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ON GILGAMESH AND HOMER: ISHTAR, APHRODITE AND THE MEANING OF A PARALLEL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2021

Bernardo Ballesteros
Bernardo Ballesteros*
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This article reconsiders the similarities between Aphrodite's ascent to Olympus and Ishtar's ascent to heaven in Iliad Book 5 and the Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh Tablet VI respectively. The widely accepted hypothesis of an Iliadic reception of the Mesopotamian poem is questioned, and the consonance explained as part of a vast stream of tradition encompassing ancient Near Eastern and early Greek narrative poetry. Compositional and conceptual patterns common to the two scenes are first analyzed in a broader early Greek context, and then across further Sumerian, Akkadian, Ugaritic and Hurro-Hittite sources. The shared compositional techniques at work in Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean can be seen as a function of the largely performative nature of narrative poetry. This contributes to explaining literary transmission within the Near East and onto Greece.

Keywords

HomerGilgameshNear EastoralityintertextualityAphroditeIshtarDione
Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , May 2021 , pp. 1 - 21
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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Footnotes

A Henri Frankfort Fellowship at the Warburg Institute in Winter Term 2019 enabled me to work on this article, which I completed as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. I am grateful to H. Albery, A. Cavigneaux, E. Cingano, M. Hose, I.J.F. de Jong, E. Jiménez, A. Johnston, A. Kelly, C. Metcalf, F. Reynolds, E. Roßberger and H. Spelman for written comments, and to audiences at the 2016 Venice Advanced Seminar in the Humanities and at the 64th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Innsbruck, as well as those in Oxford, Munich and London. Any remaining errors are my own.

References

1 Gresseth, G.K., ‘The Gilgamesh epic and Homer’, CJ 70 (1975), 1–18, at 1Google Scholar. For earlier comparisons, see Burkert, W., ‘Homerstudien und Orient’, in Latacz, J. (ed.), Zweihundert Jahre Homer-Forschung (Stuttgart, 1991), 155–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar = id., Kleine Schriften I. Homerica (Göttingen, 2001), 30–58.

The following works are cited below by author's surname and year alone: Bachvarova, M., From Hittite to Homer. The Anatolian Background of Ancient Greek Epic (Cambridge, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burkert, W., The Orientalizing Revolution. Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Cambridge, MA, 1992)Google Scholar; Currie, B., Homer's Allusive Art (Oxford, 2016)Google Scholar; West, M.L., The East Face of Helicon. West-Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth (Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar.

2 The landmarks are Burkert (1992); Burkert, W., Kleine Schriften II: Orientalia (Göttingen, 2002)Google Scholar; and West (1997). The current state of research will be largely exemplified in Kelly, A. and Metcalf, C. (edd.), Gods and Mortals in Early Greek and Near Eastern Mythology (Cambridge, 2021)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see López-Ruiz, C., ‘Greek and Near Eastern mythologies: a story of Mediterranean encounters’, in Edmunds, L. (ed.), Approaches to Greek Myth (Baltimore, 2014), 154–99Google Scholar and the following footnote.

3 Burkert (1992), 88–114 (especially 95) envisaged the poet of the Iliad drawing on written versions of the Akkadian Gilgamesh; West (1997), 334–47, 400–2 and passim 347–437 saw a pervasive influence of Gilgamesh on Homer, though this is an exception to his model of diffusion, which does not generally envisage a direct link with specific Near Eastern sources. Recently in favour of conscious reception (through lost intermediaries) and artful redeployment: Rollinger, R., ‘Old battles, new horizons: the ancient Near East and the Homeric epics’, in Rollinger, R. and van Dongen, E. (edd.), Mesopotamia in the Ancient World (Münster, 2015), 5–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Currie (2016), 147–222 (oral or written transmission); Lardinois, A., ‘Eastern myths for Western lies: allusion to Near Eastern mythology in Homer's Iliad’, Mnemosyne 71 (2018), 895–919CrossRefGoogle Scholar (oral intermediaries); Clarke, M., Achilles beside Gilgamesh. Mortality and Wisdom in Early Epic Poetry (Cambridge, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (oral or written, with a fine-grained distinction of levels of intertextuality at 24–34). Bachvarova (2016) argues that Syro-Anatolian traditions had a major impact on Homeric epic via bilingual bards, not least in conveying Mesopotamian literature; this model allows for the recognizable reception of surviving Babylonian narratives, including Gilgamesh. In favour of a contextualizing approach which de-emphasizes direct reception is Kelly, A., ‘The Babylonian captivity of Homer: the case of the Διὸς Ἀπάτη’, RhM 151 (2008), 259–304Google Scholar; id., ‘Homeric battle narrative and the ancient Near East’, in D. Cairns and R. Scodel (edd.), Defining Greek Narrative (Edinburgh, 2014), 29–54. Metcalf, C., The Gods Rich in Praise. Early Greek and Mesopotamian Religious Poetry (Oxford, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar promotes a diachronic perspective and strict historical criteria for identifying influence, with mostly negative results. Also sceptical of Homer's use of Gilgamesh is Rutherford, R., Homer Iliad Book XVIII (Cambridge, 2019), 231–6Google Scholar. The Akkadian epic's editor and commentator does not envisage a historical connection with the Homeric poems: see George, A.R., The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic. Introduction, Critical Edition, and Cuneiform Texts, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2003), 1.54–7Google Scholar. Fruitful comparisons need not concentrate on literary transmission; cf. Haubold, J., Greece and Mesopotamia. Dialogues in Literature (Cambridge, 2013), 1–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 On this debate, see Finkelberg, M., ‘Homer and his peers. Neoanalysis, Oral Theory, and the status of Homer’, TiC 3 (2011), 197–208Google Scholar = ead., Homer and Early Greek Epic. Collected Essays (Berlin, 2020), 158–68; Montanari, F., Rengakos, A. and Tsagalis, C. (edd.), Homeric Contexts. Neoanalysis and the Interpretation of Oral Poetry (Berlin, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Currie (2016), 1–38; Ballesteros, B., ‘Poseidon and Zeus in Iliad 7 and Odyssey 13: on a case of Homeric imitation’, Hermes 148 (2020), 259–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 A good guide is C.S. Ehrlich (ed.), From an Antique Land. An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature (Lanham, 2009). We have lost the Iron Age Levantine and Anatolian narratives which the Greeks are likely to have encountered in the crucial formative period of Hellenic epic, before and after borrowing the alphabet. On the Phoenician (and generally West-Semitic) tradition as the closest to the Greek, see López-Ruiz, C., When the Gods Were Born. Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East (Cambridge, MA, 2010)Google Scholar, envisaging oral diffusion within a cultural koinē.

6 Burkert, W., ‘Götterspiele und Götterburleske in altorientalischen und griechischen Mythen’, Eranos Jahrbuch 51 (1982), 335–67Google Scholar, at 356–8 ≈ id., Die orientalisierende Epoche in der griechischen Religion und Literatur (Heidelberg, 1984), 92–5 ≈ id. (1992), 96–9 ≈ id., Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis. Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture (Cambridge, MA, 2004), 40–4, building on Gresseth (n. 1), 14–15 n. 24. See also Penglase, C., Greek Myths and Mesopotamia (London, 1994), 3Google Scholar; Andersen, Ø., ‘Diomedes, Aphrodite, and Dione: background and function of a scene in Homer's Iliad’, C&M 48 (1997), 25–36Google Scholar; West (1997), 362; B. Breitenberger, Aphrodite and Eros (London, 2007), 16–20; A.C. Cassio, ‘Kypris, Kythereia, and the fifth book of the Iliad’, in F. Montanari, A. Rengakos and C. Tsagalis (edd.), Homeric Contexts. Neoanalysis and the Interpretation of Oral Poetry (Berlin, 2012), 413–26, at 420–1; Currie, B., ‘The Iliad, Gilgamesh, and Neoanalysis’, in Montanari, F., Rengakos, A. and Tsagalis, C. (edd.), Homeric Contexts. Neoanalysis and the Interpretation of Oral Poetry (Berlin, 2012), 543–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 563; id. (2016), 173–8 and 193–8 (the most detailed discussion after Burkert); Allen-Hornblower, E., ‘Gods in pain: walking the line between divine and mortal in Iliad 5’, Lexis 32 (2014), 27–58Google Scholar, at 35 n. 45; Bachvarova (2016), 325–7; and Clarke (n. 3), 193–5, 330–1.

7 See n. 3 above; cf. R. Mondi, ‘Greek mythic thought in the light of the Near East’, in L. Edmunds (ed.), Approaches to Greek Myth (London, 1990), 142–98, at 150; West (1997), 590–610; W.F.M. Henkelman, ‘“The Birth of Gilgameš” (Ael. NA XII.21): a case-study in literary receptivity’, in R. Rollinger and B. Truschnegg (edd.), Altertum und Mittelmeerraum. Die antike Welt diesseits und jenseits der Levante (Stuttgart, 2006), 807–56; Rutherford, I., ‘Hesiod and the literary traditions of the Near East’, in Montanari, F., Rengakos, A. and Tsagalis, C. (edd.), Brill's Companion to Hesiod (Leiden, 2009), 9–35, at 33Google Scholar; López-Ruiz (n. 2) and (n. 5).

8 This move reflects methodological concerns expressed in Kelly (n. 3 [2008]) and (n. 3 [2014]).

9 Burkert (1992), 97.

10 See n. 36 below.

11 Burkert (1992), 98.

12 Cassio (n. 6), 420.

13 George (n. 3), 317–25 (VAT 12890).

14 Andersen (n. 6), 35.

15 Andersen (n. 6), 36: ‘tremendous difference in ethos’; cf. Allen-Hornblower (n. 6), 42–5.

16 Andersen (n. 6), 35–6; Currie (2016), 174–8.

17 Athetized by West after Koechly without manuscript justification. Sekita, K., ‘Hades and Heracles at Pylos: Dione's tale dismantled’, CQ 68 (2018), 1–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar defends the text at 2–3 n. 7.

18 Fenik, B., Typical Battle Scenes in the Iliad (Wiesbaden, 1968), 40–5Google Scholar.

19 Fenik (n. 18), 175. Compare the criticism of Burkert's view by Mondi (n. 7), 190 n. 7, who considers the ascents of Aphrodite, Ares and Artemis a ‘scene type’.

20 Currie (2016), 196–7, adding Erbse, H., ‘Betrachtungen über das 5. Buch der Ilias’, RhM 104 (1961), 156–89Google Scholar, at 160 and 184–5.

21 Fenik (n. 18), 43; Currie (2016), 197: ‘there are strong grounds for regarding this as a specific intratextual allusion, not (just) a type-scene.’

22 Burkert (1992), 97–9; on this type of ‘argument by isolation’, see Kelly (n. 3 [2008]).

23 Bachvarova (2016), 326; Currie (2016), 197.

24 Currie (2016), 197–8.

25 On these scenes and Homer's divine narrative, see §3 below.

26 Andersen (n. 6), 32; cf. Currie (2016), 197 n. 269.

27 ‘Two as typical’: Fenik (n. 18), 5; Ready, J.L., The Homeric Simile in Comparative Perspectives (Oxford, 2018), 208Google Scholar.

28 Currie (2016), 200 appears to share this methodological point.

29 Dike's usual dwelling is never specified by Hesiod, but ‘elsewhere [in Greek poetry] Dike's seat beside Zeus is treated as something permanent’: West, M.L., Hesiod: Works and Days (Oxford, 1978), 221Google Scholar, on Op. 259, and Hesiod does highlight her being πὰρ Διὶ πατρὶ καθεζομένη (Hes. Op. 261).

30 S.T. Reece, ‘Type-scene’, in M. Finkelberg (ed.), The Homer Encyclopedia, 3 vols. (Oxford, 2011), 3.905–7, at 905. Note however that since W. Arend, Die Typischen Scenen bei Homer (Berlin, 1933) Homerists have broadened the spectrum to account for both typicality and considerable structural and verbal variation: see Edwards, M., ‘Homer and oral tradition: the type-scene’, Oral Tradition 7 (1992), 284–330Google Scholar, at 290–8; J.M. Foley, Traditional Oral Epic (Berkeley, 1990), 140–5; M. Clark, ‘Formulas, metre and type-scenes’, in R. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Homer (Cambridge, 2004), 117–38, at 134–7; Friedrich, R., Post-Oral Homer (Stuttgart, 2019), 135–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Varying views on the amount of innovation and terminological inconsistencies notwithstanding (‘type-scene’, ‘scene type’, ‘sequence of motifs’, ‘theme’, ‘scene shape’), such recurrent structural features are considered traditional and inherited.

31 Such as the one proposed for similes by Ready (n. 27), 201–38.

32 One could also include Od. 24.472–88 (and Il. 20.13–31), where Athena and Poseidon suspiciously enquire into Zeus's plan without explicitly voicing a preference; cf. also Od. 8.303–21.

33 Hera at Il. 1.539–43, 4.24–9, 8.461–5, 16.439–43, Athena at Il. 8.30–7, 22.177–81; cf. Il. 24.31–76 (though Apollo addresses the gods generally).

34 Proclus reports that in the Aethiopis Eos was able to confer immortality upon Memnon ‘after begging Zeus’ (παρὰ Διὸς αἰτησαμένη, Aeth. arg. 190 Severyns; cf. Hymn. Hom. Ven. 220 and Hom. Od. 20.74), and it is possible that in the Nostoi, or towards the end of the Iliou persis, Athena, enraged at the Lesser Ajax, complained to Zeus before arranging for the storm that caused the hero's death; cf. Iliou persis, arg. 266–7 Severyns and Apollod. Epit. 6.5. See also Cypr. fr. 1 Bernabé (Ge complains to Zeus).

35 Gresseth (n. 1), 15 n. 24. Cf. n. 83 below.

36 The same holds true for Gilgamesh's catalogue of Ishtar's lovers (SB Gilg. VI 44–79) and for Dione's catalogue of gods in pain, which Currie (2016), 178–89 sees as interacting, alongside Zeus's at Il. 14.315–28, Calypso's at Od. 5.121–9 and the catalogue in Hymn. Hom. Ven. 202–40; differently Kelly (n. 3 [2008]), 289–90. Note that Dione's catalogue is the least close of the four to the Babylonian catalogue, with which it shares neither function nor subject. Contrary to the interrelated Iliadic divine ascent scenes, moreover, there is no obvious intratextual nexus between Dione's and Zeus's catalogues. On Dione's paradeigma, see Sammons, B., The Art and Rhetoric of the Homeric Catalogue (Oxford, 2010), 24–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sekita (n. 17). On Gilgamesh's and Calypso's catalogues, see C. Metcalf, ‘Calypso and the Underworld: the limits of comparison’, in W. Heizmann and M. Egeler (edd.), Between the Worlds. Contexts, Sources, and Analogues of Scandinavian Otherworld Journeys (Berlin, 2020), 421–35, at 427–30, pointing to a Sumerian catalogue of Innana's enemies. W.G.E. Watson (N.A.B.U. 2019/72) discusses Ugaritic parallels to Ishtar's ‘catalogue’ at SB Gilg. VI 7–21. See §§4–5 below on widespread typical motifs across traditions.

37 Currie (2016), 175 notes Athena's caustic reference to her sister's habit of driving Greek women into the arms of Trojan men (Il. 5.421–5), a transparent allusion to the abduction of Helen and the Parisurteil, and to Aphrodite's abduction of Paris from Menelaus’ hands at Il. 3.382–447. The erotic overtones in these episodes would signal that in our heavenly scene ‘the Iliad still appears to know and to exploit the [Gilgamesh] scene's associations with seduction sequences’, namely Gilgamesh's reuse of Dumuzi-Innana songs (Currie [2016], 169–73). The hypothesis of a Homeric connection between Diomedes and Gilgamesh rests uniquely on the former playing Achilles’ part (Achilles being seen as the primary Iliadic Gilgamesh-figure); cf. Currie (2016), 197. But the exploration of human/heroic limits in respect to divinity is not exclusive to Gilgamesh, Achilles and Diomedes. If the Tydides is to be attributed a meta-Iliadic dimension here, one might also recall Thebaid fr. 9 Bernabé, where Athena's bestowing of immortality to Diomedes is envisaged as a result of his father's impiety: the implications of divine aid in Diomedes’ ‘super-human’ aristeia intersect with a broader Iliadic discourse on his worth compared to Tydeus. See recently Christensen, J.P. and Barker, E., ‘On not remembering Tydeus: Agamemnon, Diomedes and the contest for Thebes’, MD 66 (2011), 9–44Google ScholarPubMed; Sammons, B., ‘A tale of Tydeus: exemplarity and structure in two Homeric insets’, TiC 6 (2014), 297–318Google Scholar.

38 Burkert (1992), 98.

39 Cf. P. Pucci, Inno alle Muse (Esiodo, Teogonia 1–115) (Pisa, 2007), 52 on Theog. 16: ‘il culto di Afrodite Urania, venuto dall'Oriente, le sottrasse [sc. a Dione] la maternità di Afrodite.’ See Metcalf (n. 3), 170–90.

40 According to Budin, S.L., The Origin of Aphrodite (Bethesda, 2003), 22Google Scholar n. 28, Theog. 353 attests to an aquatic connection between Dione and Aphrodite.

41 West, M.L., Hesiod Theogony (Oxford, 1966), 156Google Scholar on Theog. 11–21. The variant Ἥρην for Ἥβην at Theog. 17 (Plut. Quaest. conv. 747E) is probably of little significance.

42 On connections between Books 5 and 21 of the Iliad, see n. 20 above.

43 Note further that Aeneas is cured by Artemis and Leto at Il. 5.445–8.

44 Hera's jealousy and hostility are central to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and pervasive in early Greek epic. See A. Bonnafé, Eros et Eris: Mariages divins et mythe de succession chez Hésiode (Lyon, 1985); on this hymn: J.S. Clay, The Politics of Olympus (London, 20062), 19–74; on Iliadic ramifications: A. Kelly, A Referential Commentary and Lexicon to Homer, Iliad VIII (Oxford, 2007), 420–5.

45 As noted by Andersen (n. 6), 31 n. 18. The emphasis of Il. 5.370–1 (ἣ δ’ ἐν γούνασι πίπτε Διώνης δῖ’ Ἀφροδίτη | μητρὸς ἑῆς· ἣ δ’ ἀγκὰς ἐλάζετο θυγατέρα ἥν) is hardly a hint of a Near Eastern connection, though it might be taken as advertising this genealogy as distinct from the Hesiodic one.

46 Procl. in Pl. Ti. 3.184 Diehl. Cf. West, M.L., The Orphic Poems (Oxford, 1983), 121–4Google Scholar.

47 Meisner, D.A., Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods (Oxford, 2019), 170–87Google Scholar.

48 Apollod. Bibl. 1.1.2, with P. Scarpi, Apollodoro. Biblioteca (Milano, 1996), 419–20. On the Cyclic Theogony as a possible source here, cf. West (n. 46), 125–6 and Brisson, L., Orphée et l'Orphisme à l’époque imperiale (Aldershot, 1995), 404–7Google Scholar; cf. G.B. D'Alessio, ‘Theogony and Titanomachy’, in M. Fantuzzi and C. Tsagalis (edd.), The Epic Cycle and its Ancient Reception. A Companion (Cambridge, 2015), 199–212, at 199–202.

49 Procl. in Pl. Cra. §183 (pages 110.23–111.5 in G. Pasquali, Procli Diadochi in Platonis Cratylum Commentaria [Leipzig, 1908]).

50 West (n. 46), 116–21, 125–7.

51 López Ruiz (n. 5), 130–70; Meisner (n. 47), 18–33 and passim.

52 Cassio (n. 6), 420 n. 39 notes that Philo of Byblos, FGrHist 790 F 2 (35), equates Dione to Baaltis (ὁ Κρόνος Βύβλον μὲν τὴν πόλιν θεᾶι Βααλτίδι τῆι καὶ Διώνηι δίδωσι), a rendering of Phoenician b‘lt, feminine of Baal ‘lord’, here probably the ‘Lady of Byblos’ b‘lt gbl attested in Phoenician inscriptions, possibly Asherah (El's consort at Ugarit): see A.I. Baumgarten, The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos (Leiden, 1981), 201, 223–4 n. 58 and H.W. Attridge and R.A. Oden Jr., Philo of Byblos. The Phoenician History (Washington, DC, 1981), 88–9 n. 100, 91–2 n. 132. In Philo, Dione/Baaltis is daughter of Uranus and one of the wives of Elos/Kronos (= El), FGrHist 790 F 2 (22–4). This seems to attest to Dione's solid position as a Titan in the Greek system, which facilitated interpretatio. Philo's polemical views on Greek divine equations can be read at FGrHist 790 F 2 (8).

53 On the general distance between Athenian myth and cult and the epic tradition, see Parker, R., ‘Myths of early Athens’, in Bremmer, J. (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology (London, 1986), 187–214Google Scholar; Breitenberger (n. 6), 30–1. On Aphrodite Πάνδημος, see Parker, R., Athenian Religion. A History (Oxford, 1996), 48–9; id., Polytheism and Society at Athens (Oxford, 2005), 407–8Google Scholar; Pirenne-Delforge, V., L'Aphrodite grecque (Paris, 1994), 26–40Google Scholar; Breitenberger (n. 6), 30–44.

54 SEG 10.281, possibly also SEG 3.35 (c.420 b.c., rations of Eleusinian goddesses, Dione's name restored). On the importance of the oracle and the cult of Zeus and Dione in fourth-century Athens, see Dem. Falsa legatione 229, with W.H. Parke, The Oracles of Zeus. Dodona, Olympia, Ammon (Oxford, 1967), 138–43; cf. E. Simon, ‘Dione’, LIMC III.1, 411–13.

55 Burkert (1992), 205 n. 8.

56 Parke (n. 54), 69–70; cf. Simon (n. 54), 411. Dione stands firmly at the side of Zeus as soon as the epigraphic record for ‘enquiries’ to the oracle begins (fifth century b.c.): Parke (n. 54), 259–62.

57 F. Rougemont, ‘Les noms des dieux dans les tablettes inscrites en linéaire B’, in N. Belayche et al. (edd.), Nommer les dieux. Théonymes, épithètes, épiclèses dans l'antiquité (Turnhout, 2005), 325–88, at 337–8 n. 63 and 372–3: PY Cn 1287.6, Tn 316 v.6, An 607.5, TH Ft 278, Gp 313.2 and Gp 109.1 (to be rejected); KN Xd 97 (dubious): M. Gérard-Rousseau, Les mentions religieuses dans les tablettes mycéniennes (Rome, 1968), 68.

58 P. Lévêque, ‘Le syncrétisme créto-mycénien’, in F. Dunand and P. Lévêque, Les syncrétismes dans les religions de l'antiquité (Leiden, 1975), 19–73, at 42 n. 117; Dunkel, G.E., ‘Vater Himmels Gattin’, Die Sprache 34 (1988–90), 1–26Google Scholar, at 15.

59 Cassio (n. 6), 420 n. 37; cf. Burkert (1992), 205 n. 8 and Dunkel (n. 58), 16, 21–6.

60 The connection is accepted by Budin (n. 40), 283; Pulleyn, S., ‘Homer's religion: philological perspectives from Indo-European and Semitic’, in Clarke, M., Currie, B. and Lyne, R. (edd.), Epic Interactions (Oxford, 2006), 47–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 59–61; and A. Teffeteller, ‘The song of Ares and Aphrodite: Ašertu on Skheria’, in A. Smith and S. Pickup (edd.), Brill's Companion to Aphrodite (Leiden, 2010), 133–50, at 142–3. But neither Dunkel (n. 58) nor M.L. West, Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford, 2007), 192–3 identifies diwija with Dione.

61 Budin (n. 40), 46 n. 44. On doves and Dodona, see Breitenberger (n. 6), 15–20, who sees this cultic background behind Homer's scene alongside the Gilgamesh influence.

62 See Gérard-Rousseau (n. 57), 174–6; Rougemont (n. 57), 338 n. 64; I. Rutherford, ‘Mycenaean religion’, in M.R. Salzman (ed.), The Cambridge History of Religions in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 2012), 256–79, at 258–9.

63 Bremmer, J.N., Greek Religion (with Addenda) (Cambridge, 1999), 16Google Scholar.

64 Currie (2016), 167 n. 123: ‘A feminine theonym “Dione” was probably just exploited, rather than invented, for this episode.’

65 West (1997), 401.

66 West (1997), 180, 353–4, 362, 373, 390–1, 412.

67 Currie (2016), 193–5: the three episodes are deemed to likely derive from the Gilgamesh tradition, but see n. 83 below.

68 Currie (2016), 195.

69 The inclusion of Sumerian City Laments (not strictly narrative texts) might be justified by the precedent of West (1997), 353. The line-numbering of all Sumerian texts refers to ETCSL (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/): for updated editions and translations (where available), or for relevant references, see P. Attinger's webpage (http://www.iaw.unibe.ch/attinger/). Akkadian editions: Lapinkivi, P., The Neo-Assyrian Myth of Ištar's Descent and Resurrection (Helsinki, 2010)Google Scholar; Ponchia, S. and Luukko, M., The Standard Babylonian Myth of Nergal and Ereškigal (Helsinki, 2013)Google Scholar; Lambert, W.G., Babylonian Creation Myths (Winona Lake, 2013)Google Scholar (for Enūma elish); Cagni, L., L'Epopea di Erra (Roma, 1969)Google Scholar; all texts translated in B. Foster, Before the Muses. An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (Bethesda, 20053). KTU: M. Dietrich, O. Loretz and J. Sanmartín (edd.), Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani und anderen Orten (Münster, 20133); translations in S.B. Parker (ed.), Ugaritic Narrative Poetry (Atlanta, 1997). CTH: E. Laroche, Catalogue des Textes Hittites (Paris, 1971); online corpus, with editions and German translations, at E. Rieken et al., Mythen der Hethiter (2009–), www.hethiter.net/txhet_myth; also H.A. Hoffner Jr., Hittite Myths (Atlanta, 19982). All online resources accessed 6 April 2020.

70 Near Eastern cases that parallel the occasional absence of a journey (noted above) include EWO, LSUr, LUr, Aqhat (KTU 1.17.i.15–16). In Elkunirsha and Ashertu, the beginning of Ashertu's conversation with Elkunirsha is not preserved. A.R. George, ‘How women weep? Reflections on a passage of Bilgames and the Bull of Heaven’, in S. Parpola and R. Whiting (edd.), Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East (Helsinki, 2002), 141–50, at 149 holds that An finds Innana weeping, but there is nothing in the text to exclude that it is the goddess who approached the chief god, as in SB Gilg. and the remaining Sumerian instances of the topos.

71 Instead of a single ruler, the Sumero-Akkadian tradition presents the divine triad An(/u), Enlil and Enki/Ea (portrayed as a group in Nergal and Ereshkigal). In Enūma elish, the complaint is brought to Tiāmtu, who at that point represents the most powerful deity. In Erra and Ishum the protagonist addresses Marduk, as the poem accords with the Enūma elish theology, with Marduk as king of the gods.

72 Though the chief gods’ relenting is not narrated in LUr, it is envisaged through the final prayers (LUr 378–410).

73 On Innana's supremacy in Sumerian hymnology and mythology, see A. Zgoll, Der Rechtsfall der En-ḫedu-Ana im Lied nin-me-šara (Münster, 1997), 81–6 and ch. 6; Metcalf (n. 3), 45–9.

74 See Smith, M.S. and Pitard, W.T., The Ugaritic Baal Cycle. Volume II. Introduction with Text, Translation and Commentary of KTU/CAT 1.3–1.4 (Leiden, 2009), 35–41Google Scholar; cf. n. 91 below. Similarly, Innana/Ishtar's helpers in InD/IšD emerge as resilient and trustworthy.

75 Parker (n. 69), 63–4. This has been compared with Il. 22.185 ἔρξον ὅπῃ δή τοι νόος ἔπλετο, μὴ δ᾽ ἔτ᾽ ἐρώει (Zeus to Athena): B. Louden, The Iliad. Structure, Myth, and Meaning (Baltimore, 2006), 266–8; id., Homer's Odyssey and the Near East (Cambridge, 2010), 23. The ‘do as you wish’ motif is traditional in Greek epic ‘request scenes’ and associated with the phrase ἔρξον ὅπως ἐθέλεις: Il. 4.37 (in a broader divine assembly), Od. 13.145, 24.481; differently at Od. 16.67.

76 Slatkin, L.M., The Power of Thetis and Selected Essays (Washington, DC, 2011), 30–95Google Scholar.

77 Clay, J.S., ‘The beginning of the Odyssey’, AJPh 97 (1971), 313–26Google Scholar; J. Marks, Zeus in the Odyssey (Washington, DC, 2008).

78 Maitland, J., ‘Poseidon, walls, and narrative complexity in the Homeric Iliad’, CQ 49 (1999), 1–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ballesteros (n. 4), 265–8.

79 Allan, W., ‘Divine justice and cosmic order in early Greek epic’, JHS 126 (2006), 1–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 22–3.

80 Cf. West (1997), 351–2. Some complaints are ineffectual: Anat's request to El (KTU 1.3.v) must fail for the long proceedings to be narrated; Zeus cannot give satisfaction to Ares (Hom. Il. 5.864–906), for he is still favouring the pro-Achaean deities who caused Ares’ wound (with Zeus's approval).

81 Cf. West (1997), 173–4 on divine conversations setting things in motion.

82 Cf. Bilgames, Enkidu and the Netherworld (ETCSL 1.8.1.4.) 50–135, 221–37. The procedure is compressed in IšD 83–4 (CT 15: 46 rev. 3–4); cf. Lapinkivi (n. 69), 70–1.

83 Currie (2016), 193–5 does not discard imitation of the Gilgamesh episode in Nergal and Ereshkigal, Aqhat and the Song of Ullikummi, on the grounds that Gilgamesh is attested at Ugarit and Hattusa and these scenes share at least two features among ‘plaint in heaven’ (but we have seen how common this is), ‘erotic overtones’ (but see the discussion of Elkunirsha and Ashertu below) and ‘cosmic threat’. Anat's words at KTU 1.18.i.6–14, however, do not concern cosmic order, as duly noted by Smith and Pitard (n. 74), 344, and Shaushka's lament is not preserved. Concerning the threat repeated almost verbatim at N&E 316–19, IšD 17–20 and SB Gilg. VI 97–100, the Gilgamesh occurrence is not ideally suited for heading a reception stemma. In IšD, Ishtar, at the Netherworld's gate, threatens to destroy it and thus release the dead, if the gatekeeper does not let her in. The threat is also appropriate to Ereshkigal as Netherworld Queen, but less obviously in context in SB Gilg. (and it is absent from BBH). I therefore find little justification for the claim of Ponchia and Luukko (n. 69), 60 that the lines in N&E are a ‘literary quotation’ from SB Gilg. and BBH. With George (n. 3), 474–5, one should probably reserve judgement in the absence of a relative chronology of composition.

84 CTH 342, Hoffner (n. 69), 90–2; see Haas, V., Die hethitische Literatur. Texte, Stilistik, Motive (Berlin, 2006), 213–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar and I. Singer, ‘The origins of the “Canaanite” myth of Elkunirša and Ašertu reconsidered’, in D. von Groddek and M. Zorman (edd.), Tabularia Hethaeorum (Wiesbaden, 2007), 631–42. Teffeteller (n. 60) offers a comparison with Demodocus’ Olympian song in the Odyssey.

85 Hoffner (n. 69), 90.

86 H.A. Hoffner Jr., ‘The Elkunirša myth reconsidered’, Revue hittite et asianique 23 (1965), 5–16.

87 Singer (n. 84), 637.

88 H. Otten, ‘Ein kanaanäischer Mythus aus Boğazköy’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Orientforschung 1 (1953), 125–50, at 145; Singer (n. 84), 637 n. 46. The ritual connection of the narrative may well have contributed to its translation; cf. Bachvarova (2016), 216.

89 Cf. Haas (n. 84), 273–6; Archi, A., ‘Transmission of recitative literature by the Hittites’, Altorientalische Forschungen 34 (2007), 185–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 186–8; and Bachvarova (2016), 63–72, who notes, at 73, an intriguing parallel between one Hurrian version of Gilgamesh (CTH 341.II.2.i) and Elkunirsha and Ashertu. On the Hurrian tradition as crucially underlying the Hittite Gilgamesh, see J. Klinger, ‘Die hethitische Rezeption mesopotamischer Literatur und die Überlieferung des Gilgameš-Epos in Ḫattuša’, in D. Prechel (ed.), Motivation und Mechanismen des Kulturkontaktes in der späten Bronzezeit (München, 2005), 103–27.

90 M. Bachvarova, ‘Hurro-Hittite song as a bilingual oral-derived genre’, in M. Kapelus and P. Taracha (edd.), Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Hittitology (Warsaw, 2014), 77–108; ead. (2016), 35–77; ead. ‘Multiformity in the Song of Ḫedammu: evidence and implications’, Altorientalische Forschungen 45 (2018), 1–21. More cautiously Archi (n. 89); id., ‘Orality, direct speech, and the Kumarbi cycle’, Altorientalische Forschungen 36 (2009), 209–29; Beckman, G., The Hittite Gilgamesh (Atlanta, 2019), 10 n. 48Google Scholar.

91 ‘Travel to El’: KTU 1.1.iii.21–5, 1.2.iii.4–6, 1.4.iv.20–6, 1.17.vi.46–51, with 1.3.v.4–9 significantly varied; cf. Smith and Pitard (n. 74), 339–40; Anat's menaces: 1.3.v.2–3 ≈ 1.3.v.24–5 (Baal Cycle) = 1.18.i.11–12 (Aqhat); El's response: 1.3.v.27–8 ≈ 1.18.i.16–17. In chiastic reversal, Asherah's successful plea begins by echoing Anat's belated courteous address (1.4.iv.41–3 = 1.3.v.30–1); Asherah's final reply possibly reverses Anat's previous menacing address to El (1.4.v.3–5 ≈ 1.3.v.23–5). This illustrates artfulness in ‘the flexibility of the use of formulaic passages within similar but fully distinct contexts’: Smith and Pitard (n. 74), 351.

92 The status quaestionis has not changed much since M.E. Vogelzang and H.L.J. Vanstiphout (edd.), Mesopotamian Epic Literature: Oral or Aural? (Lampeter, 1992); see Metcalf (n. 3), 143 n. 32, adding M. Civil, ‘Reading Gilgameš’, Aula Orientalis 17/18 (1999/2000), 179–89; Haul, M., Stele und Legende (Göttingen, 2009), 48–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; C. Wilcke, The Sumerian Poem Enmerkar and En-suḫkeš-ana (New Haven, 2012); and P. Delnero, ‘Texts and performance: the materiality and function of the Sumerian liturgical corpus’, in P. Delnero and J. Lauinger (edd.), Texts and Contexts: The Circulation and Transmission of Cuneiform Texts in Social Space (Berlin, 2015), 87–118. Hecker, K., Untersuchungen zur akkadischen Epik (Neukirchen, 1974)Google Scholar, the best systematization of Akkadian epic compositional conventions to date, dismissed traditional repetition features as relics of an oral past which should be set aside to recover the poet's originality (see especially at 185).

93 Texts in George (n. 3), 839; cf. Jiménez, E., Babylonian Disputation Poems (Leiden, 2017), 94–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar: the late parodic adaptation is consistent with a perception of the topos as generally pertaining to the epic tradition rather than to individual compositions.

94 See n. 83 above.

95 Most recently Friedrich (n. 30).

96 Cf. Mondi (n. 7), 150.

97 Cf. Enzyklopädie des Märchens, s.v. ‘Joseph: Der keusche Joseph’; Hoffner (n. 69), 90; West (1997), 365; and Bachvarova (2016), 34, 424.

98 Araṇyakāṇḍa, Sargas 16–40, transl. S. Pollock, Rāmāyaṇa, Book Three: The Forest. By Vālmīki (New York, 2006), 125–237. In fact, the complex course of events involves four ‘complaint/request scenes’. Śūrpaṇakhā approaches twice another of her brothers, Khara, and only after the latter's definite defeat is Rāvāṇa supplicated by Śūrpaṇakhā. Rāvāṇa then visits the venerable demon Mārīca and asks for his help. When Mārīca tries to dissuade him, Rāvāṇa secures his help with death threats.

99 For the Near Eastern ‘fertilization’ of the Greek Indo-European background, see Mondi (n. 7), 147–57, 187–9; López Ruiz (n. 5), 163–4; and Metcalf (n. 3), 222–4.

100 It is not easy to say just how far back in time this should be traced, but the Early Iron Age is likely to have been the crucial period. The richest model to date is offered by Bachvarova (2016), especially at 199–348, who sees lines of cultural transmission as fostered by elites, especially in ritual contexts. In the case of parallels involving Aphrodite, Early Iron Age Cyprus is reasonably thought to be a central node: e.g. Burkert (n. 6 [1984]), 95; Cassio (n. 6); Bachvarova (2016), 300–30.