Poets From Iraq

"Your great deeds are unparallelled, your magnificence is praised! Young woman, Inana, your praise is sweet!"

"Her wrath is a devastating flood which no one can withstand. A great watercourse, she abases those whom she despises. The mistress, a hurin bird who lets no one escape. Inana, a falcon preying on the gods."

"On the wide and silent plain, darkening the bright daylight, she turns midday into darkness. People look upon each other in anger, they look for combat. Their shouting disturbs the plain, it weighs on the pasture and the waste land. Her howling is like Ickur's and makes the flesh of all the lands tremble. No one can oppose her murderous battle -- who rivals her? No one can look at her fierce fighting, the carnage, the engulfing water, raging, sweeping over the earth, she leaves nothing behind."

"Her great heart performs her bidding."

"Humbling huge mountains as if they were piles of litter, ... She brings about the destruction of the mountain lands from east to west."

"She stirs confusion and chaos against those who are disobedient to her, speeding carnage and inciting the devastating flood, clothed in terrifying radiance."

"Why should we hate the people we once loved because of a war that mars even our memories?"

"Lamea ... is ... dark and intense, with the personality of an archaic queen."

"During one of her lessons to me, Lamea said that priests have long beards and never cut their hair because they wish to look like Šamiš, the sun. Power resides in hair, like the sun’s rays."

"Cities have a spirit and reveal their secrets if you listen."