“My son, in Uruk lives Gilgamesh, king of that river-fed city, people say the mightiest man under heaven, with muscles like stone.

“Go down to Uruk, to the Garden of Ishtar, between the rivers, to Gilgamesh. Inform him of the Wildman. He will know what to do and shall offer advice. Heed him, he is king.”*

The trapper made the journey, stood before Gilgamesh in the center of Uruk, and told him about the Wildman and his depredations.

The ruler of Uruk spoke:

“Go to the Temple of Ishtar. Ask them for the woman Shamhat. She is a priestess who offers her body up to any man who seeks the goddess.

“Take her into the wilderness.

“Once with the beasts at the waterhole, have her disrobe. Instruct her to lie there in her nakedness with legs spread.

“The Wildman will not resist her allure. He will come. She will weave her love spell.

“Once nature has taken its course, his bestial companions will no longer recognize him as one of their kind and will forsake him.

“She will bring him out of the wilderness.”

The kings of Sumer, as did kings down through the late Middle Ages, enjoyed exclusive access to exotic animals, game meat, and majestic predators such as lions, through the maintenance of an exclusive relationship with hunters and trappers, the progenitors of the modern game warden. The first city states were sometimes guarded by lions chained at the city gates. These actual meat-eating sentinels were eventually replaced by statues and carvings depicting lions in stone, indicating that their original purpose was more metaphysical than practical.