Enkidu seizes the bull by its tail and horns while Gilgamesh drives his sword between its neck and shoulder blade, killing it, and the two heroes offer its heart to the sun god Shamash in thanks. Ishtar, watching from the walls of Uruk, curses Gilgamesh for the bull's death, and Enkidu answers her curse by tearing off one of the dead bull's hindquarters and hurling it at her, taunting that he would do the same to her if he could reach her, an act of open defiance against a major goddess that the poem does not present as costless. The city celebrates the twin victories over Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven with a great feast, and Gilgamesh, at the height of his fame, sleeps that night with an untroubled heart.
The gods do not let the matter rest. Convened in council to weigh the deaths of Humbaba, whom the two heroes had killed against the wishes of the god Enlil, and now the Bull of Heaven, a creature belonging to the divine order itself, the gods determine that someone must die for the offenses, and rule that it will be Enkidu rather than Gilgamesh, since Gilgamesh alone is destined to be king. Enkidu falls sick and dies over the tablets that follow, and it is grief at his death, and terror at the prospect of his own, that sends Gilgamesh on the quest for immortality that occupies the remainder of the epic.