User blog comment:MilenHD/Gilgamesh vs Odysseus/@comment-422690-20151206194711/@comment-4661256-20151206215644

I read Gilgamesh this semester and I came to the conclusion that he was depicted as a very emotional and rash individual, not "more [wise] than Odysseus." I have the Benjamin R. Foster translation, which depicts Gilgamesh as a decadent and impulsive individual who "would leave no girl to her mother... the warrior's daughter, the young man's spouse." Gilgamesh tends to rush headfirst into battle, including his fight against Humbaba (which he was only able to win by virtue of assistance from his friend, Enkidu). He is very emotional, throwing himself into very childlike fits of rage and grief on the death of Enkidu ("He paced to and fro, back and forth, tearing out and hurling away the locks of his hair, ripping off and throwing away his fine clothes like something foul."). Compare this to Odysseus who calmly reacts to seeing the shade of his mother in the Underworld (who died while he was away at Troy) and grieves reservedly and in private (retreating in solitude to grieve when stranded on Calypso's island).

As for weapons, I agree that Gilgamesh's loadout is inaccurate--according to the Benjamin R. Foster translation, Gilgamesh comissioned his craftsmen to make "axe blades weighing 180 pounds each... great daggers, their blades were 120 pounds each, the cross guards of their handles thirty pounds each. ... Gilgamesh and Enkidu bore ten times sixty pounds each."