Notes to Chapter 34. Face to face with the referent

Giorgio Buccellati – August 2023

34.1 The "you" as "other" space
34.2 Dimensions of the liric poetry
      34.2.1 Poetry and music
      34.2.2 Poetry and character
      34.2.3 Crystallization of the awareness of the referent as an intangible "you"
34.3 Voice: the public lyric poetry
      34.3.1 The public dimension of the lyric poetry
      34.3.2 Declamation
      34.3.3 The great themes
      34.3.4 Audience
      34.3.5 Onomastics as a "little-hymnology"
34.4 Voice: the private lyric poetry
34.5 Perception: the public lyric poetry
      34.5.1 Pathos and arts
      34.5.2 What it shares with introspection
      34.5.3 Event as meta-event
34.6 Perception: the private lyric poetry
34.7 Lyric moments
34.8 TITLE
34.9 TITLE
34.10 TITLE
34.14 TITLE
34.15 TITLE
34.16 TITLE
34.17 TITLE

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".

34.1 The "you" as "other" space

See George 2003 Gilgamesh, Vol. 1, pp. 33-39. See link, episode on Star Trek 1991 5/2 (Gilgamesh story begins at minute 5 of this segment).
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

34.2 Dimensions of the liric poetry

For the correlation poet/character see Contini G F 1957 Personaggio.

[To be later moved to section 34.2.2.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]
(Give image from our Uqnitum seal with singer and lyre). (Give reference to musical texts).

[To be later moved to section 34.2.4.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

34.3 Voice: the public lyric poetry

For the identification of Sīn-leqī-unninnī as an exorcist (mašmaššu) see George 2003 Gilgamesh, Vol. 1, pp. 28, n. 74. See also George 2003 Gilgamesh, Vol. 1, pp. 28-33, in particular, p. 32: “I believe his reputation as author (ša pī in the catalogue) rested on a greater achievement: that while producing a text in many places exactly faithful to one or other of his sources, he wrought at the same time major changes on the epic and cast the poem anew. Boldly put, I suggest that he was responsible for prefacing the paean to the hero’s glory that opened the OldB abylonian epic šūtur eli šarrī with the more reflective prologue ša naqba īmuru and for adding at the epic’s end the closing lines that reprise that prologue”; on p. 33: “If the original author of the written epic was a poet of genius unmatched in Babylonian history,the man who stamped his mark on the final version of the poem was a profound thinker of the same unique calibre. […] The contrast in mood between the Old Babylonian fragments and the Standard Babylonian epic matches the change in outlook of Babylonian intellectuals during the second millennium”.

[To be later moved to section 34.3.4.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]
See George 2003 Gilgamesh, Vol. 1, pp. 47-54, in particular, p. 52: “The dialogue that concludes Tablet XII focuses on the rites of commemorative mourning that occurred at prescribed intervals after interment. It is particularly concerned with those who, for one reason or another, have left no descendants”; on p. 54: “Was there in the first millennium, as there was in Hammurapi’s time, a festival at which … offerings were made to the ghosts of dead soldiers and others whose bodies were never recovered for proper burial? Could it have been that Tablet XII – or maybe the entire series of twelve tablets – was put to ritual use, sung or recited, for example, at funerals and in memorial cults? Was it perhaps performed at the funerals of kings? […]. If the epic came eventually to have a function insuch a context, Tablet XII would still be an appendage, but not an idle one; as a postscript to the great poem it would form an eloquent reminder of the duties owed by mento their ancestral spirits”.

[To be later moved to section 34.3.5.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

34.7 Lyric moments

Strophe 99 – On the topos of the royal figures and priests in the Netherworld see the comments in George 2003 Gilgamesh, Vol. 1, p.. 482-483.

[To be later moved to section 34.7.4.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

34.8 TITLE

Strophe 112
1. On the geography of the journey see the extended comments in George 2003 Gilgamesh, Vol. 1, pp. 494-498. My understanding of this geography differs. Keeping the text in i 39 as given (i.e., referring to the rising, and not the setting of the sun), I assume that the geography beyond the Twin Gates (the mountain Māšu) is not analogous to that of this side of it. There is a wide stretch where it is always dark, and then another where there is always light. The trees found at the end of darkness are not those of earthly geography; Siduri and Ur-shanabi are both figures that belong already to the world of Ut-napishti, i. e., they are not mortal. We enter thus in a world of "radiant immortality," one where there is no rising or setting of the sun.
2. The repeated backward glance of Gilgamesh may be interpreted not as indicative of a race against the sun (George 2003 Gilgamesh, Vol. 1, p. 495), but rather as the surprise at having left his own earthly world.
[To be later moved to section 34.8.2.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]
Strophe 133
1. The mention of Atra-hasīs is generally considered as a mistake by the author who would have here taken over mechanically a detail of the older story of Atram-hasīs. Such a mistake seems rather strange in view of the rigorous formal and structural coherence of the whole poem. Hence I believe that the phrase "gate of Atra-hasīs" refers to a specific place in the city of Shuruppak, still known to Gilgamesh, and to the ancient listeners. (For the toponomastic pattern, see, e. g., a "gate of Gilgamesh," CADB p. 21b. For the notion of a "gate" as a "city quarter" see CADB p. 22 f.). Such a "real time" dimension is envisaged at the beginning of the Stanza (xi 11-12), where Ut-napishti specifically reminds Gilgamesh of the fact that he knows Shuruppak well.
  In xi 197, Ea refers to Ut-napishti as Atra-hasīs, and this, too, need not be seen as a mistake. It serves as a transition to the fact that Enlil has accepted his survival, and the new name serves as a ceremonial validation of the fact.
2. For the correlation between the construction of the ark and the structure of a ziggurat, see Glassner 2002 Etemenanki; George 2003 Gilgamesh, Vol. 1, p. 513.
[To be later moved to section 34.8.2.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

34.10 TITLE

On homosexuality see Kilmer.

[To be later moved to section 34.10.2.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]
For the concept of “emotion” in literary studies, see 3.10 [to be later changed as section 3.10.2.]).

[To be later moved to section 34.10.3.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

34.14 TITLE

Among the innumerable statements concerning the primacy of the journey over the goal, see for example:

Caminante, son tus huellas
   el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
    se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
    y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
    se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
    sino estelas en la mar. Wanderer, your footsteps are
   the road and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
   the road is made by walking.
Walking makes the road,
   and turning to look behind
you see the path that you
   will never tread again.
Wanderer, there is no road,
   only foam trails on the sea.

          Antonio Machado, Cantares XXIX, the first stanza

– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

34.15 TITLE

On order see Voegelin.

[To be later moved to section 34.15.3.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

34.17 TITLE

See Lenzi 2015 Language (about rewriting). See Weissert1997, about Sennacherib. See Beaulieu2000Descendants.

[To be later moved to section 34.17.1.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]
[To be later moved to section 34.17.2.]
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]