I came up with this because I learned from Tumblr that there’s apparently more than a hundred fanfics for The Epic of Gilgamesh on Ao3, and I think it’s poetic in a way how we’ve still never really gotten over the first story ever.
My answer would be Le Roman de Silence, from the early 1200s, which is about the adventures Silence, a boy who was born as a girl (that’s the author’s way of describing him)and who eventually becomes a knight. I just stumbled across it randomly but I fell in love with it after reading it the first time, and I think it’s beautiful how something 1000 years old can still be around and not have lost any of it’s capability for arousing our emotions.
For people wondering if they should read the epic of Gilgamesh, it has a bromance at the level of Achilles and Patroclus but just a bit more. Enkidu and Gilgamesh.
What’s the best way to read it? I have never been able to found a book or collection that has the complete work, just summaries.
I suggest Gilgamesh: A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell
But it is also a meditation on mortality, thus covering the rest of the Iliad, and a story of adventure and return, thus covering the Odyssey (yes yes, I’m talking very loosely). And a reflection on civilization vs wild nature, and a precursor to the flooding myth. And and and.
Do read it
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.
I cannot forget Achilles! Best one!
Such Bromance