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GIlgamesh meets Utnapishtim and Utnapishtim says the only way to eternal life is to love your relationships. Eternal life is remembering the ones who have lost(memory).

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"Gilgamesh was speaking but only to relieve / His weight of grief, / Not to demand understanding: "

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Gilgamesh refers to drinking from the Well of Immortality as relieving the sinners form their sins. This relates to the bible as to when Jesus relieved sinners by sacrificing himself. As Jesus suffered to finally bring prosperity and life to people he loved, Gilgamesh also suffers to bring his friend back to life. Jesus forgave sinners from their wrongdoings, while Gilgamesh forgave himself, in a way for what he unconsciously knew he had done to Enkidu by bringing him on his journey.

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Utnapishtim is a lonely man that is calm and kind to Gilgamesh and tells him that the key to immortality is to love because that is what keeps the memory of the dead alive.

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Utnapishtim is constantly reminded of how he came to the island he's on and allowed the flood to kill everyone.

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"My friend has died so many times in me, / And yet he still feels so alive, / Like a younger brother, / The suddenly like soft tissue, / A dried leaf. "

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Gilgamesh is told from Utnapishtimg that finding real immortality results in watching everything die and lose life around you while you stay alive.

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Many years ago through loss I learned / That love is wrung from our inmost heart / Until only the loved one is and we are not. "

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How does Utnapishtim relate to Gilgamesh in the things that he has experienced?

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What is Utnapishtim saying about friendship when he speaks of immortality as a metaphor?

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Utnapishtim admits that the gods only compete and when they make a mistake they will cower from the disaster they have created like the floods. The floods killed and wiped out the population and the gods were ashamed. It created the Sea of Death.

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"To find any immortality / If not in the pure loneliness of the Holy One, / This loneliness which He enjoys forever / Inside  and outside of his creation. / It is enough for one who loves / To find his Only One singled in Himself. / And that is the cup of immortality!"

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"When the seventh day came, the flood subsided from its slaughter/ Like hair drawn slowly back / From a tormented face. / I looked at the earth and all was silence. / Bodies lay like alewives dead / And in the clay. I fell down / On the ship's deck and wept. Why? Why did they / Have to die! I couldn't understand. I asked / Unanswerable questions a child asks / When a parent dies -- for nothing."

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Why does Utnapishtim feel the need to bring people back to life? How do his experienced during the flood make him want to renew life?

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The gods demanded of Utnapishtim to build a ship and to put all that is dear to him inside. They give him a warning to protect himself from their havoc, much like in Noah's Ark.

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Ea choose Utnapishtim to live in these filthy deathly waters as a new born god. He was taken away from all that he new and started a lonely life at the foot of the deathly waters.

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The rose in these pages might be a representation of eternal life. The rose seems beautiful, at first, but then, as one sees closer its thorns are seen, or the ugly part of the flower. Gilgamesh seems to be attracted to the idea of eternal life, until Enkidu, the one person he has cared about during his whole trip, cannot become immortal with him. This shows that immortality is a coin of two sides with very different faces. Without thinking through the loneliness that one will suffer from the grief of seeing everyone you know go, you will live without a purpose to life.

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Utnapishtim's home at the mouth of the riverbank represents fruitfulness. He is basically god-like because, like the gods, he lives in a place of plentiful life, where everything is abundant.

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Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh to bury his loss and build his world anew with his hands.

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Why does Utnapishtim tell Gilgamesh where the secret flower is?

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"I know your pain too well to lie, / Said Utnapishtim. / I will tell you a secret I have never told. / Something to take back with you and guard. / There is a plant in the river. Its thorns / Will prick your hands as a rose thorn pricks / But it will give you new life.

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After Gilgamesh slept for 7 days Utnapishtim woke him, gave him bread, and sent him off to the boatmen to be cleanse to a younger, healthier appearance to assure his people he is a strong leader.

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Even though Gilgamesh seeks for eternal life, he is always tired and constantly needs to be away from the world and sleep.

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"A serpent had smelled its sweet fragrance and saw/ Its chance to come from the water, and devoured / The plant, shedding its skin as slough./

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The rose of immortality represents the apple from Adam and Eve.  In Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve eat the apple because they want to acquire the same great knowledge that god has. In Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh wishes to find the secret of eternal life that only the gods know. The rose, much like in Adam and Eve, lures Gilgamesh into his grave by promising a power that only gods have. The rose is like an antidote for his fears. Only after he is snapped back to reality only a short time after accomplishing immortality does he realize that what Utnapishtim told him was true. Immortality is not a blessing but a curse. Enkidu is finally dead now that the only way to become immortal is now gone, and Gilgamesh is forced to live alone for the rest of his life while everyone dies, just like Utnapishtim warned. Even love cannot bear the chains of time. If Enkidu would've become immortal, much like Utnapishtim's wife, who has become a servant to him, Enkidu and Gilgamesh might have eventually drifted farther and farther apart until they became two strangers living off of each other's life force without actually loving each other.

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He entered the city and asked a blind man / If he had ever heard the name Enkidu, / And the old man shrugged and shook his head, / Then turned away, / As if to say it is impossible / To keep the names of friends / Whom we have lost. /

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Utnapishtim told a secret he has never told about a thorned plant that will give him new life and Gilgamesh went to find it.

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After Gilgamesh goes on his journey with such a strong headset to find eternal life, he realizes it is hopeless after a serpent steals his last chance.

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In the beginning of the book, Gilgamesh was a tyrant and careless of his kingdom. Now, after Enkidu's death, he realizes the great people he has to rule and the things they can accomplish.

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Gilgamesh recovered the plant and left it unguarded on the shore while he went swimming.Then, a serpent smelled it's sweet fragrance and ate it.Gilgamesh came out and found the remains and wept.

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Why does Utnapishtim feel guilty, and how has he experienced loss?

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He went back to Uruk and asked a man if her knew a guy named Enkidu and the man shrugged. At that moment GIlgamesh realized that what was lost would not be recovered and was in the past

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How are Utnapishtams and Gilgamesh's views on eternal life different?

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All the women in Gilgamesh challenge the characters as well as make them human

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Bathing in Gilgamesh symbolizes cleansing of old sins and grief and re-birthing for a new life or event. For example, Gilgamesh bathes before eternal life and Enkidu bathes before becoming man.