"Now you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full!
Be happy day and night,
of each day make a party,
dance in circles day and night!
Let your clothes be sparkling clean,
let your head be clean, wash yourself with water!
Attend to the little one who holds onto your hand,
let a wife delight in your embrace.
This is the (true) task of mankind(?)." (Old Babylonian Supplement at 10.72)
Here, Siduri tries to explain to Gilgamesh that he should put all his effort into living the best life that it's possible for a human to live. And key to that life is sex ("let a wife delight in your embrace"). But note how Siduri describes this sex. First of all, it is supposed to be sex with a "wife," that is, with someone that Gilgamesh has devoted his life to, not sex with all of the young women of Uruk, whether they want to or not, and whether they're about to marry to somebody else or not. Also, Siduri makes clear that the point of this sex isn't just for Gilgamesh's own amusement; it is supposed to make the wife "delight" as well. Does this mean that the human connection of sex is what Siduri considers most important?
"Now you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full!
Be happy day and night,
of each day make a party,
dance in circles day and night!
Let your clothes be sparkling clean,
let your head be clean, wash yourself with water!
Attend to the little one who holds onto your hand,
let a wife delight in your embrace.
This is the (true) task of mankind(?)." (Old Babylonian Supplement at 10.72)
Here, Siduri gives us yet another vision of the good life, and it's explicitly based on knowing how short life is. But where Gilgamesh says that you should try to leave an immortal reputation behind, Siduri is basically saying to scrap all that: what you should really do is have a fun time while you're here on earth. Which of these two approaches do you think the poem wants us, the readers, to accept?
Quote 3
The tavern-keeper was gazing off into the distance,
puzzling to herself, she said,
wondering to herself:
"That fellow is surely a murderer(?)!
Where is he heading?..."
As soon as the tavern-keeper saw him, she bolted her door,
bolted her gate, bolted the lock." (10.10-16)
Siduri runs a tavern in the underworld. What are her typical patrons like? Apparently much more respectable than Gilgamesh—otherwise she probably wouldn't be so put-off by his haggard appearance. Of course, it turns out that Siduri's fear is pretty much justified. Not long after these lines, Gilgamesh starts threatening to bust Siduri's door down. This looks like another example of how fear can be good: better safe than sorry, after all.