Gilgamesh attempted to comfort Enkidu with words, “Though it may seem dire, this dream may portent good. The gods send dream to the healthy, not to the weak. As a healthy man who has dreamed this, be at ease. I shall pray to the great gods on your behalf: to The Sun, and to your god, Anu, to Wind-Lord the counselor and to Ea the wise, who sent the Seven Sages to mankind. I will implore them humbly for mercy on your behalf. A statue of gold will be made in your image. This votive figure will restore your vigor.”

Enkidu moaned, “Friend, there is no statue of gold to cure the sickness in me. What the Wind-Lord has determined cannot be prevented. My end has been decreed and there is nothing you can do.”

At dawn’s first glow, Enkidu shouted to the Sun. Raising his head, the tears streaking his face, he cried, “Lord Sun, the Wind-Lord has abruptly turned against me, so I turn to you.

“The lowly trapper, who discovered me free in the wild—as he ruined my life, may his life be ruined. May animals avoid his traps, or failing that, vanish like the mist. May he go home empty and starve for trapping me.”

“Shamhat, priestess of Ishtar, I consign you to everlasting infamy. As this curse leaves my lips may it find yours:

"May you have no home or family, cursed never to hold a child of your own.

"May your man lust for younger, lovelier girls.

"May he beat you as a housewife beats a rug.

"May you never own whitest alabaster, or know the shine of silver which so delights.

"May your roof leak, with no carpenter willing to repair it.

"May wild dogs make a den of your sleeping chamber and owls nest in your loft.

"May drunkards vomit upon you.

"May you be taken by your clients against the tavern wall.

"May you be dressed in tattered robes and dirty shift.

"May angry wives hound you like famished wolves.

"May your naked feet be torn by thorns and brambles.

"May young men jeer at your ugliness and beggars mock you as you walk the streets.

"Shamhat, may these terrible things be your reward for coming to me in the wild—when I was strong, innocent and free—and seducing me.”

In two cases specific curses [two of animal plagues and two of public shame] have been compressed into one, indicating that the 12 curses of Enkidu upon Shamhat describe the months of a woman's year, where the trapper, the remnant hunter of the old world order, is cursed to starvation. The men of the wild are cursed to dwindle and vanish just as the woman of the city is cursed to a life of squalor and debasement, as Enkidu, the vision-questing hero of the primal order passes from life. Enkidu may be viewed as the transitory figure, making way for Gilgamesh, the new kind of politicized hero king of the settled polity. Enkidu might also be viewed as the lost companion of the hero, signifying the loneliness and isolation of the hero who has become politically elevated.