Epic Characters: Gilgamesh, Achilles, and Agamemnon - Term Paper Example

? Epic poems are long poems that celebrate the deeds of heroes of legendary Stature. Gilgamesh, Achilles and Agamemnon are epic characters. Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk “is strong to perfection, son of august cow Rimat Ninsun; Gilgamesh is awesome to perfection.” (Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet 1; 35-36) .Achilles and Agamemnon are also super human characters. Their strength and will power are above that of the normal mortals. Achilles was seen as the swiftest of Greek warriors .The strongest and bravest, he was very handsome too. During the Trojan War, Agamemnon became the commander in chief of the Greek army. He led hundred ships from Mycenae and Corinth to Troy Conceiving life as a journey from birth to death is an Epic concept. Thus every epic poem deals with tiresome quests and difficult journeys of the protagonist. He meets with all sorts of hurdles during the journey. The Epic of Gilgamesh has two journeys – One from the wilderness into the civilization and the other from the evils of civilization to the wisdom of the wilderness. Both Achilles and Agamemnon journey to Troy to fight the war. Agamemnon journeys back home too. They face a lot of hazards during these journeys. Gigamesh and Achilles: Comparing these two epic heroes, Gilgamesh seems to be a more balanced character than Achilles. Though a sadist to begin with, later he faces the challenges of his journey of life wisely and returns as a wiser man. Achilles was an angry warrior, who cared less for the lives of others in the battle field. He wanted glory and great honor for himself. He received Briseis, the princess of Lyrnessus as a gift of war when he lead the attack on that city and conquered it. This gift was a great pride of honor for him. And he was never ready to sacrifice that gift. The conflict between him and Agamemnon starts when Agamemnon takes her from him; he gets angry enough and tries to kill Agamemnon. His attempt to kill Agamemnon is prevented by Gods. When he fails to get back his gift of war, he retreats from the war altogether. All the treasures and women that Agamemnon offered him as compensation could not make him change his decision. And this was a major set back for the Greeks. They had to continue the war with out the best of the warriors. He returns to the battle only after the death of his companion in the war. Thus Achilles was never a team man. Though his achievements in the war were commendable his motives were very much self- centered. Gilgamesh, as a king used to be sadistic to his people. Gods decide to create an equal to Gilgamesh so that he will get distracted from his sadistic attitudes and activities. This alter ego of Gilgamesh is Enkidu, a primitive man. He travels from the forest to Uruk and challenges Gilgamesh. But after a fierce war they become friends. The second journey of the epic is undertaken by Gilgamesh and Enkidu together into the cedar forest to kill the evil monster called Humbaba. During this adventurous journey Enkidu dies and Gilgamesh continues his journey deep into the forest and to the end of the earth alone, facing all sorts of hazards. Thus Gilgamesh was loyal to his friend Enkidu and this character trait is just contradictory to that of Achilles. Gilgamesh finally return as a good king sympathetic to his people. One similarity between the two is their quest for immortality. Achilles got it with out demanding. His mother Thetis tried to make him immortal. According to one version of the story she anointed her son in ambrosia and put him in fire, burning away his mortal body. Another account is that she dipped him in the underworld sea of Styx. She was holding his feet, thus making his heels vulnerable. Hence came into being the term “Achilles heel”. Gilgamesh was “The King who wanted to live for ever and who refused to die” as the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano points out (Mirrors, PP13.) For attaining immortality Utnapishtim, a unique immortal himself, asks Gilgamesh to keep awake for six days and seven nights. But he fails this test. Then he was shown the way to get a boxthorn like plant from the bottom of the sea which he gets and which he was told when eaten will keep him young for ever. But a serpent steels the plant as Gilgamesh stops to bathe. Agamemnon: Compared to the other two characters, Agamemnon is much more complicated a personality. He gets into situations which are openly interpretive, thus taking him beyond a single interpretation. Homer presents him as a man with great power and high social position. But Homeric Agamemnon is trapped in situations which are beyond his ability. His greatest weakness is that he often succumbs to his desires. Thus he looks righteous in some sense, but very flawed in morality. Similar is the picture of Agamemnon presented by Aeschylus too. One example is his decision to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia just to win over the city of Troy. This action of his can be interpreted as too ambitious without any care for the life of his daughter. But another interpretation possible is that he is sacrificing his own daughter for the sake of his State. He is looking at the issue in a wider perspective and not with selfish motif. Looking from this angle, the sacrifice of his daughter seems like a great sacrifice for his country and for the Greek army. At the same time in forcefully taking Briseis from Achilles, Agamemnon shows a flaw in character. He uses his power as the commander- in -chief of the army over one of his best soldiers. As he cannot afford to lose the loyalty of Achilles, he tries to bribe him with money and women. But Achilles refuses these bribes and withdraws from the war. The withdrawal of Achilles was a great set back to the Greek army. Here Agamemnon succumbs to his personal desires and fails to protect the larger interest his army. He shows the same flaw when he parades his mistress Cassandra in front of his wife, after his victorious journey from the war field to his palace .His wife, who waited for him for years, shows great love to him and wants him to be received in a specially made carpet. But Agamemnon refuses the carpet saying that he does not want to be received like a God. Clytemnestra, his wife knows his weakness of character and is able to make him change his mind with manipulative words. Finally he accepts the carpet welcome saying “I pray, let none among the Gods look down with jealous eye on me”. (Agamemnon, Aeschylus, Tran. E. D. A. Morshead).It is this trait of succumbing to his personal desires that leads to the tragic end of Agamemnon. He gets killed by a plot of his own wife. Compared to these two characters, Gilgamesh is more a balanced hero, who faces the hazards of his life with superior sense of values. The only flaw that one can see in his character is his earlier sadism. While the other two characters meet with tragic ends, Gilgamesh returns to his people as a wiser man. According to The Epic of Gilgamesh Edited by N.K Sandars, he returns as “the king who knew countries of the world. He was wise. He saw mysteries and knew secret of things” (PP 117). “O Gilgamesh, lord of Kullab, great is thy praise” (PP.119). ------------------------------------------------------- Sources referred: 1) The Epic of Gilgamesh, Trans. By Maureen Gallery Kovacs, Stanford University Press, 1990 2) Galeano Eduardo, Mirrors, Stories of almost every one, Portobello Books, Ltd, London, 2009 3) Agamemnon, Aeschylus, Tran. E. D. A. Morshead, The Internet Classics Archives, classics.mit.edu/Aeschylus/agamemnon.html 4) The Epic of Gilgamesh, edited.by N.K.Sandars, Penguin Books, 1972 Read More