In which we meet the randy young king and demi-god Gilgamesh and his equally untamed future friend, Enkidu
In which Gilgamesh and Enkidu fall into a terrible fight over Gilgamesh's abuse of power
Now past friends, the two heroes decide to seek out the monster of the cedar forest, Humbaba, and slay him
In which the heroes journey to Humbaba's lair, through good omens and bad
The heroes, with help from the sun god Shamash, defeat the monster Humbaba, and speed their raft home with his gory head mounted high
The goddess Ishtar propositions Gilgamesh, who rejects and insults her, as does Enkidu; in revenge, she leads down the bull of heaven to crush them. They defeat it, but Enkidu has a dream
For their arrogance "one of the heroes must die". Enkidu falls sick, curses everyone, is reprimanded by Shamash, and, after 12 days, he dies
In which Gilgamesh laments, at great length, the loss of Enkidu
"If Enkidu can die, so can I", reasons Gilgamesh and sets out across the desert to seek remedy of the only mortal to have beaten death, encountering lions and scorpion men en route. He even traverses Shamash's tunnel
Gilgamesh comes upon Siduri, who tries to convince him the secret of life is not immortality. But Gilgamesh forges on and with Siduri's directions, and some wrong moves, he finally finds Utnapishtim, the Babylonion Noah.
Utnapishtim relays the story of the flood and his unique survival. But this is not for Gilgamesh, who can't stay awake for even a week. Utnapishtim does direct him to a plant of enduring youth, but a snake steals it. Gilgamesh is left boasting of his great deeds and the wall he built around Erik.
Dream-like, Enkidu reappears, to help Gilgamesh retrieve his stick and his puck from the Netherworld. But he becomes trapped; finally Gilgamesh persuades a god to let him out and Enkidu's ghost returns to teach his friend the secrets of the Netherworld.