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Problems in the “Matter of Aratta”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2014
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To date we know four major Sumerian narrative poems dealing with the rivalry between Uruk and Aratta. They are written in standard literary Sumerian, and were composed very probably near the beginning of the second millennium. Together they may be said to constitute the “Matter of Aratta”. The use of this term, however, already indicates a first problem area. Is the mention of Aratta, and the theme of its defeat by Uruk in a struggle for supremacy, a sufficient reason to regard the poems as a group, or are there other and more formal features allowing us to define them as belonging to a specific type of narrative poetry?
A survey of the contents shows that there are indeed more points of concurrence than the mere struggle between cities. In every poem, a challenge is laid down by one of the rulers. This challenge, which may be military or diplomatic, is taken up by the other party so that, whatever the outcome, the ambitions of the challenger are held up for a while in the middle part of the poem. A major role is played by a messenger type who is instrumental in gradually bringing about the solution. These mediations may be merely repetitive, but can also be incremental, or a combination of both. Furthermore, parts of his mediating function may be taken over by others: champions may be used to effectuate the messages. Finally, in every tale the struggle ends with Uruk's victory, gained by non-military means, and exemplified by Inanna's behaviour: she ultimately grants victory to Uruk. These basic characteristics may be seen as a framework to all poems, and schematically represented as:
Initial situation: virtually equal protagonists; challenge and response: deadlock.
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- Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1983
References
1 The text presented here is substantially the same as read at the XXIXt h R.A.I, in London, July 1982. The poems are: Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, edited by Cohen, S., University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, 1973 (henceforth ELA)Google Scholar; Enmerkar and Ensuhkešdanna, edited by Berlin, A., Philadelphia, 1979 (henceforth EnEn)Google Scholar; “Lugalbanda and Anzu”, edited by Wilcke, C.as Das Lugalbandaepos, Wiesbaden, 1969Google Scholar (henceforth LA), and “Lugalbanda in the Hurrumkurra”, as yet unedited. For a summary, see Alster, B. in the Kramer Anniversary Volume, Neukirchen, 1976, 15–16 (henceforth LH)Google Scholar.
2 The term “Matter of Aratta” is obviously inspired by Jehan Bodel's introduction to his Chanson des Saisnes, vv. 6 and 7 of which run:
N'en sont que trois materes à nul home entendant:
De France et de Bretagne et de Romme la grant;
It might be of some interest that there has been a recent suggestion that this division into subject matter is accompanied by a division along more formal and stylistic lines (Kelly, D., “Topical Invention in Medieval French Literature”, in Murphy, J. J. (ed.), Medieval Eloquence, Berkeley, 1978, 231–51Google Scholar). Since the same Bodel in vv. 13–15 claims that the main objective of the Matter of France would be to show how
La coronne de France doit estre si avant,
Que tout autre roi doivent estre à li apendant
De la loi chrestienne qui en dieu sont creant.
we also know why and how we would have to place the Matter of Aratta apart from the Matter of Gilgameš, which perhaps might be called “vain et plaisant”.
3 See ELA ll. 33–50 and, effectively, ll. 115–33; EnEn ll. 25–38.
4 See ELA ll. 69–75, and passim between 106 and 576; EnEn ll. 40–134; LA ll. 168–202, 268–321 and 357–87.
5 See ELA ll. 569 and 577 ff.; EnEn ll. 228–62.
6 See ELA ll. 626 ff. (?); EnEn ll. 275–6; LA ll. 388–412.
7 All except LA which I take, with C. Wilcke (op. cit., 7) as the second half of a long story (or cycle ?) about Lugalbanda. For hymnal passages within the poems, see ELA ll. 219–24 and 242–7 (both about Aratta); LA ll. 297–305 (Uruk) and 413–16 (Aratta).
8 ELA ll. 278–84, 398–408 and 457–60; EnEn ll. 228–47; perhaps also LA ll. 389–408 might qualify, if understood better.
9 EnEn ll. 114–16, 170–2. On the other hand, the first trip is described at length: ll. 40–51. In ELA the journeys are described over a number of lines, but put rather in stereotypes: ll. 160–1/170–2 (1); ll.296–300 (2); ll.348–52 (3); ll.413–17 (4); ll.435–8 (5); ll.463–6 (6); ll.507–10 (7). A close comparative study of these passages would be rewarding.
10 For want of a better terminology I would propose to introduce these terms mainly because they are non-committal.
11 EnEn ll. 81–6.
12 ELA ll. 20–4(?); 367–72; also 236–8 and 537–41.
13 EnEn ll. 228–47.
14 See very generally chapters vi, vii and viii of Bowra's, C. M. monumental Heroic Poetry, London, 1966, 215–329Google Scholar.
15 Only mentioned explicitly in the second instance: ELA l. 240.
16 EnEn ll. 228–62.
17 In LA ll. 1–202 lead up to Lugalbanda becoming a messenger; ll. 268–387 are about the message—all this out of 417 lines.
18 For the Impossible Tasks, see Thompson, S., Motif Index of Folk Literature, Copenhagen, 1956Google Scholar, sub H 1010 (Impossible tasks) and H 1050 (Paradoxical tasks). The connection with riddles is a double one. The tasks in ELA are described in such a way that they share some important formal characteristics with riddles: paradoxical or contradictory description, metonymy, parallel phonic structure, etc. …; see now Dundes, A. and Georges, R. A., Towards a Structural Definition of the Riddle, in Journal of American Folklore 76 (1963), 111–18Google Scholar, and Todorov, T., La devinette, in Les genres du discours, Paris, 1978, 223–45Google Scholar. But in many folktales riddles and tasks are also used indiscriminately and interchangeably, as is seen most easily in the cluster of motifs (or the tale) known as the Märchen von klugen Rätsellösern, for which J. de Vries' comparative study (Folklore Fellows Communication no. 73, Helsinki, 1928) is still basic.
19 Of course transformation is always related to magic (see Thompson's Motif index sub DO-D699). Although our poem puts the transformation motif in the form of a combat, it still retains the features of the transformation flight, the form it usually takes (Motif D671) The most usual story frame for this motif is indeed the magic flight: see Aarne, A., Die magische Flucht, FFC no. 92, Helsinki, 1930Google Scholar.
20 Animals often occur as superhuman helpers (Motifs B 331, B 431). Ogres are more difficult. On the whole they are inimical to man. In most tales where ogre and man enter into close contact (contract, partnership or contest), the figure is that of the stupid ogre against the clever trickster (see Aarne, A. and Thompson, S., The Types of Folktale, Helsinki, v, 1973 3, nrs. 1000–1143CGoogle Scholar). Perhaps Anzu should not be regarded as an ogre after all. But anyway, he bestows the gift of Magic Speed (Motif D2122 but also D1521.1: Seven-league boots); also his reason for doing so (grateful animal and “general” promise) may be regarded as an independent motif.
21 This complex is itself obviously a kind of test; very often it consists formally of a series of difficulties to be surmounted by the hero, and leading to a Reversal of Fortune (Motifs L10 and L100).
22 See Limet, H., Les chants épiques sumériens, in Revue beige de philologie et d'histoire 50 (1972), 3–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 See ELA ll. 326–7 and 362.
24 ELA ll. 424–32, and S. Cohen's remarks on the passage on pp. 272–5 of his edition (see footnote 1).
25 See Komoróczy, G., Zur Ätiologie der Schrifterfindung im Enmerkar-Epos, in Altorientalische Forschungen 3 (1975), 19–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and compare the papers by Green, M. W. and Powell, M. A., in Powell, M. A. (ed.), Aspects of Cuneiform Writing, Visible Language XV/4 (1981)Google Scholar.
26 This is not to say that on a deeper or more original level the cultural relevance of folklore motifs cannot exist. The matter deserves deep and structural study, involving an exploration of the relations between folk tale, myth and saga. For an (older) presentation of the problems involved see most conveniently de Vries, J., Betrachtungen zum Märchen, Helsinki, 1968 2Google Scholar. Anyway one must be careful with cultural readaptations or reinterpretations of traditional material in simple forms. As Kirk has pointed out, many aetiologies proposed in (versions of) myths are trivial (see Kirk, G. S., The Nature of Greek Myths, Harmondsworth, 1974, 53–9)Google Scholar, and this undoubtedly holds for other simple genres as well.
27 That is, in every case the first animal is appropriate prey for the second one.
28 See Brémond, C., Logique du récit, Paris, 1973Google Scholar, where much information about the Proppian analysis, its critics and its epigons can be found, as well as a monumental elaboration of the system itself.
29 See footnote 20.
30 For the latest edition of this poem, see Römer, W., Bilgameš und Akka, Neukirchen, 1979Google Scholar, with the important review by J. Cooper (to appear in JCS) and my forthcoming “Reading of Gilgamesh and Agga”. This formal adscription of Gilgameš and Agga to the Aratta genre need not be a contradiction: in the same manner the Middle Dutch masterpiece Karel ende Elegast belongs to the “matter of France” as to its protagonist (Charlemagne) and its basic subject (a plot against his overlordship). But as a story, it certainly belongs to the “matter of Brittany” (Reversal of fortune for a good knight in disguise, magic, treatment of women …).
31 See Jolles, A., Einfache Formal, Halle a.d.Saale, 1929, 171 ffGoogle Scholar. Many misconceptions have arisen from a “broad” (or faulty) interpretation of the term used by Propp for the stories he analysed (“skázka”). He did not intend to give a general framework for all types of stories.
32 See EnEn ll. 280–1, but also ELA ll. 254–61.
33 See the excellent analysis by J. Cooper in his review of Römer's edition. Similar studies for our poems will be undertaken by the author as part of a major analysis of the “matter of Aratta”, to be finished in about 1985.
34 That is, her personal inclination is clear enough: she initiates in a way Enmerkar's challenge. But—and this is typical for Inanna, she makes the ultimate result dependent upon Enmerkar's success in the struggle. See my forthcoming study “Inanna/Ishtar: a Figure of Controversy” for a broader view.
35 It is hard not to see the overall ideological message as a statement of the Blackhead's Burden. Would this point to a date of origin early in the Ur III period?
36 Another formal link with Gilgameš and Agga: there the debate in Uruk consists solely of proverbs.
37 Notwithstanding the spelling (with ZABAR), I think that the reference is to NUN = agargara, meaning here perhaps “spawn”. See MSL VIII/2, 104, and Salonen, A., Die Fischerei im alten Mesopotamien, Helsinki, 1970, 151–6Google Scholar.
38 Viz. early in the second millennium.
39 Among the not too numerous major systematic explorations of literary artefacts along these or related lines, two might be singled out: Draak, M., Onder zoekingen over den Roman van Walewein, Groningen, 1968 2Google Scholar, and Ladurie, E. Le Roy, L'argent, l'amour et la mart en pays d'oc, Paris, 1980Google Scholar. Particularly the latter is highly important, and can only be ignored at one's peril. It consists of a study in depth of how a common and widely distributed fairy tale (Godfather Death = AaTh 332) has been consciously transformed (since the transformation happens on several levels at the same time, and involves doubling, repeating and reversing narrative patterns and blocks, some would say that it has been transformed beyond recognition) by a seventeenth-century Occitan writer into a Rabelaisian novella. A very interesting feature is the infusion into the story of a specific socio-cultural meaning, totally absent from the original frame. This meaning-element (the carré d'amour occitan), which takes up the first part of the study, might even be the motivation for the transformation, and hence the resulting story. Whether something like this could also be the case in our Aratta poems remains to be seen, but the (re)interpretation of the Tasks and the Magic Contest offered here certainly point in this direction.