Gilgamesh (Budge’s plant-and-return account)

Overview

Budge identifies Gilgamish as the king of Erech whose fear of death grows after the loss of his companion Enkidu. He travels to Uta-Napishtim, a survivor of the Deluge who has become immortal, hoping to discover how he might escape his own death. The selected episode begins after the survivor has told his flood story. Uta-Napishtim challenges his visitor to remain awake for six days and seven nights, but exhaustion defeats the hero almost immediately. His strength does not enable him to command even ordinary sleep.

Uta-Napishtim notices the sleeping traveller with amusement, while his wife feels compassion and asks that he be helped home. At her husband’s direction she bakes bread and brings a loaf to the ship each day for six days. On the seventh day Uta-Napishtim touches Gilgamish and wakes him. The visitor acknowledges that sleep has overcome him, yet remains anxious about death and asks what he should do next. He prepares to return across the sea with the boatman Ur-Shanabi rather than receiving an automatic grant of immortality.

Before their departure Uta-Napishtim tells him about a plant on the seabed. Gilgamish weights himself with heavy stones, descends through an opening in the boat and gathers it. He then shows the plant to Ur-Shanabi and describes its power to restore youth, intending to eat it and carry it back to his fortified city. Budge’s wording distinguishes the hero’s larger hope of immortality from the more particular rejuvenation expressed in the plant’s name. Possessing the plant briefly does not show that the hero has already become deathless.

On the return journey the companions pass a cold pool, and Gilgamish enters it to bathe. A serpent detects the plant by its smell and swallows it. Discovering the loss, the hero curses and weeps over the wasted labour and his failure to benefit himself. Nevertheless, he continues home with Ur-Shanabi. The subsection ends at Erech, where he asks the boatman to inspect the city’s brickwork and whether his plans have been fulfilled. This account preserves that return without adding an unmentioned serpent transformation or claiming to summarize the entire epic.

Origins & earliest records

E. A. Wallis Budge’s 1920 English account, The Babylonian Story of the Deluge as Told by Assyrian Tablets from Nineveh. The selected conclusion of his Eleventh Tablet subsection follows a flood narrative presented separately in the book. Budge prints Gilgamish and explicitly discusses earlier Izdubar readings in a footnote.

Records & interpretation

Complete selected post-Deluge Eleventh Tablet subsection, printed pp. 54–56, read continuously through the return and brickwork inspection. Identity/context at pp. 30–31 and 40–41 and the historical-name footnote were also inspected. Neither the complete flood translation nor the entire epic is claimed read for this profile.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   The Babylonian Story of the Deluge as Told by Assyrian Tablets from Nineveh: Eleventh Tablet conclusion, pp. 54–56

   E. A. Wallis Budge · 1920

   Historical English narrative account, not a newly collated translation of every tablet. Selected post-flood episode complete; identity/context and obsolete-name footnote separately inspected.

Family, evolution & connections

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Historical English epic accountBudge 1920: Gilgamish’s sleep test, plant and returnResearch access: 2026-10-24

Image credits

AI-generated interpretation of Gilgamish showing the recovered plant to Ur-Shanabi; undescribed details are imagined.

Faces, robes, physique, plant shape/species, boat and oar, lighting, water, shore and distant buildings are imagined. Not authenticated ancient portraiture, botanical identification or game artwork. Full frame preserved; WebP compression only.