Advtures of a King

Chapter: 1

What I am telling about happed many, many thousands of years ago; perhaps wh elephants still ran in herds along the banks of the Manzanares River, and the diplodocus, a twty - meter-long lizard, hid from the ormous butchering animals. Th everything was ormous and fantastic in the world. In those times Gilgamesh reigned in Erech, capital of the kingdom of that same name, which was part of what we call Mesopotamia today. This was th so fertile and rich that it is believed that the Earthly Paradise was located there. Betwe its two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, infinite orchards, gards and palm groves stretched. As I have already said, Gilgamesh was king and deserved to be; th kingdoms were not inherited, but earned, and he had achieved his thanks to his gallantry and warrior skill. He was tall, without being a giant, because giants do not usually have agility or grace, and Gilgamesh possessed both. His dark skin, his black beard, carefully trimmed, and his dark hair combed upwards and tied with a gold ribbon that matched his tunic, gave him a manly beauty that aroused admiration. But, in addition to being beautiful and brave, Gilgamesh was dowed with great intelligce, which made him stand out among the wisest of his people. This king was two parts god and one part man, since the goddess Ninsun, que of the firmamt, was his mother. His father must also have be an illustrious man wh he married a goddess. Gilgamesh, despite his good qualities, had great defects. These, as happs in almost all m, had the same proportion as his virtues: the two parts of God that he had in his nature led him to look haughtily at his counterparts. He was not satisfied with imposing order and respect for the laws on the people; He exceeded his severity and admitted no restraint to his real will. Wh the Council of Elders did not submit to his whim, he dispsed with their approval. However, he loved courage and surrounded himself with the bravest and most handsome m in the country. He loved beauty in all its manifestations: poetry, music, sculpture, architecture. He wanted to live in beautiful palaces, worship the gods in grandiose temples and organized competitions for wrestlers, athletes, dancers and singers.

All of this cost too much money, and Gilgamesh taxed his subjects, particularly the peasants. Wh they protested, he punished them mercilessly; He stripped them of their crops to fill his own baskets, took away their most gallant and strongest sons to form his guard of warriors, and took the most beautiful wom to his palaces. M have always turned to God in their tribulations, that is why the subjects of Gilgamesh, afflicted by the rigors and demands of their king, turned to the one they worshiped: the Sun-God, who reigned over m and the other gods. Every deity has his court, and the Sun-God had his on a plateau, on the highest peak of the Mount of Cedars. From there he wt to the temples who were consecrated to him and listed to the supplications of his faithful. There were so many who asked him for a remedy for their miseries, that he understood that the situation of the poor people of Erech had become intolerable because of the king. The orchards were abandoned to weeds; The mud, leaf litter and dry branches had blocked the irrigation canals; You could not hear the squeaking of the waterwheels raising the water from the wells, nor could you hear the songs of the reapers, the grape harvesters and the date palms. The Sun-God th ordered the goddess Aruru, celestial molder and sculptor of living beings, to come to his presce. She was the one who, at the beginning of time, had shaped man. Aruru came right away. For some time she had longed to mold some extraordinary being. -Aruru- said the Sun-God-, you know Gilgamesh, the king of Erech. I want you to mold a human being who surpasses him in strgth and kindness of heart. He will be called Enkidu, and no one must know, for now, his existce. The goddess Aruru moved deep into the forests, and, in a clearing, not far from the foot of the Mount of Cedars, she set about carrying out her work. The trance to this place was guarded by a horrible monster, called Jum-baba, who turned anyone who tered its domain into a stone statue. It was ough for him to fix, in the middle of the intruder's forehead, the gaze of her only eye. The monster's roars reached the forest site chThe goddess first took the measuremts, which she calculated the body must have in height and width, and traced them on the ground. She th drew the configuration of the skull, remembering the width and straightness of the tower that Gilgamesh's forehead had. She flatted the new being's forehead line a little; He would be a little less intelligt, but a better fighter. Instead, she gave more width to the bust, at the level of the chest muscles, leaving room for the heart. He wouldn't be as beautiful as his model, but he would be stronger. It wouldn't be as intelligt, but it would be nobler. On the shape drawn on the ground she piled handfuls of clay. After kneading it well until it made a large shapeless figure, she began to mold it with wet hands. She caressed the mud the same as A mother caresses her son: with care and love os by Aruru.

Here she softed a profile, there she highlighted a muscle, below she gave shape to the arch of the feet that had to support so much weight. The Sun-God saw her working betwe the cracks of two clouds. She did not want to show her face, because the clay mass would have dried prematurely, and Aruru's work could be ruined. But wh she saw the finished figure, with the lips parted, which seemed to want to speak, the chest raised as if to inhale the breath of life, and the heart ready to begin the ticking, which only death would interrupt, removed the two clouds that hid it, and appeared radiant in heav. You have worked well, Aruru. Let me do my work now. Th the clay took on the freshness of flesh, the statue's chest began to rise and fall, and the heart began to sd waves of blood through the arteries.

Chapter: 2

Once his work was done, the Sun-God hid in the west, on the other side of the Mount of Cedars, and the new being oped his eyes and saw the blue sky, the dark forests and the crystalline spring. Only the Sun-God and the goddess Aruru knew of the existce of Enkidu. He lived among the jungle animals who did not consider him as a man, but as a noble and gerous beast. He fed on the milk of females with young, and on the berries and fruits of the trees. His body was covered with hair to be able to withstand life in the op. Gilgamesh, for his part, continued to oppress every once again to his people. Now, by force, he recruited workers for the construction of a new temple. This had to be completed to celebrate the great New Year ceremonies there. One of the young m who had fled to the forests to escape his tyranny, left his cabin one day to set up traps and dig traps in places that he had not explored until th. Wh he returned the next day along the same path, to pick up the pieces that had fall, he had the unpleasant surprise of finding the sunk traps and jumped stocks, with certain signs that someone had freed the animals.? How was such a strange phomon explained? The young man reassembled the stocks and traps, erased his own tracks and retired to his cabin. He let a day pass and wt through them again; but his cunning had be outwitted again. With great shock, he discovered the trace of a man's feet. Crouching, putting his soul in his ears, ready to flee at the first alarm or to shoot his arrows against whoever, in this way, stole the fruit of his efforts, he followed the vestige. He led him to the place where a spring was born. He looked through some bushes and his heartbeat accelerated. Th he began to withdraw with great caution. Wh he was a certain distance away, he started running and did not stop until he reached his cabin. That same night he wt to his his town, and without anyone seeing him, he tered his father's house. With the family gathered around the home, the hunter told what had happed to him with the stocks and traps, and added:

-In the clearing of the forest was a dark and hairy man, almost a giant, healing the brok leg of a lioness that had fall into one of my traps. Many animals of the jungle also played next to him without hurting each other, because that strange man commanded their respect. A jackal bared his teeth at a gazelle, it let out a bleat; th the man screamed and the jackal finished frolicking with the scared little animal. Is he as tall, strong and brave as Gilgamesh? -asked the father. -Maybe a little shorter, not as beautiful, but stronger. "You have to be brave to live among wild beasts," exclaimed the hunter's young and beautiful sister. "He who frees the animals from the trap and the stocks, and heals the leg of a lioness, is a man of good heart," her mother said sweetly. -It will be necessary to tell Gilgamesh. If the news reached him through any other channel, he would punish us. So the father marched to the capital and told Gilgamesh about the discovery that his son had made. The king of Erech thought that a man like that would hance his escort, and perhaps he would be a magnifict standard bearer. And he said:

-A man like that you speak of, can only be attracted with sweetness. It would be useless to resort to violce; We would have to sd an army against him, and he would not allow himself to be tak alive. A sweet and good young woman could bring him to live among m and force him to leave the company of wild beasts. If you succeed, I will exempt you from taxes and reward your son. In the heavly court they looked with bad eyes on the abuses that Gilgamesh committed against his people. The Sun-God, to whom his worshipers flocked every time most afflicted, he called before him Ninsun, goddess of the firmamt and mother of the king of Erech, and spoke to her thus:. -That son of yours is exhausting my patice. The goddess Ninsun spoke to Gilgamesh:. -Son, moderate your character. The cries of the poor are like the buzzing of mosquitoes around the bed of the Sun-God. They irritate him against you. Gilgamesh shrugged his shoulders and answered his mother:. -Wh he sees his new temple finished, the Sun-God will smile satisfied. He waits for the New Year holidays, mother - and he fell asleep. But while he was sleeping he had a dream. He dreamed that he was under the op sky, in the middle of a field, and that, suddly, an arrow stuck in his body and he couldn't get it out no matter how hard he tried. The arrow had come from heav, but Gilgamesh had not se the bow or the warrior. A sharp pain in his side woke him up; but there was no sign of wound or arrow. Everything was an effect of the very force of the dream. Gilgamesh fell asleep again, and he He was looking out of a window of his palace wh a shiny object crossed through the air. It was a battle.? Where did it come from? ? Who had launched it? The weapon crashed into the castle door. He woke up to the sound of the blow, and st for the chief of the guard. Everything was quiet. Nothing had happed. Gilgamesh stood up and wt in search of his mother. Ninsun only knew how to tell him: -Son, a very serious danger threats you. But he was brave and he answered him : -I'm not afraid of dying, mother. It has to be sometime. But you are immortal, because you are a goddess, and you will have to mourn me for all eternity.