Although Gilgamesh and Enkidu defeat Humbaba, the fearsome giant of the forest, their success triggers another fateful test: the Bull of Heaven. Gilgamesh and Enkidu return to Uruk, and Ishtar wants Gilgamesh as her lover. However, much in the same way Enkidu could not return to the embrace of the wild, so Gilgamesh cannot requite to embrace of the goddess. Gilgamesh recognizes that Ishtar uses and discards her human lovers much in the same way he used and dishonored the women of Uruk, and hepointedly asks Ishtar, "And if you and I should be lovers, should not I be served in the same fashion as all these others whom you loved once?" (1. 87). In other words, his renewed sense of relationship with others has shaped his view of himself, and he is no longer willing.....
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