Aqhat

[Of] Aqhat.
The bow of Aqhat came down into the midst of the waters;
the arrows of the hero fell into the depths. Shattered was the bow of Aqhat the hero,
shattered was ‘Precious’, the bow of the son of Danel.
Virgin Anat came back,
the Beloved of the Powerful One returned. She picked up the quiver
in his hands, as a singer a lyre in his fingers.
Like a chisel was her mouth;
her teeth seized him and she devoured his entrails.
She cleft him like the heart of a terebinth,
and cut the cadaver in two. She divided his cadaver,
She dismembered Aqhat. He was put down like a mighty serpent,
like a huge viper in a sheepfold, like a dog deserving a stick. I struck him.
Now because of his bow I struck him;
on account of his arrows I certainly did not let him live,
yet his bow has not been given to me;
and because of his death the land is atrophied,
the first-fruits of summer shriveled, the ears of corn in their husks.
Then Danel the man of healing,
at once the hero, the devotee of Hrnm, arose
and sat by the entrance to the gate,
beneath the trees which were by the threshing-floor. He tried the case of the widow,⁠a
he judged the cause of the orphan.
[…]
[…]
On lifting up her eyes she saw
that the fleece on the threshing-floor was dry,
that the field was wilted,
that the fruit of the orchard was shriveled.
Over her father’s house some falcons hovered,
a flock of hawks was watching.
Pughat wept in her heart,⁠b
she cried in her liver.
She tore the garment of Danel the man of healing,
the cloak of the hero, the devotee of Hrnm.
Then Danel the man of healing cursed the clouds,⁠c
which rain on the dreadful heat, the clouds which rain on the summer-fruit,
the dew which settles on the grapes:
“For seven years Baal shall fail,
for eight, the Charioteer of the clouds!
No dew, no rain, no welling up of the deeps, no goodness of Baal’s voice!⁠d
no surging of the two deeps, no⁠e
For she has torn the garment of Danel the man of healing,
the cloak of the hero, the devotee of Hrnm!”
Aloud to his daughter [Danel cried out]: