Gilgamesh Part 5, The Great Flood.

Hello, this is Richard.

And here we rejoin Gilgamesh as he crosses the seas to meet Ut-Nafishtim, the far distant.

Ut-Nafistim, the far-distant, the only human to have conquered death, was sitting on a

jetty by his home in the mouth of a great river. He watched his trusty sea captain, bring

his boat up along the water, and he saw that he was bringing a passenger, a great hulk of a man dressed in rags.

When the boat was near, the sea captain leapt onto the jetty with the rope to moor it,

and was shortly followed by his passenger. Ut-nefisht, looked the strange man up and down and said,

My, my, look at you! What's a sorry state you're in? Your face is pale and you're wearing nothing but the skin of an old lion?

What has happened to you? And Gilgamesh replied,

What hasn't happened to me? My friend Enkidu was so powerful that he killed mountain lions

with his bare hands. He fought the bull of heaven, but even he could not avoid death and has now

turned to clay. For seven days and seven nights I wept for him. But what good did that

do? What hope have I? Gilgamesh, king of splendid Uruk, when death awaits me every day?

I have traveled a great and dangerous distance to find you, because I am told that you are the one human being who knows the secret of

immortality and now that I look at you you seem just like any other man you seem no different from me

how come the gods chose you for immortality?

Utnifistim looked at the king and smiled.

You really do look dreadful, he said, and I can only believe that you've suffered much.

Well, Gilgamesh, since you've come all this way,

I will tell you everything, although it is a secret. There was a time when I lived in the city of Shurapak on the banks of the river Euphrates. In those days, the gods often strolled

along the streets of Sharapak. They enjoyed the beautiful temples, the broad avenues, the green

...