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The Home of the Fish: A New Sumerian Literary Composition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

M. Civil
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Extract

This curious composition, translated here for the first time, has a certain number of unusual features not found elsewhere in Mesopotamian literature. The poem is a monologue by a deity, in all probability Nanše (see commentary on line 153) who, as “mother of the fish,” has built a new house for them, and invites all of them to come and spend the night there, where they will find a comfortable place of rest and will be safe and secure from all the animals which usually prey on them. It is always difficult to place works of Mesopotamian literature in the categories devised by classical rhetoricians. The anthropomorphic descriptions place our composition close to the fable, but it cannot be considered as such, because the classical definition of a fable always includes some kind of action, and no action at all is involved in our text. In some other respects we may consider our poem as lyrical: it is based on the author's sentiments evoked by the multiple aspects of aquatic life, and on the emotional appeal of a “sweet home.” Other secondary themes interwoven with this are the “naming of the fish”—to be compared perhaps with Adam naming all living creatures in the Garden of Eden or, more probably, it is simply a display of erudition—and the attempt to explain how water birds prey on fish, in spite of the fact that both of them are under Nanše's protection.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 23 , Issue 1-2 , 1961 , pp. 154 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1961

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References

1 This composition was known in the é-d u b-b a as “My fish, a built house,” i.e. the incipit of the poem which is found in the literary Catalogues Philadelphia 16 and Louvre 48(!) (Kramer, S. N., BASOR 88 [1942] 10–19Google Scholar, where the former reading ḫ a-m u-é-ni must be corrected in k u a-m u é - dù).

2 Although a reading dn a z i (cf. already Kramer's suggestion in BASOR Supl. St. I, 3072) has been used by Landsberger, B. (MSL II 100Google Scholar) and accepted by Stephens, F. J. (BIN VIII Introd. p. 13)Google Scholar, we keep the reading n a n š e, since no published evidence supports the new reading (cf. the well-founded reservations of Sollberger, E. in BiOr 16 [1959] 114)Google Scholar.

3 Collation of STVC 93: line 1′, signs 5–6: ˹a-s i l6˺; line 8′, sign 2: š e š, not mu. Rev. line 4′ sign 7: - c.

4 The first line of the copy is the first line on the tablet, according to a collation by Mrs. H. Kizilyay.

5 Unless the sign turns out to be k ù.

6 Text: me me gi6, mistake for - me gie m e - (cf. line 4).

7 Text: i d4, corrected according to line 6 of the same text.

8 MSL. III 215–216Google Scholar; note that the difference between Proto-ea 813 (s u ḫ u r) and 814 (s u m a š) consists of 3 and 2 “Winkelhaken” respectively at the beginning of the sign. The omission of the “Winkelhaken” in MSL 111 at the end l. c. (814) must be accidental, since this wedge is found in all the other occurrences of the sign SUMAŠ (cf. also the late form in K 8276, 3 [CT 11, 28]).

9 The fish-lists are among the oldest lexical texts (cf. Falkenstein, Archaische Texte aus Uruk, 442). The first complete fish-list (abbreviated here F) can be reconstructed from Deimel, Die Inschriften von Fara II Nrs. 9–11 and UET II 234, this list is cited according to M. Civil's reconstruction. The “Forerunner” to Ḫḫ XVIII from Nippur is abbreviated as N and is quoted also from M. Civil's provisional MS. (the unplaced fragments and aberrant lists are quoted according to Museum numbers).

10 Not to be confused with ḪI+SUḪUR which appears in the F and N lists as a group different from ŠB + SUHUR.

11 Journal of the Bombay Natural Hist. Soc. 36, 308–309Google Scholar; 27, 176–177.

12 A reading e š t u h is also attested for g u dkua, perhaps another rendering of the same foreign word represented by Akk. arsuppu, according to Von Soden (A.Hw s.v.).

13 Other literary references for gišg i - m u š are: P 3. 179 and parallels (texts in Lambert, W. G., BWL, 274Google Scholar) and gišm á-m a ḫ - à m gišg i s a l m u-u n - s ì - g e [… gišg i - m] u š m u-u n-s i-g e, Letters Collec. A I 6′–7′.

14 g à m is the edge (of a knife or another cutting tool); we assume tentatively that it designates here the dorsal line of the fish, i.e. the point of insertion of the dorsal fin. Cf.; á VIII/1 (CT XII 10 ii 20–22Google Scholar): g a - a m GÁM = ši-ik-ru šá GÍR “edge of a knife”

=gam-lum “hooked or curved wooden piece with cutting edges”

15 We prefer to translate gišù - s u ḫ5 - a n - n a as “branches of a fir-tree” rather than a “tall fir-tree,” because of the Ḫḫ III 86.

16 See tor more références and discussion: Civil, M., “Une nouvelle prescription médicale sumérienne” RA 55 (1961), 91–94Google Scholar.

17 Cf.: k u a - a - a b - b a ù a g a r g a r UET III, 1294Google Scholar.

18 Cf. CAD s.v. gamgammu where ṣajāḫu is wrongly applied to the g à m-g à m bird; the equation of Ḫg D 236 is only valid for the g ì r - g ì - l u m.

19 SRI 23, 17: u r ú-zu k u d-d a-g i n x š u ḫ é - í b - [í] l can be explained either by (l ú) - k u d - d a (Akk. ḫummurum or the like) as Falkenstein does (WO I [1947] 48Google Scholar) or by k u d - d a = kušu, in which case we have a better parallelism with the following line: u r -NIM- g i nx g ì r - z u - š è ḫé - n à. In this last interpretation however it is difficult to understand the verb š u — í l (the last sign is not certain) applied to such an animal.