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219 dreamed that all his attributes of status and property were being taken away from him one by one, by the "Princely Bird'* and a fal- con. The nightmare ended with Dumuzi seeing himself lying dead in the midst of his sheepfolds. Waking up, he asked his sister Geshtinanna to tell him the mean- ing of the dream. "My brother." she said, "your dream is not fa- vorable, it is very clear to me." It foretold "bandits rising against you from ambush . . . your hands will be bound in handcuffs, your amis will be bound in fetters.". No sooner had Geshtinanna finished talking than the evil ones appeared beyond the hill and caught Dumuzi. Bound in handcuffs and fetters. Dumuzi cried out an appeal to Utu/Shamash: "O Utu. you are my brother-in-law, I am your sis- ter's husband. . . . Change my hands into a gazelle's hands, change my feet into a gazelle's feet, let me escape the evil ones!" Hearing his appeal. Utu enabled Dumuzi to escape. Alter some ad- ventures Dumuzi sought a hiding place in the house of Old Belili—a _ questionable character playing a double role. Dumuzi was captured again and again escaped. In the end he found himself hiding once again in the sheepfolds. A strong wind was blowing, the drinking cups were overturned; the evil ones closed in on him— all as he had seen in his dream. And in the end: The drinking cups lay on their side; Dumuzi was dead. The arena of these events, in this text, is a desertlike plain neara river. The geography is enlarged upon in another version of the events, a text titled "The Most Bitter Cry." Composed as a lament by Inanna, it tells how seven deputies of Kur entered the sheepfold and aroused Dumuzi from his sleep. Unlike the previous version, which simply referred to the seizure of Dumuzi by "evil ones," this text makes it clear that they had come on higher authority: "My master has sent us for you," the chief deputy announced to the awakened god. They proceed to strip Dumuzi of his divine at- tributes: get up bareheaded; Take the royal robe off your body, get up naked; The Prisoner in the Pyramid The sheepfold was thrown into the wind. Take the divine headdress off your head,