Chapter 15 Summary

Gilgamesh and Urshanabi are greeted back to Uruk with great celebration and curiosity as to the wonders they had seen and what glorious deeds their King had accomplished. Asked by Ninsun, though, if he has finally found the thing he sought and can now rest, Gilgamesh responds as he has always responded: He must find Enkidu. When her pleas have no effect on her hardheaded son, Ninsun does as Gilgamesh requests and asks the god Shamash how her son might find Enkidu.

There are several steps Gilgamesh must undertake before he can enter the underworld: first, he must not wear clean garments lest he arouse the jealousy of the dead; second, he must not wear sandals and so disrupt those who are sleeping; finally, he cannot carry a spear or a staff in respect to those who feared those weapons in life.

Knowing...