A hunter sees Enkidu
and is amazed at the strange sight--an animal and yet a man. Enkidu,
as though resenting his condition, becomes enraged at the sight of
the hunter, and the latter goes to his father and tells him of the
strange creature whom he is unable to catch. In reply, the father
advises his son to take a woman with him when next he goes out on
his pursuit, and to have the woman remove her dress in the presence
of Enkidu, who will then approach her, and after intercourse with
her will abandon the animals among whom he lives. By this device he
will catch the strange creature. Lines 14-18 of column 3 in the first
tablet in which the father of the hunter refers to Gilgamesh must be
regarded as a later insertion, a part of the reconstruction of the
tale to connect the episode with Gilgamesh. The advice of the father
to his son, the hunter, begins, line 19,
"Go my hunter, take with thee a woman."
In the reconstructed tale, the father tells his son to go to Gilgamesh
to relate to him the strange appearance of the animal-man; but there
is clearly no purpose in this, as is shown by the fact that when the
hunter does so, Gilgamesh makes _precisely the same speech_ as does
the father of the hunter.
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