The waterhole is a three day's hike through the wilderness, and the poet could easily have inserted dialogues here between the young priestess of Ishtar and the trapper. What was she feeling on the long and perhaps physically taxing walk? Was she afraid? What did she ask him about his life, about Enkidu? Was he dazzled by her sexual presence? Was he tempted? Did they make love, or was that forbidden? What did he ask her, and what did she answer, about the life of the city, about her experiences in the temple, about Gilgamesh the king? The poet compresses all the dramatic possibilities of these three days into two lines:

'For three days they walked. On the third day
they reached the waterhole. There they waited.'

The economy of his art is exquisite.