Love is not a strength

Lindsay said that love was an all powerful force in the Epic of Gilgamesh but I have to disagree. Love is constantly shown but every time it is there, it leads to the downfall of a character. First when Gilgamesh turns down Ishtar's love it results in the death of Enkidu and then Gilgamesh's love of Enkidu as a brother leads him to search for eternal life and become miserable. Also when Enkidu is created in the beginning, he is corrupted by the temple harlot. While this may not be considered love it still leads to the fall of a character and therefore it can be seen as bad. I believe that the authors were trying to get people to understand that while love is important it can also lead to lots of trouble. If love were supposed to be very important in the story, they would have made the outcomes of love less painful for everybody in the story. For example, if Gilgamesh had accepted the love of Ishtar and he became a great king, then the story might be telling the people that they needed to fall in love to get farther in life. Since Gilgamesh turned her down even after she offered all of the glorious things she did, the author's were probably not trying to promote love in that way. Another example would have been if the author's had not mentioned Enkidu losing some of his strength and swiftness when he made love to the temple harlot. If his strength had not decreased then I would have been able to see Lindsay's point.