Epic with Enkidu, the offspring of Ninib, and in this way we obtain the strange contradiction of Enkidu and Gilgamesh appearing first as bitter rivals and then as close and inseparable friends. It is of the nature of Epic compositions everywhere to eliminate unnecessary figures by concentrating on one favorite the traits belonging to another or to several others.
The close association of Enkidu and Gilgamesh which becomes one of the striking features in the combination of the tales of these two heroes naturally recalls the “Heavenly Twins” motif, which has been so fully and so suggestively treated by Professor J. Rendell Harris in his Cult of the Heavenly Twins, (London, 1906). Professor Harris has conclusively shown how widespread the tendency is to associate two divine or semi-divine beings in myths and legends as inseparable companions[1] or twins, like Castor and Pollux, Romulus and Remus,[2] the Acvins in the Rig-Veda,[3] Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau in the Old Testament, the Kabiri of the Phoenicians,[4] Herakles and Iphikles in Greek mythology, Ambrica and Fidelio in Teutonic mythology, Patollo and Potrimpo in old Prussian mythology, Cautes and Cautopates in Mithraism, Jesus and Thomas (according to the Syriac Acts of Thomas), and the various illustrations of “Dioscuri in Christian Legends,” set forth by Dr. Harris in his work under this title, which carries the motif far down into the period of legends about Christian Saints who appear in pairs, including the reference to such a pair in Shakespeare’s Henry V:
"And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by
From that day to the ending of the world.”
—(Act, IV, 3, 57–58.)
There are indeed certain parallels which suggest that Enkidu-Gilgamesh may represent a Babylonian counterpart to the “Heavenly
- ↑ Gressmann in Ungnad-Gressmann, Das Gilgamesch-Epos, p. 100 seq. touches upon this motif, but fails to see the main point that the companions are also twins or at least brothers. Hence such examples as Abraham and Lot, David and Jonathan, Achilles and Patroclus, Eteokles and Polyneikes, are not parallels to Gilgamesh-Enkidu, but belong to the enlargement of the motif so as to include companions who are not regarded as brothers.
- ↑ Or Romus. See Rendell Harris, l. c., p. 59, note 2.
- ↑ One might also include the primeval pair Yama-Yami with their equivalents in Iranian mythology (Carnoy, Iranian Mythology, p. 294 seq.).
- ↑ Becoming, however, a triad and later increased to seven. Cf. Rendell Harris, l. c., p. 32.
