>>5390939>>5390952>>5390954(Gilgamesh asks Uta-napishti why some anons have stopped responding and reading to his quest. The tablets are damaged here and incomplete, here are two translations)
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Utnapishtim said, ‘There is no permanence. Do we build a house to stand for ever, do we seal a contract to hold for all time?
'Ever do we build our households,
ever do we make our nests,
ever do brothers divide their inheritance,
ever do feuds arise in the land.
'Ever the river has risen and brought us the flood
the mayfly floating on the water.
On the face of the sun its countenance gazes,
then all of a sudden nothing is there!
Do brothers divide an inheritance to keep for ever, does the flood-time of rivers endure? It is only the nymph of the dragon-fly who sheds her larva and sees the sun in his glory.
From the days of old there is no permanence. The sleeping and the dead, how alike they are, they are like a painted death. What is there between the master and the servant when both have fulfilled their doom?
When the Anunnaki, the judges, come together, and Mammetun the mother of destinies, together they decree the fates of men. Life and death they allot but the day of death they do not disclose.’
Then Gilgamesh said to Utnapishtim the Faraway, ‘I look at you now, Utnapishtim, and your appearance is no different from mine; there is nothing strange in your features. I thought I should find you like a hero prepared for battle, but you lie here taking your ease on your back. Tell me truly, how was it that you came to enter the company of the gods and to possess everlasting life?’ Utnapishtim said to Gilgamesh, ‘I will reveal to you a mystery, I will tell you a secret of the gods.’
