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218 vances, Dumuzi's sister Geshtinanna refused. In his desperation Dumuzi violated a sexual taboo: he raped his own sister. The tragic tale is recorded on a tablet catalogued by scholars as CT. 15.28-29. The text relates how Dumuzi bade Inanna good-bye as he announced his plan to go to the desert-plain where his flocks were. By prearrangement his sister, "the song-knowing sister, was sitting there." She thought she was invited for a picnic. As they were "eating the pure food, dripping with honey and butter, as they were drinking the fragrant divine beer," and "were spending the time in a happy mood . . . Dumuzi took the solemn decision to do it." To prepare his sister for what he had in mind, Dumuzi took a lamb and copulated it with its mother, then had a kid copulate with its sister lamb. As the animals were committing incest, Dum- uzi was touching his sister in emulation, "but his sister still did not understand.". As Dumuzi's actions became more and more obvi- ous, Geshtinanna "screamed and screamed in protest"; but "he mounted her ... his seed was flowing into her vulva. " "Halt!" she shouted, "it is a disgrace!" But he did not stop. Having done his deed, "the Shepherd, being fearless, being shameless, spoke to his sister." What he said is unfortunately lost to us due to breaks in the tablet. But we suspect that he had— "fearlessly, shamelessly" as the text had stated—gone on to explain to Geshtinanna the reasons for his deed. That it was pre- meditated is clear from the text; it is also stated that Inanna was in on the plan: Dumuzi, prior to leaving, "spoke to her of planning and advice" and Inanna "to her spouse answered about the plan, to him she gave her advice." Rape, under the moral codes of the Anunnaki, was a serious sex- ual transgression. In the earliest times, when the first teams of as- tronauts had landed on Earth, a court-martial sentenced their supreme commander Enlil to exile for having raped a young nurse (whom he later married). Dumuzi had surely known all this; so he either expected his sister to engage in the intercourse willingly or else had compelling reasons for his deed which overrode the prohi- bition. Inanna's prior consent brings to mind the biblical tale of Abraham and his sonless wife Sarah, who offered him her maid- servant so that he might have a male heir. Aware that he had done a horrible deed, Dumuzi was soon there- after seized with a premonition that he was to pay for his deed with his life, as told in the Sumerian text SHA.GA.NE. IR IM.SHI— "His Heart Was Filled With Tears." Composed in the form of a self-fulfilling dream, the text relates how Dumuzi fell asleep and THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN