Death, where is thy sting?

Rereading Gilgamesh for class this week, I noticed something cute: Gilgamesh asks Utnapishtim how he achieved immortality. Utnapishtim responds by giving a summarised version of the pre-existing Sumerian flood myth, but his story ends with the god Enlili saying “In the past Utnapishtim was a mortal man, but now he and his wife shall become like us gods!”, with no actual explanation of how or why he’s now to be immortal.

Then it hit me – The whole story’s about how one cannot achieve immortality, except through the monuments and achievements one leaves behind. Utnapishtim becomes immortal when he becomes the hero of an epic!