1-6 O Lord of knowledge, holding the tablet! Perfectly endowed with fifty great powers, most powerful in the E-kur, the house of prayer! Wild sheep nourished on good milk among holy alkaline plants, opening the mouth for seven ...... reeds!

7-13 Emerging in glory at the festival, ...... from the clay, calming ......, lavishing fine oil on the foreign lands, wise in counsel! Good woman, chief scribe, record-keeper, wise sage!

14-20 In order to make barley and flax grow in the furrows, so that excellent corn can be admired; to provide for the seven great throne-daises by making flax shoot forth and making barley shoot forth at the harvest, the great festival -- in her great princely role she has cleansed her body and has put the holy priestly garment on her torso.

21-26 In order to establish bread offerings where none existed, and to pour forth great libations of sweet drink, so as to seek the pleasure of God, the Merciful, she will appoint a great en priest, and will appoint a festival; she will appoint a great en priest of the Land.

27-35 He approaches the maiden in prayer. He has organised pure food-offerings; he has opened up her house of learning, and has placed the lapis-lazuli tablet on her knees, for her to study the holy tablet. In Aratta he has placed E-zagina at her disposal. You have built up Erec in abundance, founded from little ...... bricks, you who are granted the most complex wisdom!

36-50 In the abzu, the great crown of Eridug, where sanctuaries are apportioned, where elevated ...... are apportioned -- when the great sage of the awe-inspiring temple, the carpenter of Eridug, the master of purification rites, the lord of the great en priest's precinct, occupies E-engur, and when he builds up the abzu of Eridug; when he takes counsel in Hal-an-kug, when he splits with an axe the house of boxwood; when the sage's hair is allowed to hang loose, when he opens the house of learning, when he stands in the street of the door of learning; when he finishes the great dining-hall of cedar, when he grasps the date-palm mace, when he strikes the priestly garment with that mace, then he utters seven ...... to the scribe, the supreme nursemaid:

51-55 "O good woman, fair woman, woman born in the mountains! May you be the butter in the cattle-pen, may you be the cream in the sheepfold, may you be keeper of the seal in the treasury, may you be a good steward in the palace, may you be a heaper up of grain among the grain piles and in the grain stores!"

56-57 O Lord, who gave wisdom and care, it is sweet to praise You!

A version of the beginning, preserved on a stone tablet from Lagash perhaps dating from the Ur III Period:

1-9 Lady coloured as the stars, holding a lapis-lazuli tablet! Wise scribe, ...... nourished on good milk among holy alkaline plants, opening the mouth on seven ...... reeds! Perfectly endowed with fifty great powers, the most powerful in E-kur! ...... from the clay!