Counselors from The Odyssey and the Epic of Gilgamesh Omar Ibrahim College

In The Odyssey by Homer, and the Epic of Gilgamesh the titular protagonists of their respective narratives, Odysseus and Gilgamesh face their own perilous journeys, by their own hands and at the caprice of the fickle gods. Odysseus is left to his infamous wit to devise a way home on his own, while Gilgamesh in search of immortality. But fortune does indeed favor the bold, as throughout the story, Odysseus and Gilgamesh each receive their fair share of words-of-wisdom from fellow characters in the story, whom serve as ‘counselors’, or advisers Such counselors in the story include Athena, goddess of wisdom and Odysseus’ patron; Circe, the witch-goddess who keeps Odysseus on the island as her sex slave and turns his men into swine; and Shamash, a solar deity and ‘family friend’ of Gilgamesh’s mother, Ninsun, sent at her behest to watch over Gilgamesh and safeguard him throughout his misadventures. It is because of these counselors that Odysseus and Gilgamesh escape their many close-calls with death, all thanks divine intervention. These counselors fall in the category of deus ex machina figures, meaning they can interrupt the flow of the story, popping up time and again to rescue their clients from certain death. They each go...