Gilgamesh Chen Translation.pdf

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Tablet VI
He tells only to all what you did do.
The truth is no crime.”
90
100
Inanna did roar and then she did demand:
“Give me the Bull of Heaven so I may punish his flaying tongue.
Give me the Bull of Heaven so I may trample him dead.
Give me them or I shall break the gates to the land of the dead,
And let them wander out to feast on living flesh,
So many dead they will be more than any living ones for sure.”
Anu says to his daughter Inanna thus:
“The Bull of Heaven will trample the grain to the ground for seven years.
Unless you gather each harvest now your people will in famine lie.
Surely you want not your worshippers to eat only husks.
Surely you want the sweet smoke of good offerings sent to you.
Have you thought on this?”
“Yes I have thought on this
And each harvest have I stored for seven years,
So each beast and person too will eat and drink well,
Of this I [am] sure.”
110
120
Column III
So to his daughter did Anu give
The Bull of Heaven.
And soon he was heard
Snorting and bellowing like a mighty herd.
He stomped his hooves.
The Euphrates shook.
He stomped his hooves.
Uruk shook.
He stomped his hooves.
The whole earth shook.
He stomped his hooves.
The earth did break and into the cracks,
100 Uruk men fell through.
On this third stomp did Enkidu rush forth
And before the Bull of Heaven stood.
Grasping in his wildness-shaped hands the horns
He twisted the head of the Bull
So stinking slobber did splash on Enkidu‟s face.
Enkidu twisted the Bull the other way
The bull‟s stinking tail did brush Enkidu‟s face.