under your sign. He was the first who suffered.
The lovely shepherd-bird whom Ishtar loved,
whose wing you broke and now wing-broken cries,
lost in the darkness of the forest floor:
"My wing is broken, broken is my wing,"
The lion whom you loved, strongest of beasts,
the mightiest of the forest, who fell into
the calamity of the pits, the bewildering
contrivances of the goddess, seven times seven.
You broke the great wild horse and snaffied him:
he drinks the water his hobbled hooves have muddied.
The goatherd who brought you cakes and daily for you
slaughtered a kid, you turned into a wolf
chased away by the herdsmen, whose hairy flanks,
smelly and mangy, the guardian dogs snap at.
You loved lshullanu, your father's gardener,
who brought you figs and dates to adorn your table.
You looked at him and showed yourself to him
and said: 'Now, touch me where you dare not, touch me
here, touch me where you want to, touch me here.'
He said: 'Why should I eat the rotten food,
having been taught to eat the wholesome food?
Why should I sin and be cursed and why should I live
where the cold wind blows through the reeds upon the outcast?'
Some say the goddess turned him into a frog
among the reeds, with haunted frog voice chanting,
beseeching what he no longer knows he longs for;
some say into a mole whose blind foot pushes
