13 Quotes by Herbert Mason

Gilgamesh was king of Uruk, A city set between the Tigris And Euphrates rivers In ancient Babylonia. Enkidu was born on the Steppe Where he grew up among the animals. Gilgamesh was called a god and man; Enkidu was an animal and man. It is the story Of their becoming human together.

As when we can recall so vividlyWe almost touch,Or think of all the gestures that we failedTo make.

Everything had life to me,’ he heard Enkidu murmur, ‘the sky, the storm, the earth, water, wandering, the moon and its three children, salt, even my hand had life. It’s gone. It’s gone.

Friendship is vowing toward immortality and does not know the passing away of beauty (Though take care!) because it aims for the spirit. 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.

You have known, O Gilgamesh,What interests me,To drink from the Well of Immortality.Which means to make the deadRise from their gravesAnd the prisoners from their cellsThe sinners from their sins.I think love's kiss kills our heart of flesh.It is the only way to eternal life,Which should be unbearable if livedAmong the dying flowersAnd the shrieking farewellsOf the overstretched arms of our spoiled hopes.

It could go on for years and years,And has, for centuries,For being human holds a special griefOf privacy within the universeThat yearns and waits to be retouchedBy someone who can take awayThe memory of death.

All that is left to one who grievesIs convalescence. No change of heart or spiritualConversion, for the heart has changedAnd the soul has been convertedTo a thing that seesHow much it costs to lose a friend it loved.

What we finally do, out of desperation ... is go on an impossible, or even forbidden, journey or pilgrimage, which from a rational point of view is futile: to find the one wise man, whomever or wherever he may be; and to find from him the secret of eternal life or the secret of adjusting to this life as best we can.

He entered the city 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