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171 To which Utu had an answer: "O lordly maiden, "he said, "Dumuzi, of lordly seed, he will plow it for you." DUMUZI ("Son who is Life"), a shepherd-god whose domain was in the African lands of Enki's clan, was—as we have noted above—the son of Ninsun, and thus partly an Enlilite. If there had been a hidden agenda to the proposed union, Utu did not belabor it; instead he extolled the merits of having a shepherd as a husband: "His cream is good, his milk is bright." But Inanna was thinking of a farmer-god as a husband: "I, the maiden, a farmer will marry," she an- nounced; "the farmer grows many plants, the farmer grows much grain." In the end, genealogy and the peace dividend prevailed, and Inanna and Dumuzi were engaged. The poetic texts dealing with the courtship, love, and mar- riage of Inanna and Dumuzi—texts of which quite a collec- tion has been unearthed—read as the best love songs of all time, explicit yet tender. When, after the parental approval was given on both sides, the marriage was proclaimed, Inanna awaited the consummation of the marriage in the Gipar in Uruk. In anticipation of the moment, Inanna, "dancing and singing, sent a message to her father" about the Gipar: In my house, my Gipar-house, my fruitful bed will be set up. With plants the color of lapis-lazuli it shall be covered. I will bring there my sweetheart; He will put his hand by my hand, he will put his heart by my heart. In my house, in my Gipar-house, let him ' 'make it long" for me. The great love between scions of the warring clans—a granddaughter of Enlil, a son of Enki—meant, no doubt, to enhance the peace between the two camps—did not last long. Marduk, the Firstborn of Enki and the claimant to supremacy over all the regions, opposed the union from the very begin- ning. When Dumuzi went back to his pastoral domain in Africa, promising Ishtar to make her Queen of Egypt, Inanna Encounters in the GIGUNU