Entry 6 (Tablet 11)

Lies and Men

For Gilgamesh to be immortal, Utnapishtim tells him he shall stay up 6 days and 6 nights, and this way he will reach his so desired goal. Gilgamesh admits immediately, not really interested in the secondary consequences that occurs, hence, he sits by the shore…but falls asleep as soon as he lays down.

Utnapishtim was convinced that Gilgamesh would lie, saying that he did stay awake for 6 days and 6 nights straight.

Not only Gilgamesh—who is half-human—lies. We the humans do as well. We do it because we are either too ashamed we were wrong, or because what we had accepted at the beginning in the first place resulted out too hard, and we were so into it we never thought about any other effects it might have had, or its level of difficulty.

It is easy to be ashamed for anything, we humans are ashamed every now and then. So afraid are we—of that people might be angry at our foolishness—we tend to lie, as if it was so much better.

Truth is—it is not, as it only makes things worse. Gilgamesh made effects that might have not occurred if he had told the truth. He might have for example, granted immortality for accepting his failure at task. Therefore, he would have never had the plant of “Youthness”, and therefore snakes wouldn’t change of skin.
Who was Gilgamesh trying to lie to anyway? To Utnapishtim, the immortal? It is already wrong when we lie to our own people, what if we lie to our superiors? We’d have to get used to our groundings…and learn that lying will not exactly bring benefits. It is better to be careful, as not everyone is as compassionate as Utnapishtim...