Bridegroom, dear to my heart,

Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,

Lion, dear to my heart,

Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.

You have captivated me,

Let me stand tremblingly before you.

Bridegroom,

I would be taken by you to the bedchamber,

You have captivated me,

Let me stand tremblingly before you.

Lion, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber.

Bridegroom, let me caress you,

My precious caress is more savory than honey,

In the bedchamber, honey-filled,

Let me enjoy your goodly beauty,

Lion, let me caress you,

My precious caress is more savory than honey.

Bridegroom, you have taken your pleasure of me,

Tell my mother, she will give you delicacies,

My father, he will give you gifts.

Your spirit, I know where to cheer your spirit,

Bridegroom, sleep in our house until dawn,

Your heart, I know where to gladden your heart,

Lion, sleep in our house until dawn.

You, because you love me,

Give me pray of your caresses,

My lord god, my lord protector,

My Shu-Sin, who gladdens Enlil’s heart,

Give my pray of your caresses.

Your place goodly as honey, pray lay your hand on it,

Bring your hand over like a gishban-garment,

Cup your hand over it like a gishban-sikin-garment. ..

Bridegroom, dear to my heart, Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet. . . . Bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber. Opens the oldest known example of romantic poetry.

The worlds oldest love poem was probably part of the Sacred Marriage ceremony ritual, played out during the spring equinox when the Sumerian king, Shu-Sin, married the goddess Inanna (Babylonian Ishtar), goddess of love and war. The festival culminated in the king wooing the priestess, playing the goddess, eventually accepting the king to her bed.

Found in Iraq over a century ago, the Cuneiform letters of this Babylonian love song were pressed into clay before being baked in the city of Ur around 2030 BCE.

There is no single text that describes the whole ritual, from the sacred marriage songs it has been reconstructed.

From this Babylonian poetry, you can sense how the sacred marriage ceremony from ancient Mesopotamia dramatically conceptualized the relationship between the king and gods and you can sense how Sumerians believed humans and their gods related.

The sacred marriage ceremony included a procession by the king to the giparu of Inanna´s temple. The bride washed, anointed and adorned. The procession included love songs and a great festival, a marriage banquet and the proud king is received to her bed as a desired partner.

The bed, symbolic of the lands fertility, was strewn with grasses and covered for Inanna, where in the arms of Inanna, the sexual union of the sacred marriage guaranteed the lands fertility.

(Note: The line divisions placed in this presentation of the worlds oldest love poem are not in the original. Ancient texts, including Babylonian poetry,  often removed even spaces between words as writng was an arduous, expensive process.)