Enheduanna: The First Author - Wattys Winner 2021

21. The Word Is Mightier Than The Sword

As soon as I arrived back at Ur, I locked myself in the Giparu every night and requested only new clay tablets or food to be brought up.

During the days, I went about the standard affairs. Listening to the people's prayers, accepting the offering and performing the rituals.

But the nights were when I was truly alive. With reed in hand, I spend nights writing, rewriting, and sculpting my hymns to perfection. Every ritual, each word would be crafted with such precision none could describe it as any less than sublime.

Under the rule of my words, Ur thrived like never before.

After the flood, the land also proved to be more fertile, making the temple's riches greater than it has ever been and allowing us to give more to the people of Ur.

Kituzda would join me a fortnight at dusk to go over our inventory of the provisions. The other days Dingira would dine with me and keep me company until nightfall.

It was during one of Dingira's many tales of the streets that Idal knocked on the door. "I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour, Enheduanna. But I bring news about Rimush."

The tension in the room grew thick enough to cut with a knife. Although neither Idal nor Dingira had ever asked me about what happened in Akkad, I could tell by their tense expressions they knew something was amiss. "What of our young king?" I said, trying to sound as calm and collected as I could.

"He is waging another war. Rumors say his ferocious fire whips his stallion north this time."

"How does that man still have soldiers standing?" Dingira wondered out loud, "with all that fighting you would think all the troops should have died by now."

"Well, he is Sargon's son. Fighting is in his blood." Idal said, glancing at me with an expression that lay somewhere between worry and pity.

I didn't mind their opinions about my family's thirst for war. It was true, after all. "Dingira, bring me another clean tablet, will you? After that you may retire for the night."

With a knowing smile, Dingira left the room.

"Thank you for informing me," I said to Idal, letting him leave as well when I had a blank slade within my hands.

In moonlight's embrace, inspiration surged through me like a river. Frustration, anger and my thirst for revenge dripped into each wedge I made into the soft clay. At the break of dawn, Kituzda came to wake me for the remembrance ritual of king Sargon that was to be attended by all the Lords of Ur. While getting dressed, I never took my eyes off the clay tablet on the table. Even as Kituzda reached to grab it, I took it first, although she was the one who had to read it out loud at the ritual.

The fire-haired priestess eyed me suspiciously. "You have a hymn, do you not?" 

"I do, and I wrote it down." Was all I replied as we made our way to the first tier of the Zigurat.

The room was already filled with all the lords as Idal helped me upon my raised dais and Kituzda took the tablet from my hand, freezing in her place, as she read the first line.

Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna

Her green eyes shot fire in my direction, but she stepped forward without a word of protest.

"Lament to the Spirit of War, by Enheduanna," she repeated, several faces in the room shooting up in surprise.

"You hack down everything you see, War God!" Kituzda continued, "Rising on fearsome wings you rush to destroy our land: raging like thunderstorms, howling like hurricanes, screaming like tempests, thundering, raging, ranting, drumming, whip lashing whirlwinds!"

Mouths fell open one by one while the priestess swallowed another lump. "Men falter at your approaching footsteps. Tortured dirges scream on your lyre of despair."

I heard a murmur buzz through the room. It was quiet, but loud enough to be heard between Kituzda's gasps for air.

"Is this about king Sargon?" the lords whispered.

Kituzda found her voice again. "Like a fiery salamander, you poison the land: growling over the earth like thunder, vegetation collapsing before you, blood gushing down mountainsides. Spirit of hatred, greed and vengeance! Dominatrix of heaven and earth!"

Idal looked over his shoulder to shoot me a questioning gaze, which I ignored.

"Your ferocious fire consumes our land. Whipping your stallion with furious commands, you impose our fates."

The buzz turned to a gasp as the answer became clear. "It is about king Rimush."

Kituzda continued, "you triumph over all human rites and prayers. Who can explain your tirade, why you carry on so?"

Kituzda barely breathed out the final words of the hymn or a deafening applause shook the walls. The lords were smiling from ear to ear, words of praise rolling off their tongues as easily as water.

Revenge was sweet.

I could almost picture Rimush's face as news of my newfound popularity with the lords of Ur reached his ears.

If only he had known what power words can hold.

All the way back to the Giparu, I imagined the scene in my mind and could not stop grinning. That was, until Kituzda stormed up. "Explain to why you just did that?"

"I thought you would be happy. The lords seemed to enjoy my little jab at my brother."

"That is not what I meant," she huffed. "Why did you do this?"

I glanced sideways to see her pointing at the first sentence.

"Because it is my work. My work shall carry my name so the people will know who wrote it."

Kituzda gasped for air like a fish on dry land, her face becoming almost as red as her hair. "Are you out of your mind! You cannot claim a hymn to be yours. We must all recite them. Us and the priestesses yet to come."

"They speak my words. I wove those sentences into the hymns they recite. They are my legacy, my stories. I wrote them down. I gave them life."

Kituzda shook her head as she stormed out of the Giparu, leaving a trail of curses in her wake.

Maybe it was egotistical to claim words as my own. Why did I feel so possessive of these words spoken among thousands?

Did it make me any different from the kings and their soldiers claiming the lands? Men were praised for laying a claim on barren lands, yet a woman's claim on her own thoughts was rapacious. Did my gender not entitle me to my thoughts and desires? Am I to give away all that I have created because I was born a woman?

I did not wish to lay claim on anything that isn't mine, not a desert plain nor a silken garb. I only wanted to protect that which is mine — that which I have created. Like a mother who wished to protect her children, I brought these writings into the world gave them a piece of my soul, like the priestess in Lagash, and I was to give that away without ever getting any recognition?

No. If the gods choose that path for me, I should feel content with the notion of my position as high priestess, but I didn't. The gods granted me too much pride to be satisfied with a measly image on a wall like mother had in the palace. An image with no name.

Gathering up a collection of my best hymns from a chest within the Giparu, I bound them together with a rope in order to create a bundle.

I would carve my name on the tablets myself. Immortalize my story, my opinion, my thoughts. After my spirit had left this realm, and they had given my body back to the earth, my name will still be remembered.

I would make sure of it.

"The compiler of these tablets is Enheduanna. My king, something has been created that no one has created before." I read out loud as I wrote it at the end of the last hymn in the bundle.

This is for you, father. And mother, I hope I'll make you proud.