Notes to Chapter 39. Private lyric poetry. Love and death: erotic songs and elegies

39.1 Introduction
      39.1.1 Pertinence to the wisdom tradition
      39.1.2 Coincidence of the expressive registers
      39.1.3 Psychological exploration
39.2 Erotic songs
      39.2.1 Relationship with the myth of Inanna and Dumuzi
      39.2.2 The social and literary context
      39.2.3 Urgency
      39.2.4 Attraction
39.3 An elegy
39.4 Voice and perception

ERRORS in databases:

• "Boson1918Assiriologia.d": duplicate bibliography "Boson1918Assiriologia" for site "Akk-lg".
• "Bottero1992Reasoning.d": duplicate bibliography "Bottero1992Reasoning" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Buccellati1972Teodicea.d": duplicate bibliography "Buccellati1972Teodicea" for site "Mes-lit".
• "Cauvin2000Birth.d": duplicate bibliography "Cauvin2000Birth" for site "Mes-rel".
• "DMB.d": duplicate bibliography "DMB" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Edzard2003Sumerian.d": duplicate bibliography "Edzard2003Sumerian" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Oshima2014Sufferers.d": duplicate bibliography "Oshima2014Sufferers" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Trinkaus1983Shanidar.d": duplicate bibliography "Trinkaus1983Shanidar" for site "Mes-rel".

39.2.1 Relationship with the myth of Inanna and Dumuzi

1. See Leick 1994 Sex. Erotic representations are found on common objects like the clay plaque to the right.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

39.2.2 The social and literary context

1. 1. For the YOS 11 24 text see SEAL 4.1.2.2
      Here is the Akkadian text in transcription: .

      i 20	Alkam, lunnedrā		kīma libbī iqbīam īnipuš
      i 21	šipram ša murtamī		kal mušim ēnişlal.
      i 22	Luhthalşā şūhiš ina mayyalim		kilallāni
      i 23	itablal elī inbi u dādi		balātam etper
      i 24	Ina şerīya		şurup lalaka.
      i 25	Tabikkum rāmī tapharam		leqī mala hašhāti,
      i 26	yātam u ša rāmīya		kušdīm

           Starting from a note in SEAL 4.1.2.2, I interpret rāmi in ša rāmīya, as a potential infinitive (Buccellati 1972 Infinitive): "the one capable of loving," followed by the pronominal suffix of the first person, "my thing capable of loving," hence the virile member.
   

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

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39.3 An elegy

1. The text in the original Assyrian:

   PARLA IL POETA	Ana meni ki eleppe ina qabal nare nakaki – šabburu huqiki, battuqu asliki? Kallulu paniki nar libbi ali tebbiri...
   LE GIOIE DEI GIORNI ANDATI	Ake la nadaku, la battuqu ašliya? Ina ume inb’aššuni, ake hadaku anaku, hadak anaku, hadi habiri!
   PRESENTIMENTI	Ina ume hiluya, etarpu paniya,r> ina ume uladiya ittakru-ma enaya.
   PREGHIERA	Patani upnaya, ana Belet-ili u?alla: “Umm’ alidate atti, etiri napulti!” Belet-ili ki tašmuni, tuktallila paniša: [umma:] “Ana meni atti tu''anallini?”
   IL MARITO	[Habiri ša ir’i]muni ittidi riganšu: [“Ana meni tahhizi]ni aššat laliya?” […] […] [Ina] ume annute issi habiriya anaku issišu ašbaku ša ra’imaniya.
   LA FINE	Mutu ina bit mayyaliya ilhlula hillutum issi bitiya usse?anni yaši ina pan habiriya iptarsanni yaši šepeya issakanna ina qaqqar la [tari]tiya.

   
   The text in Italian translation (come da “Quando in alto i cieli…”, p. 273:

   PARLA IL POETA	Com'è che vai alla deriva, barca in mezzo al fiume - il timone infranto, le cime in pezzi? Com'è che ti dirigi verso la Città Nascosta, velato il volto?
   LE GIOIE DEI GIORNI ANDATI	Che altro se non andarmene alla deriva, se non aver la cime ormai per sempre a pezzi? Eppure - quale felicità il giorno in cui seppi di portare un frutto, com'ero felice allora, felice mio marito!
   PRESENTIMENTI	Ma poi, il giorno le doglie vennero, mi si oscurò il volto, il giorno in cui dovevo farlo nascere, mi si annebbiaron gli occhi.
   PREGHIERA	A braccia aperte, pregai la Madre-degli-Dei: "Tu pure hai dato alla luce un bimbo, salvami la vita!" La Signora mi sentì parlare, ma si velò il volto: "Perchè continui così a pregarmi?"
   IL MARITO	[Mio marito, che mi amava,] gridò: "[Perchè mi togli] la moglie della mia gran gioia?" Tutti quei giorni in cui eravamo insieme, vissi con mio marito come un amante.
   LA FINE	Ma poi, venne la morte, strisciando nella mia camera, mi portò via, strappandomi a mio marito, mi diresse i piedi verso quella terra da cui nessuno può più mai tornare...

   
   The text in (my) Englih translation:

   THE POET SPEAKS	Why are you adrift, a boat amidst a river - your tiller shattered, your tow-line cut? Why are you crossing over to the Interior City, veils on your face?
   THE JOY OF YESTERYEAR	How could I not be adrift, how could my tow-line not be forever cut? The day I first did bear the fruit, how happy I was - happy was I, happy my husband.
   IMPENDING DANGER	But then, the day my labor came, my face was darkened, the day I was to give him birth, my eyes were clouded.
   THE PRAYER	With open hands, I prayed to the Lady-of-the-Gods: `You too have borne a child, save my life!' The Lady heard me, but veiled her face: `Why, why do you keep praying to me?'
   THE HUSBAND	[My husband, who loved me] uttered a cry: [`Why do you take from me] the wife of all my joy?'[...] All those many days I still was with my husband, I lived with him who was my lover.
   THE SADNESS	But then, death came, creeping into my bedroom: it drove me from my house, it tore me from my husband it set my feet towards the land from which I never could return.

   1. The text, first pubblished in 1894, has been reappraised by Erica Reiner, first in Reiner 1978 Literatur, p. 186 f., and then especially in Reiner 1985 Thwarts, pp. 85-93.

      the inner structure of the elegy is that of a dialogue, or better, a sequence of dialogues within a dialogue. No formal feature sets off the alternating parts [...] The outer dialogue consists of a question and an answer; the question takes up the first three lines and the answer the rest of the poem, twenty lines. [...] Within this outer frame of question-and-answer at least one further dialogue is embedded in the answer part of the poem, and possibly two. [p. 90]

      The changes of speakers are indicated in the embedded dialogue or dialogues only by such introductory phrases as "I prayed to" and "he uttered a cry" [...]; otherwise, only the alternations of first- and second-person verb forms, first- and second-person pronouns, and masculine and feminie formms clue us to the changes.

   2. See also [Verderame, *Letterature*](http://www.mondadorieducation.it/media/contenuti/universita/verderame_letterature_mesopotamia/assets/documents/testo_5.pdf) (accessed October 2016).

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]