You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
13 October 1911,1 Vienna, IX. Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
To you in your military solitude I send the following contribution to our conversations on the Gilgamesh material.
Though I do not contest the interpretation of Gilgamesh and Eabani2 as man and crude sensuality, it nevertheless occurs to me that such pairs consisting of a noble and a base part (usually brothers) are a motif running through all legend and literature. The last great offshoot of the type is Don Quijote with his Sancho Panza (literally: paunch). Of mythological figures, the first that come to mind are the Dioskuroi (one mortal, the other immortal) and various pairs of brothers or twins of the Romulus and Remus type. One is always weaker than the other and dies sooner. In Gilgamesh this age-old