Excerpt from the english translation of the 1st tablet of Gilgamesh Epic

The goddess Aruru, she washed her hands,
took a pinch of clay, threw it down in the wild.
In the wild she created Enkidu, the hero,
offspring of silence, knit strong by Ninurta.

All his body is matted with hair,
he bears long tresses like those of a woman:
the hair of his head grows thickly as barley,
he knows not a people, not even a country.

Coated in hair like the god of the animals,
with the gazelles he grazes on grasses,
joining the throng with the game at the water-hole,
his heart delighting with the beasts in the water.

A hunter, a trapper-man,
did come upon him by the water-hole.
One day, a second and then a third,
he came upon him by the water-hole.
When the hunter saw him, his expression froze,
but he with his herds, he went back to his lair.

[ The hunter was ] troubled, subdued and silent,
his mood [ was despondent , ] his features gloomy.
In his heart there was sorrow,
his face resembled [ one come from ] afar.

The hunter opened [ his mouth ] to speak, saying [ to his father :]
'My father , there was a man came [ by the water-hole. ]
Mightiest in the land, strength [he possesses ,]
[his strength] is as mighty [as a rock] from the sky.

'Over the hills he [ roams all day,]
[ always] with the herd [ he grazes on grasses, ]
always his tracks [ are found ] by the water-hole,
I am afraid and i dare not approach him.

'[ He fills in the ] pits that i [myself] dig,
[ he pulls up] the snares that i lay.
[ He sets free from my grasp ] all the beasts of the field,
[ he stops ] me doing the work of the wild.

[ His father opened his mouth to ] speak, saying to the hunter:
' [My son , in the city of ] Uruk [ go,seek out ] Gilgamesh!
....................... in his presence,
his strength is as mighty ' [ as a rock from the sky.]

' [ Take the road, ] set your face [ toward Uruk, ]
[ do not rely on] the strength of a man !
[ Go my son, and ] fetch [ Shamhat the harlot, ]
[ her allure is a match ] for even the mighty !

' [ When the herd comes ] down [to] the water-hole,
[ she should strip off ] her [ raiment to reveal ] her charms.
[ He will ] see her and will approach her,
his herd will spurn him , [ though he grew up ] amongst it '

[ Paying heed ] to the advice of his father,
the hunter went off, [ set out on the journey.]
He took the road, set [ his face] toward Uruk,
before Gilgamesh the king [ he spoke these words:]

' There was a man [came by the water-hole,]
mightiest in the land, strength [ he possesses ,]
[ his strenghth] is as mighty as a rock from the sky.

'Over the hills he roams all [ day, ]
always with the herd [ he grazes on grasse, ]
always his tracks [ are found ] by the water-[ hole, ]
I am afraid and i dare not approach [ him .]

' He fills in the pits that i [ myself ] dig,
he pulls up the snares [ that i lay .]
He sets free from my grasp all the beasts of the field,
he stopps me doing the work of the wild.'

Said Gilgamesh to him, to the hunter:
' Go, hunter , take with you Shamhat the harlot!

'When the herd comes down to the water-hole,
she should strip off her raiment to reveal her charms.
He will see her , and will approach her,
his herd will spurn him , though he grew up amongst it. '

Off went the hunter, taking Shamhat the harlot,
they set out on the road, they started the journey.
On the third day they came to their destination,
hunter and harlot sat down there to wait.

One day and a second they waited by the water-hole,
then the herd came down to drink the water.
The game arrived, their hearts delighting in water,
and Enkidu also, born in the uplands.

With the gazelles he grazed on grasses,
joining the throng with the game at the water-hole,
his heart delighting with the beasts in the water:
then Shamhat saw him, the child of nature,
the savage man from the midst of the wild.

'This is he, Shamhat ! Uncradle your bosom,
bare your sex, let him take in your charms!
Do not recoil, but take in his scent:
he will see you, and will approach you.

'Spread your clothing so he may lie on you,
do for the man the work of a woman!
Let his passion caress and embrace you,
his herd will spurn him, though he grew up amongst it. '

Shamhat unfastened the cloth of her loins,
she bared her sex and he took in her charms.
She did not recoil, she took in his scent:
she spread her clothing and he lay upon her.

She did for the man the work of a woman,
his passion caressed and embraced her.
For six days and seven nights
Enkidu was erect, as he coupled with Shamhat.

When with her delights he was fully sated,
he turned his gaze to his herd.
The gazelles saw Enkidu, they started to run,
the beasts of the field shied away from his presence.

Enkidu had defiled his body so pure,
his legs stood still, though his herd was in motion.
Enkidu was weakened could not run as before,
but now he had reason, and wide understanding.

He came back and sat on the feet of the harlot,
watching the harlot, observing her features.
Then to the harlot´s words he listened intently,
[ as Shamhat ] talked to him, to Enkidu:

'You are handsome, Enkidu, you are just like a god!
Why with the beasts do you wander the wild ?
Come, i will take you to Uruk-the-Sheepfold,
to the sacred temple, home of Anu and Ishtar,

'where Gilgamesh is perfect in strength,
like a wild bull lording it over the menfolk. '
So she spoke to him and her word found favour,
he knew by instinct, he should seek a friend.


The Epic of Gilgamesh
Pp. 5-8, Line 101 ff.
Introduction and new translation by Andrew George
Penguin Classics,Revised edition, 2003

All his life, the author dreamt of an animals' revolt. As if
he came from the realms of an "inverted world", he conceived
an overthrow of the archaic order, which had placed humankind
as lord over the life and death of animals. And yet he knew
that the day of justified rage would not come: "It hurts me
that it will never come to an uprising of the animals against
us, the patient animals, the sheep, all creatures that are at
our mercy and can not escape." Still, Canetti imagined with
relish how a rebellion arising from a slaughterhouse cascaded
over a city; how men, woman, children and the elderly were
trampled to death; metro carriages flattened by raging oxen
and people mauled by sheep with blood lust. Till this day no
such overthrow has occurred. Even if, in the hay day of BSE,
it looked as though this were the substitute for the revolt of
tormented nature, her long march, as it were, through the
institutions of food - the uprising of the animals remains to!
be seen. In the meantime, something else is happening: a
return of animals in human thought, an intellectual revolt in
the name of animals.

Ambitious art journals, such as frame produce special issues
("The Dog Issue"), a popular magazine like Brigitte has had
prominent authors write about animals. In the year 2000 the
City Gallery of Karlsruhe showed the exhibition "Challenge:
Animal. From Beuys to Kabakov", 2001 "The Animal in Me" could
be viewed at Baden-Baden, in a few weeks the Dresden Hygiene
museum will open an exhibition on the subject of "Human and
Animal".
The picture is similar in literature and philosophy: following
the German translation of J.M.Coetzee's "The Lives of
Animals'" (2000) came Hans Blumberg's "Lions", Hans
Wollschläger's "Animals Watch You" and Elias Canetti's essays
"On Animals". It is known that Jaques Derrida has long been
working on a book about the difference between humans and
animals; the German translation of Giorgio Agamben's most
recent essay, "L´aperto. L´uomo et l´animale" has been
announced for next year. One of this autumn's most important
new releases was the book by the Leipzig anthropologist
Michael Tomasello about the learning behaviour of chimpanzee
and human children.

Stale. That is how the techno futurism suddenly seemed, which
yesterday tried to persuade us that humanity's future lay in
the company of cyborgs and replicates. The future of humanity?
Does not live here anymore. More recently humanism has
discovered a new field - in the carriers of livestock
transporters, behind the bars of zoology research stations, at
the exits of paradise. But was does that mean: new field? In
truth it is one of the oldest. Whenever "western man" has
searched for an answer to the Sphinx, he has turned to brother
animal: Who are you, and who am I? From Aristotle through
Descartes to Heidegger, the way to the human seemed to be via
the division from the animal. The zoon politikon, the animale
rationale, the animal that can laugh, do politics, exterminate
its own, and reflect upon itself, assert its specific
difference. On the other hand, whenever the humanism of the
West hits choppy waters, the figure of the animal emerges on
the horizon as enticement, threat or promise. Was it
coincidence that Friedrich Nietzsche, overcome by sympathy,
broke down, embracing an abused animal? If humanism's first
word is separation from the animal, its last is brotherly
identification. And perhaps it is this ability to empathise -
as the innermost core of the humane - which is now in question
and places the animal before us anew as the final puzzle and
question.

For the philosophical anthropology of the twentieth century,
there was never a doubt that the difference between human and
animal had to be more than a minor evolutionary advancement, a
comparative intelligence or a superior technical competence.
But wherein did this singular quality lie? In his most recent
essay, "L'aperto", the Italian philosopher, Giorgo Agamben,
traces Martin Heidegger's train of thought, upon which he had
embarked in the winter semester or 1929/30 in one of his most
important lectures. For Heidegger, the animal was poor in
world (weltarm), the human, world-forming (weltbildend). The
animal, says Heidegger, alluding to Uexküll, lives imprisoned
in its disinhibinting ring (Enthemmungsring) - a cycle of
needs and environmental excitations, in which it is captivated
(benommen). The animal's environment may be "open", but it is
not evident, as it is to the unveiling world of existence
Dasein.

Most original in this thought, as despotic as it is nit
picking, is its terminology. As far as contents are concerned,
Helmuth Plessner, who wrote about "Animal and Human" (sic!)
only a few years later, was clearer. Plessner uses the human
"mind" (as opposed to "intelligence", which animals also have)
as the supreme criteria: the basic principle governing the
animal is security in its environment. In the human, the
closeness of the vital circle opens - the other as the other.
This is also a telling difference between the two thinkers:
for Plessner it is love, which opens up a world for humans
beyond eating and sleeping - for Heidegger it is boredom. In
boredom, the Dasein (existence) notices its "captivation", and
through this, overcomes it. But whether one defines the
difference between animals and humans according to
idealistically (spirit/mind) or existentialist-ontologically
(Dasein), the number of people who regard all this focus on
terminology a! s false and suspect the predator, man, behind
it is growing. In the novel "The Lives of Animals",
J.M.Coetzee has one of his narrators voice the suspicion that
"all this discussion of consciousness and whether animals have
it is just a smokescreen. At bottom we protect our own kind.
Thumbs up to human babies, thumbs down to veal calves."

The distinctions of philosophy as a license to kill? Only the
comparison made in the same novel by the main figure, a wilful
old writer, is considered to be truly obscene. She compares
industrial slaughter, the mass murder of animals, with the
Nazi murder of Jews. She can, she says, no longer comprehend
how all the nice people around her can continue to eat corpses
and exhibit fragments of corpses: 'It is as if I were to visit
friends, and to make some polite remark about the lamp in
their living room, and they were to say, "Yes, it's nice,
isn't it? Polish-Jewish skin it's made of, we find that's the
best, the skins of young Polish-Jewish virgins. '"

A cynical point, a brutal punch line. How a historical
argument can be developed from this, may be seen in the
recently published book by the historian, Charles Patterson,
going by the title of "Eternal Treblinka. Our Treatment of
Animals and the Holocaust". Patterson relocates the birth of
the Holocaust to the slaughterhouses of Chicago. In his worst
chapter, ("Killing Centers in America and Germany"), he cuts,
as in a film, the most brutal slaughterhouse images against
the most awful scenes from the murder of the Jews. He
(knowingly) risks a new animal form of historical revisionism.
This time it isn't the Bolsheviks who started it all, as with
Ernst Nolte, but the Americans, who mechanised killing with
their slaughterhouses, thereby providing the Nazis with a role
model for their extermination machines. One has to ask whether
the author is not using the murder of the Jews primarily to
scandalise the crimes against animals - with a sure grasp at
historical ! superlative. After all he can cite a prominent
referee: the Nobel Prize winner, Isaac Bashevis Singer. All of
Singer's characters thought like Herman Broder, the hero of
the story "Enemies", who felt zoos to be another type of
concentration camp and could not rid himself of the idea that
"in their behaviour toward creatures, all men were Nazis". It
was also Singer, the author who loved animals, who coined the
phrase, "for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka". It
seems as though this comparison today sets the point of origin
for humanism discourse. Yet not all authors are prepared to
stay at this point. Giogio Agamben, for example, like Adorno
before him, sees the dangers that lie in accepting the
Holocaust as the final word in history. He writes in
"L'aperto" that one would completely misconceive the
+totalitarian experiences of the twentieth century if one only
considered them under consideration of nationalism and
imperialism. Today another, more extreme political exercise is
at stake: the fact of the biological or "naked" life of
peoples. Seen in this way, nationalism was not the terminus,
rather one course for the bio-political experiments of the
twenty first century or, in Agamben's words, "for the integral
management/cultivation of biological life, and that means the
animality of humans."

Jacques Derrida also sees (in L'Animal que donc je suis") an
unprecedented subjugation of the animal" as the mark of a
worsening history of "coexistence": "All the world knows what
an unbearable picture of terror a realistic painting could
create out of the industrial, chemical, hormonal, gene-
technical violence that the animal has had to take from humans
for the past two centuries." For Derrida, the question is not
whether this was genocide or not. Certainly, he says, there is
an animal genocide: ("The number of species that are
disappearing at the hands of humans takes one's breath away.")
But how is it possible, Derrida asks, that humans keep the
suffering that they cause to those they see as animals so
completely covered and hidden: "For that, which has bee
happening for two centuries is a new type of examination, a
test of sympathy."

From Aristotles to Heidegger, talk about animals had always
circled around have and can, around the possession of sense
and the ability to use techniques. Jeremy Bentham first asked
the deciding and acceptable question: Can they suffer? In this
question, according to Derrida, is the most radical way of
thinking about the finality and mortality that humans share
with animals. In the worsening relationship to animals over
the past two hundred years, the watermark of a war has become
visible; a war that has raged over sympathy. Without a doubt,
this war is ageless, but it has arrived at a critical phase
and we with it."

No one knows what the outcome of this critical phase will be.
The management of the naked, animalistic lives of humans - and
animal populations? The undeclared war at the core of
civilisation, which calls itself human, continues. The
animals' revolt remains postponed. Nor is a revolt of humans
for their animalistic nature in sight.

One could go so far as to call humanity the species that
failed in its being and remaining an animal. (...) Cultural
historians have recognised that with becoming sedentary, the
relations between man and animal also came to a new aspect.
With the taming of humans by houses, a new epoch of the pet
began. Their binding to the human's houses is not just about
taming, but also training and breeding.

Man and his pets - the story of this incredible cohabitation
has not yet been adequately depicted; much less have
philosophers to this day wanted to believe what they should be
doing right in the middle of this story (...)