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143 If he were to become her lover, Ishtar promised, kings, princes, and nobles would bow to him; he shall be given a chariot adorned with lapis and gold; his flocks would double and quadruple; the produce of field and mountain shall be his fill .. But, to her surprise, Gilgamesh turned down her invitation. Listing only the few worldly possessions that he could offer her, he foresaw her quick tiring of him and his lovemaking. Sooner or later, he said, she would get rid of him as of "a shoe that pinches the foot of its owner." I will obtain for you eternal life, Ishtar announced. But that, too, could not convince Gilgamesh. Listing all her known lovers, whom she used and discarded, "which of your lovers lasted forever?" Gilgamesh asked, "which of your masterful paramours went to heaven?" And, he concluded, "if you will love me, you shall treat me just like them." "When Ishtar heard this, Ishtar was enraged, and to the skies flew off." In her fury at being rejected, she appealed to Anu to punish Gilgamesh, who "had disgraced me." She asked Anu for the Bull of Heaven so that it might smite Gilgamesh. At first Anu refused, but in the end he yielded to the pleas and threats of Ishtar, and "put the reins of the Bull of Heaven in her hands." (GUD.ANNA, the Sumerian term employed in the ancient texts, is commonly translated "Bull of Heaven," but it could also be understood to more literally mean the "Bull of Anu." The term was also the Sumerian name for the celestial con- stellation of the Bull (Taurus), which was associated with Enlil. The "Bull of Heaven" that was kept in the Cedar Forest guarded by Enlil's monster could have been a specially selected bull, or the "prototype" bull seeded from Nibiru to create bulls on Earth. Its counterpart in Egypt was the sacred Apis Bull.) Attacked by the Bull of Heaven, the comrades forgot all about the Landing Place and the search for Immortality, and fled for their lives. Aided by Shamash, the "distance of a month and fifteen days in three days they traversed." Arriv- ing in Uruk, Gilgamesh sought protection behind its ramparts while Enkidu waited outside, to face the attacker. Hundreds of the city's warriors came out too; but the snorts of the Bull of Heaven opened up pits in the earth into which the warriors In Search of Immortality