Gilgamesh Vs. Ovid

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Epic of Gilgamesh and Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Comparing the great floods

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero of the flood is not the protagonist, but a god who had once been mortal. Utnapishtim sees all, knows all, and carries the secrets of life Gilgamesh wishes to seek out. Once Gilgamesh does reach Utnapishtim, he’s surprised to find that he’s very human in nature. In fact, he had been deified for surviving the flood sent by Enlil. The gods warned Utnapishtim of the waters that were to come at the hand of Enlil, and for a week he built with all his resources a boat that could withstand the torrents. This is one major difference with Ovid: some people had forewarning from Ea and they had time to build an ark. In Ovid’s version, the gods conceived a plan that all men were wicked and deserved to perish at their hands. Zeus sought to conquer their wicked indignations, and many of the gods wondered who would bring them sacrifices, however they all agreed that it was wrong of men to be so tainted with evil. In the Epic, Enlil acted on his own accord, without further approval of the other gods. This is a second major difference between the two.
Enlil also meant for no man to survive, and for no race to be conceivably be born again on earth, but by Ea’s salvation and foreboding, Utnapishtim and his family were spared by her divine graces. Zeus, on the other hand, had in mind that by “miraculous origin” a new race of men shall spawn, and Deucalion and Pyrrha were spared, the first man and woman of the new race of man because they were pious in their ways.
The new race of men spawned in Ovid’s version came not from Deucalion and Pyrrha coming together, but throwing stones over their shoulders, a symbolic meaning that man came from the earth. The gods were sympathetic to the couple who were very much afraid, yet honored the gods in the temple. In the Epic, man came directly from the survivors from the flood, a...