The trapper needs to tame Enkidu just as the people of Uruk need to tame Gilgamesh.
What Enkidu gains as he goes through early life is wisdom. The harlot represents this wisdom, civilization, and even an object of sexual desire. Enkidu is seduced by the harlot and then rejected by the beasts. Recognizing the corruption in him, civilized man corrupts primitive man to weaken him and make him one of his own. Yet for Enkidu as for human beings in general, sexual desire leads to domesticity, or love. "His body that loved to range the hills was unable to follow" and "there was beginning a new understanding" (Gilgamesh 9). .
This new creation of life, Enkidu, compliments, strengthens, and stabilizes Gilgamesh. First, Enkidu prevents Gilgamesh from entering the house of a bride and bridegroom; they fight and then they embrace as friends: .
Stormy heart struggled with stormy heart.
As Gilgamesh men Enkidu in his rage.
At the material threshold they wrestled, bulls contending;.
The doorposts shook and shattered; the wrestling staggered,.
Wild bulls locked-horned and staggering staggered wrestling.
Through the city streets; the city walls and lintels.
Shuddered and swayed, the gates of the city trembled.
As Gilgamesh, the strongest of all, the terror,.
Wrestled the wild man Enkidu to his knees. (Gilgamesh 15).
Here, we have just encountered the coming together of two to form one, like the miracle of birth and the creation of life.
Now, we see how the coming of the two leads to the destruction of others and eventually to their own. After they unite, Enkidu and Gilgamesh undertake a journey into the forest to confront and destroy the terrible Huwawa. "Helpless is he who enters the Cedar Forest" says Enkidu to Gilgamesh, but Gilgamesh replies by saying ""Who is the mortal / able to enter heaven? Only the gods / can live forever. The life of man is short" (Gilgamesh 16). There they encourage each other to face death triumphantly.