An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh EpicJastrow, Morris
General
An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic
Jastrow, Morris
Epic poetry, Assyro-Babylonian
Line 75. _ri-ia-ú_, which Langdon renders "shepherd," is the
equivalent of the Arabic _ri'y_ and Hebrew RE`IY "pasturage,"
"fodder." We have usually the feminine form _ri-i-tu_ (Muss-Arnolt,
_Assyrian Dictionary_, p. 990b). The break at the end of the second
column is not serious. Evidently Enkidu, still accustomed to live
like an animal, is first led to the sheepfolds, and this suggests
a repetition of the description of his former life. Of the four or
five lines missing, we may conjecturally restore four, on the basis
of the Assyrian version, Tablet I, 4, 2-5, or I, 2, 39-41. This would
then join on well to the beginning of column 3.
Line 81. Both here and in l. 52 our text has _na-ma-ás-te-e_, as
against _nam-mas-si-i_ in the Assyrian version, e.g., Tablet I,
2, 41; 4, 5, etc.,--the feminine form, therefore, as against the
masculine. Langdon's note 3 on page 213 is misleading. In astrological
texts we also find _nam-mas-te_; e.g., Thompson, _Reports of the
Magicians and Astrologers_, etc., No. 200, Obv. 2.
Line 93. _zi-ma-at_ (for _simat_) _ba-la-ti-im_ is not "conformity of
life" as Langdon renders, but that which "belongs to life" like _si-mat
pag-ri-sá_, "belonging to her body," in the Assyrian version III, 2a,
3 (Jensen, page 146). "Food," says the woman, "is the staff of life."
Line 94. Langdon's strange rendering "of the conditions and fate
of the land" rests upon an erroneous reading (see the corrections,
Appendix I), which is the more inexcusable because in line 97 the same
ideogram, Kàs = _sikaru_, "wine," occurs, and is correctly rendered
by him. _Simti mâti_ is not the "fate of the land," but the "fixed
custom of the land."
Line 98. _as-sa-mi-im_ (plural of _assamu_), which Langdon takes as
an adverb in the sense of "times," is a well-known word for a large
"goblet," which occurs in Incantation texts, e.g., _CT_ XVI, 24,
obv. 1, 19, _mê a-sa-am-mi-e sú-puk_, "pour out goblets of water." Line
18 of the passage shoves that _asammu_ is a Sumerian loan word.
Line 99. _it-tap-sar_, I, 2, from _pasâru_, "loosen." In combination
with _kabtatum_ (from _kabitatum_, yielding two forms: _kabtatum_, by
elision of _i_, and _kabittu_, by elision of _a_), "liver," _pasâru_
has the force of becoming cheerful. Cf. _ka-bit-ta-ki lip-pa-sir_
(_ZA_ V., p. 67, line 14).
Line 100, note the customary combination of "liver" (_kabtatum_)
and "heart" (_libbu_) for "disposition" and "mind," just as in the
standing phrase in penitential prayers: "May thy liver be appeased,
thy heart be quieted."
Line 102. The restoration [lùSÚ]-I = _gallabu_ "barber" (Delitzsch,
_Sumer. Glossar_, p. 267) was suggested to me by Dr. H. F. Lutz. The
ideographic writing "raising the hand" is interesting as recalling the
gesture of shaving or cutting. Cf. a reference to a barber in Lutz,
_Early Babylonian Letters from Larsa_, No. 109, 6.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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