearest child, this bright star from heaven,this huge boulder that you could not lift - it stands for a dear friend, a mighty hero.You will take him in your arms, embrace and caress himthe way a man caresses his wife.He will be your double, your second self,a man who is loyal, who will stand at your sidethrough the greatest dangers. Soon you will meet him,the companion of your heart. Your dream has said so." (p. 82-84)Together, Gilgamesh and Enkidu go on a couple of great adventures, slaying powerful monsters and tormenting a goddess who tries to seduce Gilgamesh. Things are going well until Enkidu falls ill and dies. Gilgamesh is inconsolable in his grief and the anguish and terror he feels when faced with death transforms him into a suddenly frail, human character. Gilgamesh goes on a quest to find immortality, and in doing so encounters some interesting pre-Biblical flood and evil snake stories. Also interesting is that Gilgamesh is the story of a hero who ultimately fails, but he does return to his city of Uruk a transformed character, one with a sense of beauty and appreciation for the city and its inhabitants. Gilgamesh is interesting for several reasons - the very fact that it is the oldest story, the glimpse it offers at ancient religious rites and ways of life, and the fact that it provides a motif for many adventures, myths and legends that follow it, including the Old Testament. The title character is also more interesting and complex than one might expect from a warrior-king-slays-monsters epic - he is an openly flawed, vulnerable hero, one who experiences the anguish of heartbreak and the terror of death and is forced to come to terms with the fact that not even a superpowered warrior king can gain immortality. Stephen Mitchell's detailed introduction is fascinating, and his notes at the end, which provide alternate text and translations for certain passages, are wonderful. This is a story that is well worth reading and entertaining to boot (and hey, it's short, too!)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The first time I read this book, I felt that it was a bit repetitive throughout the story, repeating some of the tale over and over again. But I found it much more interesting the second time through. Gilgamesh, the protagonist, can almost be compared to Achilles. Both have their flaws and suffer great sorrow when their friend dies. Gilgamesh undertakes a journey to obtain eternal life, but eventually accepts his fate, and proceeds to change from a man who thinks only of himself, to one who begins to think of the welfare of others in his kingdom. The Epic of Gilgamesh is not only important because it is one of our earliest books, and one of the earliest forms of tragedy, but also for its historic significance. It mentions the Great Flood or Deluge, and it gives some details of the history of the the ancient Middle East.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I thought this was a great clear and concise rendering of the Epic. I read it hand in hand with another translation taken directly from the Akkadian and Babylonian text to make things clearer. The story comes together smoothly despite the missing lines and was a great read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When I was a student teacher, I actually taught my students the Gilgamesh Epic. I used it to then go into the various creation and flood stories of various world religions. In fact, when I was in high school, my tenth grade English teacher also taught Gilgamesh, which is probably why I decided to follow his lead. Of course, every version I've ever seen is a simple breakdown of each section of the story, not the actual translation of the poem that this is (or, at least, the translation of what has been found of it so far). So, this particular version was a first time read for me.The Epic of Gilgamesh presents one of the earliest recorded tales. It includes the first known example of a written creation story, a flood story, and even a version of the temptation of man by woman and a betrayal by a serpent. The Biblical parallels are so many that it can't be mere coincidence, especially when you learn that the early Semites (who would become the Jewish people) were at one time indoctrinated by Babylonian religion, which copied many of their stories from the Sumerian, including Gilgamesh, already an historical figure turned mythic hero by the time Babylon became a power.To me though, the most important element of the Gilgamesh epic, is that it's not only the first "on the road" story, but also the first buddy story. Gilgamesh literally has a best friend made for him by the gods, and the two go on amazing adventures together. As a fan of the road movie and the buddy picture, this is something that always stayed with me about Gilgamesh and Enkidu. This brand of buddy adventure has always been around and has always been popular, since the literal beginnings of civilization.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I need to reread this - last time I read this I was in 5th grade and didn't really understand it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book reignited my nostalgia for ziggurats and reminded me of how much I actually enjoy the deities of Mesopotamia. They really don't make gods like they used to.I found it amazingly readable, for a 4,000 year old item. The first portion, with it's fun and hi-jinks, slaying of the ogre Humbaba and all that, had me giggling merrily away in Starbucks. Then something terrible happened, but by then I was invested. Funfact not included in this book: According to my mythological dictionary, Humbaba had a beard made of entrails.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love how relevant the themes remain to today's world. I love seeing the obvious influence this story had on the Bible and other ancient works (but not as ancient as Gilgamesh ). I love the gorgeous lines like "You will be left alone, unable to understand in a world where nothing lives anymore as you thought it did" (Enkidu telling Gilgamesh what will happen upon his death) and "The only nourishment he knew was grief, endless in its hidden source yet never ending hunger." Worth a reread for its beautiful simplicity.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Part of the fascination of this book lies simply with reading one of the oldest surviving stories that goes back to the very beginning of civilization. I got these dates and comments regarding some of the earliest surviving written works from the Wiki:800 BCE Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey1440-1400 BCE Hebrew Torah, also called the Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses with a final redaction between 900-450 BC. Some give an alternate date of 1320-1280. [And others think the Bible is much younger--dating from the time of the Babylonian Exile circa 600 BC]1550 BCE Egyptian Book of the Dead1700-1100 BCE Approximate date of the composition of the Hindu Veda Rigveda in Sanskrit. 1780 BCE Akkadian Code of Hammurabi stele1900 Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh2250-2000 BCE Sumerian Earliest stories in the Epic of Gilgamesh.This, folks, is a work older than the Bible by a thousand years--and has a global flood story complete with ark. Compared to the The Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer is a green newcomer: Gilgamesh is a millennium and a half older. Only a few surviving Egyptian and Sumerian texts are older. And amazingly, this isn't just one of the oldest works of literature, but a great work of literature. Timeless in the way it speaks of grief and friendship and mortality. It's incredible this work was lost for so many centuries and only gained a wide audience after World War II. The poem itself is a short work, only taking up about 60 pages of the paperback book. The Penguin edition I have translated by Sandars has a fascinating account of their rediscovery.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read this only for the sake of saying I did, but it's on par with Greek mythology for entertainment and has actual plot twists that surprise. Not bad for a story that went missing for more than two millenia until it was rediscovered in the 19th century. Gilgamesh has the strength of a god but the mortality of a man. This anguish leads him to unjustly lord it over his people until a friend almost equal to him in strength is sent to correct his ways. Adventures ensue, and Gilgamesh learns more bitter lessons about loss and death. There's some intriguing parallels to stories from the Bible and echoes of Homer. I took the epic as a whole to be the story of human grappling with mortality: we feel like gods in our youth, strive to make names for ourselves, then endure the humbling of our pride and the hollows of tragedy that weather us, leading to maturity and eventually an acceptance of death.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Read it. A lot of later epics, fables, stories have found their source here. The tale of the Great Flood is here hundreds of years before its mention in Genesis.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Different than I remember. It was an actual translation, rather than a literary interpretation, which was both good and bad:Good, because it was faithful and does away with flowery embellishments.Bad, because the original is in fragments, and what does remain is awfully repetitive.On the whole, the story was pleasant and a prototypical hero myth - a foundation of literature, if you will.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Gilgamesh is a real illustration of progress. It's the world's oldest story--about a thousand years before The Iliad and even longer before the Bible. Which makes it a fascinating historical document. But, to me, much of it read like immature nonsense. Sure there were neat parts, battles, floods, etc. And sure it was interesting that the mind thousands of years ago went through many of the same emotions and issues that we go through today. And sure it is an interesting historical document. But much of it is also a slog. It's possible the experience would have been different if, like Greek Mythology or the Bible, one had a grounding and came into it knowing who Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim and Enkidu. But I didn't.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It was interesting, but not my thing. I liked that it dealt a lot with dreams and how they are interpreted (or misinterpreted), because I know a lot of cultures hold dreams as a sort of communication power.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A classic tale of a hero in ancient Akkad. Perhaps not all tablets have been found, yet its a story worth reading for anyone interested in the stories of thousands of years ago.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I finished The Epic of Gilgamesh. The hardest thing I had to deal with was picking a translation! The library had two choices: a translation by N. K. Sandars or one by Maureen Gallery Kovacs. I chose the Sandars one which translated the text into prose. I wish it were translated into poetic form, but with this one I got a real sense of the story.The Kovac version was great as a reference because there were pictures from the British Museum with the Epic of Gilgamesh in art form from Ancient Assyria. There was also a map. Also, Kovac translated it into poetic verse with line numbers. However, the translator used ellipses whenever there was a break in the tablet or missing lines, so it made the translation more jagged.This epic has it all: a creation by the Ancient Assyrian gods, an epic battle against the evil monster Humbaba, long journeys, an ancient flood story, and the search for eternal life. The flood story is similar to the Biblical account, except the ark is square and seven stories high which doesn't make sense because it would tip over. Also, it only rains for 7 days instead of 40. But, it is interesting to read the parallels.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It's the ultimate story, filled with everything: battles, friendship, hubris, shame, loss, joy, gods, human-gods, creation, sacrifice, love, hate, quests, sex.
    It's mostly about men, of course.
    Cos we women basically ran about and tempted men to ruin them. Poor Enkidu, once mighty until he slept with a woman.
    Regular theme, methinks.
    However, it's the first story in the Western tradition, and worth exploring as a view of the world in which we once lived.
    I urge you to read the story before the introduction - I didn't and nearly gave up on the book before I got to the actual story. This would have been a mistake. It was worth the reading.
    I can't help but think of Tom Harpur's The Pagan Christ when I read it. There are such similarities in creation stories that sometimes I wonder if our brains have a specific synapse devoted to them.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Epic literature. Interesting because of its origin on Babylonian clay tablets and its biblical flood story.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    What I learned from this ancient epic is how much The Bible and Homer cribbed from it. The entire flood story is here in its original Sumerian form, complete with the cubits and the ark and the animals and the dove.

    Also, the storytelling style we later came to associate with Homer is here. I'm thinking about the way Homer would have a character deliver some paragraph-long pronouncement to someone, who delivers it to someone else using the exact same spiel, and so on.

    And epic? It's only a bit longer than an ambitiously extended short story! I thought an epic was supposed to be long! I guess back then, when you had to carve all those cuneiform letters out longhand (and by that I mean on stone tablets), anything seemed long.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I grabbed this for free in the department one day, and I picked it up to read because of a short story in the January 2011 issue of Fantasy and SF that re-told the story from a soldier's p.o.v. This was probably not the translation for me to read: the introduction criticizes other translations for getting bogged down in "philological uncertainties." I *like* philological uncertainties and want them made explicit. I also want to know just what liberties the translator is taking: the use of Latin, Bengali, Amharic, Gaelic, and Hebrew at the end of Gilgamesh's lament for Enkidu on pp.51-2 was very problematic for me. Having said that, it didn't ruin the story for me, and I was able to spot a major difference between the story here and how it was re-told in the F&SF short story. But I did find my mind wandering quite often while reading sections.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I knew the Biblical flood story felt like a cheap rip-off. Can't Hollywood come up with any original ideas?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I knew very little about Gilgamesh before I picked up this book in the library. I knew I wanted to read it, and I had a vague idea it was one of the oldest works of literature, but other than that, I was relatively ignorant. This edition helped a lot with that, since it has an informative introduction. It's not exactly a new translation, being based on (if I remember rightly) seven earlier literal translations, but it is lovely and clear and also, where the story needs it, tender and touching.

    I really love the poem itself. The relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu is touching and heart-rending, and the descriptions of Gilgamesh's grief feel so real. It's amazing how readable and relevant it is -- partly due to the translation, I'm sure, but in general it seems closer to a modern reader's interests than other ancient stories, even ones a lot closer to us in time.

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Gilgamesh - David Ferry

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