| "This is what my master has spoken, this is what he has said. My king who from his birth has been fitted { for lordship } { (1 ms. has instead:) for the crown }, the lord of Unug, the sajkal snake living in Sumer, who pulverises { mountains } { (2 mss. have instead:) heads } like flour, the stag of the tall mountains, endowed with princely antlers, wild cow, kid pawing the holy soapwort with its hoof, whom the good cow had given birth to in the heart of the mountains, Enmerkar, the son of Utu, has sent me to you." { (2 mss. add here:) (the lord of Aratta speaks): "What is it to me what your master has spoken? what is it to me what he has said?" } "This is what my master said: "Lest I make the people fly off from that city like a wild dove from its tree, lest I make them fly around like a bird over its well-founded nest, lest I requite (?) them as if at a current market rate, lest I make it gather dust like an utterly destroyed city, lest like a settlement cursed by Enki and utterly destroyed, I too utterly destroy Aratta; lest like the devastation which swept destructively, and in whose wake Inana arose, shrieked and yelled aloud, I too wreak a sweeping devastation there -- let Aratta pack nuggets of gold in leather sacks, placing alongside it the kugmea ore; package up precious metals, and load the packs on the donkeys of the mountains; and then may the Junior Enlil of Sumer have them build for me, the lord whom Nudimmud has chosen in his sacred heart, a mountain of a shining me; have them make it luxuriant for me like a boxwood tree, have them make its shining horns colourful for me as when Utu comes forth from his chamber, have them make its doorposts gleam brightly for me. Chant to him for me the holy song, the incantation sung in its chambers -- the Incantation of Nudimmud.""
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