Siduri
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Siduri is a character in the Epic of Gilgamesh. She is an "ale-wife", a wise female divinity associated with fermentation. In the Old Babylonian version of the Epic, She attempts to dissuade Gilgamesh in his quest for immortality, urging him to enjoy life as it is (As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man). The same piece of advice is found in the Latin phrase Carpe diem. In the standard version of the Epic, her role is somewhat less important - she does not give him this wise advice, she simply tells him where to find Urshanabi the boat man who, in turn, can show Gilgamesh how to find Utanapishtim (the Mesopotamian version of Noah) to ask his advice.
Siduri has been paralleled to Odyssey's Circe: like Odysseus, Gilgamesh gets directions on how to reach the land of the dead from a divine helper: in this case she is the goddess Siduri, who, like Circe, dwells by the sea at the ends of the earth. Her home is also associated with the sun: Gilgamesh reaches Siduri's house by passing through a tunnel underneath Mt. Mashu, the high mountain from which the sun comes into the sky. West [1] argues that the similarity of Odysseus's and Gilgamesh's journeys to the edges of the earth are the result of the influence of the Gilgamesh epic upon the Odyssey.
Siduri's name means "young woman" in Hurrian, and may be an epithet of Ishtar. [2]
[edit] References
- ^ West, Martin. The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth. (Oxford 1997) 402-417.
- ^ Siduri
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