The “Graces” in Semitic Folklore. A Wedding-song from Ras Shamra

Theodor Herzl Gaster

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00092479

The “Graces” in Semitic Folklore. A Wedding-song from Ras Shamra

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

Theodor Herzl Gaster

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1. The ancient Semitic poem here presented is inscribed in alphabetical cuneiform upon a clay tablet unearthed in 1933 at Ras esh-Shamrah (ancient Ugarit) on the north coast of Syria. The tablet dates approximately from the fifteenth-fourteenth century b.c. The text was first edited by M. Charles Virolleaud in the periodical Syria, xvii (1936), pp. 209–228, but the present interpretation differs toto cælo from that proposed in the editio princeps.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , January 1938 , pp. 37 - 56

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00092479 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1938

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^{page 38 note 1} Another interpretation was given by Dussaud, R. in his work Les Découvertes de Ras Shamra et l'Ancien Testament, pp. 81–5Google Scholar, but this is now rendered antiquated by Gordon's discovery.

^{page 39 note 1} In view of the spelling k-š-r = rather than k-ś-r = Heb.

^{page 41 note 1} For the presence of swallows as betokening domestic bliss, see especially Frazer, J. G., Classical Review, v (1891), p. 2Google Scholar. In a subsequent note (ibid., p. 230b), he quotes an interesting Japanese parallel, which illuminates the incident of Danel and the swallows' nest quoted above. “A household shrine,” so we are told, “to which the children pay voluntary and natural devotion are the birds' nests built within the house.” This shows that “the House of Chirping” in the Eas Shamra text denotes a real nest, and is not merely a fanciful name for a shrine dedicated to the swallow—K-š-r-t!

^{page 43 note 1} The formation ia like Hebrew from from and Syriac from ; v. Porges, , Verbalstammbildung in den Sem. Spr., p. 41 n.Google Scholar; Brockelmann, , ZS., 1928, pp. 117–18Google Scholar.