On a summer day, some time after Innina-nûri returned finally to Nanâ-iddin, Iltani went with Ramtû across the river to Ibni-Shamash’s house to see Gin-Enlil his wife and Tuda-Ishtar that was not yet wed. The year before, Tuda-Ishtar was, indeed, to have been given for wife to a very fine young man, son of one in favour with the King. But in a war with Elam the man had been killed. And now Tuda-Ishtar would not be wed until the savour of his death was gone from the general mind. Tuda-Ishtar was beautiful, and who took her would give Ibni-Shamash a good price, and out of this Ibni-Shamash would give to Tuda-Ishtar herself garments, two slave women and a wheat field.
Ramtû and Iltani found at Ibni-Shamash’s door slaves waiting, staves in hand. They had in keeping an ass with an embroidered cloth upon its back, and strung along the bridle rein little silver bells. “For whom is all this?” asked Ramtû. “For Tuda-Ishtar, mistress,” answered the old man, the head slave.
Ramtû and Iltani, entering the house, met there an air of business and excitement. Gin-Enlil and Lamazi, wives of Ibni-Shamash, and a dozen handmaids were gathered in the next to the greatest room in the house about Tuda-Ishtar who stood in the middle of the floor. They were putting upon Tuda-Ishtar fine garments and ornaments of gold and silver and gems. Tuda-Ishtar was more beautiful than ever for there was a red stain upon her lips and cheeks and her eyes were quite like stars, and on her head was a curious, crown-like headdress.
When Ramtû saw this she smote her hands together and cried: “Why did you not send word that Tuda-Ishtar was going to-day to the temple of Mylitta? I would have brought her my chain that I wore the day I sat beneath the palm trees!—You, also, were there that day, Gin-Enlil!”
“Yes. Twenty years ago.... We did not have to return, Ramtû, day after day, like some we know!”
“By Ishtar, no!—And Tuda-Ishtar will not have to return, nor, indeed, have to wait at all! The first man that sees her—the bee and the honey-bloom!—You should have let us know!”
“She would go now and have it over with, and her debt to Mylitta paid.—After all, even though we are told it is a high duty, a woman wants the day behind her and out of mind!”
Iltani, going home with Ramtû, crossing the river in a boat, looked at the walls of the temple of Mylitta. There could be made out the court, surrounded by palm trees, where, for one time in her life, every woman of Babylon, saving only priestesses and votaries of a god, must sit until there came some man, no matter whom, who dropped a piece of silver in her lap. Then would the woman rise and go away with the man and pay her debt to Mylitta, keeping the silver piece ever after to show clearance.
The young Iltani saw behind her forehead Tuda-Ishtar sitting there under palm trees. They said that she would not have long to wait. That was because she was beautiful. Everybody admired that in Tuda-Ishtar, and served her because of it.
The young Iltani did not think of all that; she only saw a picture of her cousin sitting under the palm trees, and of a man coming near and then standing still before Tuda-Ishtar. Her fancy made the man young, and also beautiful.... Iltani looked at the palm tree and the blue sky behind them, and then she looked over the side of the boat at her own image in the still water. When she had regarded the image for some moments, she glanced aside at Ramtû. She longed that Ramtû should say to her, “Why you, too, Iltani, are beautiful!” But Ramtû talked to the boatman of the price of food....