Editing Epic of Gilgamesh (section)

===== Tablet one =====
The story introduces [[Gilgamesh]], king of [[Uruk]]. Gilgamesh, two-thirds god and one-third man, is oppressing his people, who cry out to the gods for help. For the young women of Uruk this oppression takes the form of Gilgamesh raping brides on their wedding night. For the young men (the tablet is damaged at this point) it is conjectured that Gilgamesh exhausts them through games, tests of strength, or perhaps forced labour on building projects. The gods respond to the people's pleas by creating an equal to Gilgamesh who will be able to stop his oppression. 

This is the invincibly strong [[Enkidu]], covered in hair, who lives in the wilderness with his herd of animal relatives. He is spotted by a trapper, whose livelihood is being ruined because Enkidu destroys all his traps. The trapper tells the sun god [[Shamash]] about the man, and it is arranged that Enkidu will be seduced by [[Shamhat]], a [[Sacred prostitution|temple prostitute]], as the first step in taming him. After six days and seven nights (or two weeks, according to more recent scholarship<ref name="10.5615">{{Cite journal |last1=Al-Rawi |first1=F. N. H. |last2=George |first2=A. R. |date=2014 |title=Back to the Cedar Forest: The Beginning and End of Tablet V of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgameš |url=http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/18512/1/jcunestud.66.0069_w-footer.pdf |journal=Journal of Cuneiform Studies |volume=66 |pages=69–90 |doi=10.5615/jcunestud.66.2014.0069 |jstor=10.5615/jcunestud.66.2014.0069 |s2cid=161833317 |access-date=22 February 2019 |archive-date=17 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211117000846/https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/18512/1/jcunestud.66.0069_w-footer.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>) of lovemaking, Enkidu is 'weakened'; his herd flees in horror into the steppe. Enkidu is shocked by his loneliness, but Shamhat tries to comfort him: "Do not grieve, you now have knowledge, like the gods." Gilgamesh, meanwhile, has been having dreams about the imminent arrival of a beloved new companion and asks his mother, the goddess [[Ninsun]], to help interpret these dreams.