**GILDA the WISE, Saint.** – British monk, born in Britain ca. 493, died at Rhuy (Vannes) ca. 570. He is sometimes called “Badonicus” because, as he himself confesses (De excidio, I, 26: PL 69, 347), he was born in the year in which the Britons won a famous battle against the Saxons at Mount Badon. Little else is known with certainty about his life; it can be said that he became a monk and was a disciple of I. Itut in the monastery of Caerworgan (Wales); ca. 510 he went to Ireland to restore the faith and customs (which, however, had not fallen so low as his biographers suggest) and introduced a new liturgy for the Mass there; he traveled to Rome ca. 520 and, on his return, stopped among the Britons of the continent and founded a monastery at Rhuy, which, after his death, was named after him. His feast is celebrated on January 29.
**Principal Work:** *De excidio et conquestu Britanniae ac flebili castigatione in reges, principes et sacerdotes*, in three parts: a prologue; a summary of the history of the Britons from the Roman invasion to his own time; and a letter filled with bitter and exaggerated invective against the five petty kings Constantine, Vortipor, Cyneglas, Cynan, and Maelgwn, sparing neither the secular clergy nor the people (only monks escape his wrath) because they had shown weakness against the corrupt customs introduced by the invading Picts and Scots and had not improved even after the victory at Badon. The work demonstrates a person of extraordinary learning, notable holiness of life, and great zeal, well-versed in Holy Scripture and various Fathers; yet the style is quite obscure. Other works are attributed to him, the authorship of which is debated: *Liber de poenitentia*, 27 canons prescribing penance for those who confess; *Oratio pro itineris et navigationis prosperitate*, in rhythmic verse; and *Lorica*, another prayer in verse in which divine aid is sought for each part of the body against illness. His thought is also cited in a collection of canons mentioned by St. Columban (Ep. 1, 4: PL 80, 262) and St. Bede (Hist. eccl., 1, 22: PL 95, 52).
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GILGAMESH, EPIC OF. – Alongside the *Enuma Elish*, the Babylonians and Assyrians had another national poem, centered on G. (Gilgāmeš), a supposed ancient king of the southern Babylonian city of Uruk (*Erech* in the Old Testament), for whom the city’s walls and the famous temple called Eanna were said to have been built, as it was the seat of the god Anu. It is highly probable that G. was indeed a historical king. Of this poem, a Sumerian version survives in fragments, a paleo-Babylonian recension dating certainly to the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon (ca. 1900–1600 B.C.), also preserved fragmentarily, and a Neo-Assyrian recension, of which numerous and extensive fragments were found in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal among the ruins of Nineveh. Some gaps in the text have been filled with various passages from the Hittite version. Fragments of the Hurrian translation are also known. The poem is divided into twelve books. The penultimate contains a description of the universal flood. It is written in verse, in the poetic language characteristic of the poems and hymns to the gods of the paleo-Babylonian period.
The *Epic of G.* is a hymn to friendship, to the warm and profound camaraderie binding the king of Uruk to his beloved friend Enkidu, a hero equal to him and ever ready to fight and give his life for his companion, his *ibru talmu*. Interwoven with this primary theme is another: the impossibility for man to obtain eternal life, which the gods have reserved for themselves, rendering it entirely futile for G. to seek it for his deceased friend Enkidu.
The opening words of the poem, *Ša nagbu imuru*, “He who has seen all,” provide a Babylonian title for the work. As king of Uruk, G. treats the city’s inhabitants tyrannically, and they naturally complain and direct their laments to the gods, who commission the goddess Aruru to create a man, entirely like G., whose task will be to curb the king’s arrogance. Aruru fashions Enkidu, a hero of the steppe, covered in hair, who lives among animals, exceedingly strong and wild. He destroys the hunters’ nets, and one of these, on the king’s advice, takes a prostitute to Enkidu to tame him. Indeed, sexual relations with the woman soften Enkidu and make him amenable to her designs. She transforms him from a savage into almost a citizen and finally brings him to the city. There he meets G., after the king had been forewarned of his arrival in various dreams. Enkidu clashes with the king when the latter goes to lie with his own lover and defeats him; from their enmity arises an indestructible friendship. They become inseparable companions and undertake heroic deeds, among which the poem minutely describes the one against Humbaba on the cedar mountain, sacred to the goddess Ištar. The deed ends with the slaying of the aforementioned guardian. But this killing arouses the goddess’s wrath, and she immediately seeks vengeance for the affront, especially since, after G.’s return to Uruk—full of admiration for the king’s heroism—she had offered herself to him as a lover, only to be scorned. To avenge this insult, she turns to Anu, who sends the Bull of Heaven against G. and his friend; the two, however, capture and slay II. Indeed, Enkidu takes a thigh and, climbing onto the city walls, hurls it at the goddess. Even more enraged by this new affront, she unleashes a wasting sickness upon the heroic Enkidu, who dies, mourned bitterly and for a long time by his desolate companion and by the entire city. After burying him, G., inconsolable and nearly mad, sets out in search of Utnapishtim, the hero of the universal flood, who had been granted immortality by the god Enlil. After a long journey, he finds him and has him recount how he attained eternal life, in the hope of obtaining it for Enkidu and even for himself. But Utnapishtim cannot grant it to him; the gods, however, give him a plant for rejuvenation, which is later stolen from the hero by a serpent. Returning home, he summons the spirit of Enkidu from the underworld and has him describe the life led by the dead there. With this melancholy note, the poem ends: man cannot be immortal.
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