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Ninurta-Pāqidāt's dog bite, and notes on other comic tales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

A. R. George
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Extract

A new look at the three best-known examples of Babylonian humour prompts a revised edition of one text, the Tale of Ninurta-pāqidāt's Dog Bite, and gives an opportunity to present significant new collations of the other two, At the Cleaners, and the Tale of the Poor Man of Nippur.

This text, inscribed on a Neo-Babylonian tablet excavated in a private house at Uruk, is the most recently discovered of the comic tales that are the subject of this paper. It was first published by Antoine Cavigneaux in 1979. At that time not all the text was properly understood, though the gist of the story was clear: a man of Nippur is healed by a priest at Isin, and invites him to Nippur to be his guest. On arriving at Nippur the priest follows his patient's instructions but misunderstands what is said to him by a gardener woman and, in doing so, causes such offence that he is driven out of the city. A second translation of the text was made in 1986, by Erica Reiner. Her study of its literary structure threw new light on the nature of the humour, but she had little new to offer in the way of decipherment of the parts of the text that were not already fully understood.

Cavigneaux rightly saw the text to be a story that belongs to the “Schulmilieu”. My interest in the tale stems from my own schooldays, as it were, for I first read it as a student with my teacher, Professor W. G. Lambert. Two significant improvements in the understanding of the text came of that experience. Reading it recently with students of my own, along with the other texts discussed in this paper, encouraged a new appraisal of the tale and its problems, and at length produced further important breakthroughs in decipherment. Accordingly it has been thought worthwhile to present the entire story in a new edition.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 55 , October 1993 , pp. 63 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1993

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References

1 For the exact find-spot see the catalogue of finds in UVB 31–32, p. 55 Google Scholar, sub W 23558 = IM 78552.

2 “Texte und Fragmente aus Warka (32. Kampagne)”, Bagh. Mitt. 10, pp. 111–17, no. 1Google Scholar. It has not been possible to collate the tablet.

3 “‘Why do you cuss me?’”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (PAPS) 130, pp. 1–6 Google Scholar.

4 The colophon confirms the school environment: ana šitassi šamallê, “for the recitation of the apprentice scribes” (1. 35). By “school” I mean the gathering of probably a small number of apprentices at the feet of a scholar.

5 See below the commentary on 11. 14 and 24.

6 Copy of Pinches, V R 44, iii 37–39. Discussion by Lambert, , JCS 11 (1957), p. 5 ff.Google Scholar; cols, ii and iii are edited ibid., p. 12f.

7 Ibid., p. 6.

8 “Adad-apla-iddina, Esagil-kīn-apli, and the series SA.GIG”, in Leichty, E. et al., A Scientific Humanist: Studies… Abraham Sachs (Philadelphia, 1988), pp. 143–59Google Scholar.

9 The use of the Akkadian name in the title of Finkel's article incidentally demonstrates his tacit acceptance of it as the norm.

10 These are justified in the commentary below, on 1. 13.

11 In 1. 8 túg.bar.a = ṣubāt elīti?, pad.pad.da = ?, KA.bar = uṭṭatu?; in 1. 33, [lúḪAB?].BA = isḫappu?; in 1. 34, im.šú.kam = imšukku. Note also AD.ME.KÁR = šattu in the colophon (1. 36), where rare and difficult Sumerian writings are to be expected, however.

12 Written sanga dME.ME in 1. 5, É.BAR d gu-la in 1. 17.

13 Cf. for example the famous barrel inscription of Cyrus, V R 35 + BIN II 32 Google Scholar, in which in fourteen occurrences the name of Babylon is written four different ways (see George, A. R., Babylonian Topographical Texts (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 40; Leuven, 1992; hereafter abbreviated Topog. Texts), p. 242)Google Scholar.

14 MSL V, p. 56 Google Scholar, Hh II 69 Google Scholar: si1a.dagal.la = re-bi-tú; also Igituḫ I 346 Google Scholar (VAT 10270 v 22, cited in AHw, p. 964).

15 Topog. Texts, pp. 143ff, no. 18.

16 Topog. Texts, p. 66f, V 62–81 Google Scholar, of which 62–64, 67–74 and 81 are in the two column format, after the pattern sila (ceremonial name) = sūq (everyday name).

17 Cavigneaux, , Bagh. Mitt. 10 (1979), p. 114 Google Scholar; Reiner, , PAPS 130 (1986), p. 1 Google Scholar; Jacobsen, Thorkild, JAOS 108 (1988), p. 124 Google Scholar; Livingstone, A., AOAT 220 (1988)Google Scholar = Fs Deller, p. 183.

18 PAPS 130 (1986), p. 4 Google Scholar, followed by A. Livingstone, loc. cit.

19 See the useful discussion and bibliography collected by Thomsen, M.-L., The Sumerian Language, pp. 15–20 Google Scholar. The only wildly dissenting voice is the late Thorkild Jacobsen, loc. cit., who used the text under discussion as evidence.

20 For attempts at identifying exactly how her words are ambiguous see the comments on 11. 24, 29 and 32.

21 On these stock characters and the anonymity that typifies them, see Jason, Heda, JCS 31 (1979), p. 191 f.Google Scholar, with special reference to the Tale of the Poor Man of Nippur.

22 The classic article is E. Ritter, “Magical-expert (= āšipu) and physician (= asû): notes on two complementary professions in Babylonian medicine”, AS 16, pp. 299–321 Google Scholar. The subject is now brought up to date by Biggs, R. D., “Medizin. A. In Mesopotamien”, RIA VII, pp. 623–29Google Scholar, with bibliography; and Stol, M., JEOL 32 (1991–1992), pp. 58–62 Google Scholar.

23 The injunction to place the right on the left may also act as a subtle literary device, signalling to the audience that from this moment things will be the opposite of what they seem. It thus anticipates the contradictory ambivalence, intentional or otherwise, of the woman's words.

24 Iraq 25 (1963), pp. 177–88Google Scholar. The tablet, U 7793, was found at No. 7 Quiet Street (see Charpin, , Le clergé d'Ur, pp. 31 and 37 Google Scholar).

25 “‘At the Cleaners’ and notes on humorous literature”, in AOAT 220 = Fs Deller, pp. 175–87Google Scholar.

26 A comprehensive programme of collation of Gadd's copies for UET VI is now being undertaken by M.-C. Ludwig and M. J. Geller.

27 Gadd read la(?)-ke-e, Livingstone x-ke-e; both leave the word untranslated. Since the tablet was copied it has sustained further damage, but the traces, both as copied by Gadd and as they appear now, are compatible with the end of ù. The phrase qê pašārum, though new, rings true.

28 “The Sultantepe Tablets V. The Tale of the Poor Man of Nippur”, AnSt 6 (1956), pp. 145–64Google Scholar; cuneiform texts: ibid., p. 148: K 3478, STT 38, and 39 + 116. Further source: Ellis, M. de J., JCS 26 (1974), p. 89 Google Scholar.

29 “Structure, humor, and satire in the Poor Man of Nippur”, JCS 27 (1975), pp. 163–74Google Scholar; and TUAT III/1, pp. 174–80Google Scholar, respectively. Comparative studies have been made by Gurney, O. R., “The Tale of the Poor Man of Nippur and its folktale parallels”, AnSt 22 (1972), pp. 149–58Google Scholar, and Jason, Heda, “The Poor Man of Nippur: an ethnopoetic analysis”, JCS 31 (1979), pp. 189–215 Google Scholar.

30 Especially in AnSt 7 (1957), pp. 135–36Google Scholar.

31 See the list given in AnSt 8 (1958), p. 245 Google Scholar, and repeated in STT II, p. 23 Google Scholar.