The Death of Enkidu

Enkidu dreams the gods' verdict, sickens, and — bitter that he must waste away in bed rather than fall in battle — dies. Gilgamesh comes undone, keeping the body until a worm falls from its nose, then flees into the wilderness in lion-skins, seized by a new terror: if death took the strongest man he knew, it is coming for him too. He sets out for Utnapishtim, the one man granted life without end, crossing the twin-peaked mountain Mashu, the twelve leagues of darkness, and — warned by the ale-wife Siduri — the deadly sea, until he stands before the deathless man.