An empire that demands tears has already lost

    An empire that demands tears has already lost in the eyes of eternity

                DUET — Enheduanna and Naram-Sin


  (The Night Before the Coronation — A Dialogue on the Sword and the Word)


(The Temple of the God Nanna. An ocean of silent darkness. The high vaults, the color of the southern night, vanish into the shadows. The air is filled with the scent of Lebanese cedar and the bitter smell of fresh clay. On the scribe's table burns a single lamp — a tiny lighthouse in this abyss. Enheduanna sits motionless. The footsteps of Naram-Sin — heavy, metallic, sacrilegious — break the silence.)


ENHEDUANNA.


You are late, Naram-Sin.
Set down your sword —
the bronze screams as it strikes the sacred stones,
and the water-clock has long since wept all its tears…
The gods do not like to wait.


NARAM-SIN.


(stops abruptly. The smell of dust from a raging, furious world clings to him. With a heavy sigh, he unfastens his sword-belt and sinks down at her feet, pressing his forehead against her knees.)
Tomorrow, for this people, I will be a god…
but today my blood still boils.
In my chest there beats no heart — there is a sun.
It rose too soon, and it consumes me utterly.
Tell me, Priestess…
when I am clothed in this gold,
will I remain myself?
Or will I become only a shadow,
vanishing into your water-clock?
My grandfather Sargon sent me to you
to learn the secrets of Sumer!
For seven years you placed your soul within me,
and today it burns me to the very quick!
Tell me — on the eve of his own coronation,
did my grandfather ever seek a hand to hold in the darkness,
before placing upon his head this crown
that smells of dust and dried blood?


ENHEDUANNA.


My father Sargon was not a rock —
but one day he turned his heart to stone.
He dreamed of giving you a sword.
I give you instead — the Word!
Do you remember Shamhat?
She did not tame the wild Enkidu with a blade,
but with a Word, seasoned with tenderness!
Only this Word will allow you to be just.
I carry this burden with pride —
this eternal dispute between the Sword and the Word.
This dispute, like a sacred battle,
will return to humanity again and again,
through a thousand years!
But you… you must remember this, today:
an empire that demands tears
has already lost in the eyes of eternity.
No goal is worth a human sacrifice!
Not a single tear of a tortured child!
Remember this — and then you will be condemned to become great.
For it is in this way
that we have forged together
the weapon of your future victories.


(BLACKOUT.)


T.D.