He returned to great-girded Uruk. There Gilgamesh bathed, cleansed his matted hair, and shook it over his back. He stripped off his dirty blood-caked clothes and put on a fine woolen tunic, robed himself in gold-trimmed cloth, gathered with a wide, fringed belt. Then, He donned his crown.
Ishtar, daughter of the Sky, princess of heaven, goddess of war and lust, saw Gilgamesh. At the sight of him, her heart ached, and her loins smoldered. Ishtar called to Gilgamesh, “Come here, Man—give me your delicious fruits, join with me, be my husband, be my sweet man. She continued, I will reward you beyond your imagination: ivory, jade, alabaster and marble will be yours. Your slaves will be blue-green eyed beauties. Your chariot will be crafted of lapis lazuli on golden wheels, guided with horns of amber pulled by storm giants. When you step into my temple and smell the cedar fragrance, high priests will kneel and kiss your feet. Kings and princes will bow and bring tribute from far and wide. I will bless everything you own: your goats will bear triplets, your ewes, twins, your donkeys will be faster than mules, your chariot horses, victorious in every race, your oxen, the envy of the world. I will shower you with this and more. Come to me, and be my sweet man.”
Notes
When Gilgamesh returns from his quest, his bathing and changing are symbolic of his leaving his tribal nature in the wilderness. Cities were multi-tribal. The king of such a city-state is in fact, the arbiter of affairs between hereditary, allied tribes and clans, so his appearance is supposed to be unifying and will dress differently than anyone else there, so that he is not identified with one group or the other. Such a king is, in effect a domesticated tribal chief. The promises of Ishtar represent the seduction of power that would tempt a king to conquest. Ishtar is offering Gilgamesh what Alexander’s mother offered him.
