If it had not been for the temple harlot, goddess of Uruk, Shamhat, there would not have been an Epic of Gilgamesh, for she it was that brought back to the Great City of Uruk, the Sumerian Capital, the prize Gilgamesh had been longing for; for she had seduced Enkidu, Gilgamesh's equal, whom she instructed thereafter on the fineries of civilization, for he was a man-beast in the woods; she brought him a lover, as in time, after the death of Enkidu, Gilgamesh would marry and have a son, and Shamhat would bear a child. The year is 2700 BC. In the poem you are about to read, Huwawa is a giant, who guards the Cedar Forest, Enkidu lives in the forest like a beast.
Silence falls on Uruk's walls
While a demigod rules the lands;
A raging wind from the Cedar Forest
Comes with the rattling of Huwawa.
And with the harlot Shamhat,
So follows Enkidu, the beast-man.
* * *
Eldritch stars fall on Uruk's walls
As the red moon's light fades in;
The granite walls are hinged in gray,
And Gilgamesh's mind is bent—
He weaves a web to hold his city,
Sumer, king of all Sumerians.
* * *
Shamhat laced her web
By baring her pulsing loins;
Her beauty glimmered in the woods
To the one by the shadowy pond.
The beast-man Enkidu, now doomed,
As she woos