When he had cursed the Trapper to his heart's content he turned on the harlot. He was rousedto curse her also. 'As for you, woman, with a great curse I curse you! I will promise you adestiny to all eternity. My curse shall come on you soon and sudden. You shall be without aroof for your commerce, for you shall not keep house with other girls in the tavern, but doyour business in places fouled by the vomit of the drunkard. Your hire will be potter's earth,your thievings will be flung into the hovel, you will sit at the cross-roads in the dust of thepotter's quarter, you will make your bed on the dunghill at night, and by day take your standin the wall's shadow. Brambles and thorns will tear your feet, the drunk and the dry will strikeyour cheek and your mouth will ache. Let you be stripped of your purple dyes, for I too oncein the wilderness with my wife had all the treasure I wished.'When Shamash heard the words of Enkidu he called to him from heaven: 'Enkidu, why areyou cursing the woman, the mistress who taught you to eat bread fit for gods and drink wineof kings?

Enlil, "Because they have killed the Bull of Heaven, and because they have killed Humbabawho guarded the Cedar Mountain one of the two must die." Then glorious Shamash answeredthe hero Enlil, "It was by your command they killed the Bull of Heaven, and killed Humbaba,and must Enkidu die although innocent?" Enlil flung round in rage at glorious Shamash, "Youdare to say this, you who went about with them every day like one of themselves!"So Enkidu lay stretched out before Gilgamesh; his tears ran down in streams and he said toGilgamesh, 'O my brother, so dear as you are to me, brother, yet they will take me from you.'Again he said, 'I must sit down on the threshold of the dead and never again will I see my dearbrother with my eyes.'While Enkidu lay alone in his sickness he cursed the gate as though it was living flesh, 'Youthere, wood of the gate, dull and insensible, witless, I searched for you over twenty leaguesuntil I saw the towering cedar. There is no wood like you in our land. Seventy-two cubits highand twenty-four wide, the pivot and the ferrule and the jambs are perfect. A master craftsmanfrom Nippur has made you; but O, if I had known the conclusion! If I had known that this wasall the good that would come of it, I would have raised the axe and split you into little piecesand set up here a gate of wattle instead. Ah, if only some future king had brought you here,or some god had fashioned you. Let him obliterate my name and write his own, and the cursefall on him instead of on Enkidu.'With the first brightening of dawn Enkidu raised his head and wept before the Sun God, inthe brilliance of the sunlight his tears streamed down. 'Sun God, I beseech you, about thatvile Trapper, that Trapper of nothing because of whom I was to catch less than my comrade;let him catch least, make his game scarce, make him feeble, taking the smaller of every share,let his quarry escape from his nets.'When he had cursed the Trapper to his heart's content he turned on the harlot. He was rousedto curse her also. 'As for you, woman, with a great curse I curse you! I will promise you adestiny to all eternity. My curse shall come on you soon and sudden. You shall be without aroof for your commerce, for you shall not keep house with other girls in the tavern, but doyour business in places fouled by the vomit of the drunkard. Your hire will be potter's earth,your thievings will be flung into the hovel, you will sit at the cross-roads in the dust of thepotter's quarter, you will make your bed on the dunghill at night, and by day take your standin the wall's shadow. Brambles and thorns will tear your feet, the drunk and the dry will strikeyour cheek and your mouth will ache. Let you be stripped of your purple dyes, for I too oncein the wilderness with my wife had all the treasure I wished.'When Shamash heard the words of Enkidu he called to him from heaven: 'Enkidu, why areyou cursing the woman, the mistress who taught you to eat bread fit for gods and drink wineof kings