In episode I of The Epic of Gilgamesh, why does Shamash help the trapper rather than Enkidu, a creation of his peers who was created to help the people oppressed by Gilgamesh?
1 Answer
It is not Shamash the sun god, but rather Shamhat the temple harlot, who (at the direction of King Gilgamesh) helps the "notorious trapper" to protect his livelihood from the wild man Enkidu. She does this by seducing Enkidu, after which he suffers more than ordinary post-coital lethargy.
The why is of course open to interpretation. Mine is that Gilgamesh and Enkidu in some sense represent an antithesis between city life and wild nature, in the context of a myth from a people who pioneered the former. As a partisan of wild nature, Enkidu has been saving his animal friends by springing the trapper's traps. Shamhat is of the city side of that, being a kind of priestess of the Eanna temple, the heart of the city. Her city-ness rubs off on Enkidu, alienating him from his power base in wild nature, as shown by his animal friends' sudden and immediate rejection of him. I like to compare this to the wrestling of Hercules and Antaeus, where Hercules had to win by an overhead bear hug, rather than a fall, since the Earth was Antaeus' mother and gave him power when they were in contact. Shamhat then introduces Enkidu to bread and beer, products that require a more settled way of life than the wild man's, to further the same objective.
