Page:An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic - Morris - 1920.djvu/81

 events, all three expressions, “Erech of the plazas,” “Erech walled” and “Erech land,” are to be regarded as synonymous. The position once held by Erech follows also from its ideographic designation (Brünnow No. 4796) by the sign “house” with a “gunufied” extension, which conveys the idea of Unu = šubtu, or “dwelling” par excellence. The pronunciation Unug or Unuk (see the gloss u-nu-uk, VR 23, 8a), composed of unu, “dwelling,” and ki, “place,” is hardly to be regarded as older than Uruk, which is to be resolved into uru, “city,” and ki, “place,” but rather as a play upon the name, both Unu + ki and Uru + ki conveying the same idea of the city or the dwelling place par excellence. As the seat of the second oldest dynasty according to Babylonian traditions (see Poebel’s list in Historical and Grammatical Texts No. 2), Erech no doubt was regarded as having been at one time “the city,” i.e., the capital of the entire Euphrates Valley.

Line 31. A difficult line for which Langdon proposes the translation: “Another axe seemed his visage”!!—which may be picturesque, but hardly a description befitting a hero. How can a man’s face seem to be an axe? Langdon attaches šá-ni in the sense of “second” to the preceding word “axe,” whereas šanî bunušu, “change of his countenance” or “his countenance being changed,” is to be taken as a phrase to convey the idea of “being disturbed,” “displeased” or “angry.” The phrase is of the same kind as the well-known šunnu ṭêmu, “changing of reason,” to denote “insanity.” See the passages in Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, pp. 355 and 1068. In Hebrew, too, we have the same two phrases, e.g., וַיְשַׁנֹּו ַפָסֶת־טַעְמֹו (I Sam. 21, 14 = Ps. 34, 1), “and he changed his reason,” i.e., feigned insanity and מְשַׁנֶּה פָּנָיו (Job 14, 20), “changing his face,” to indicate a radical alteration in the frame of mind. There is a still closer parallel in Biblical Aramaic: Dan. 3, 19, “The form of his visage was changed,” meaning “he was enraged.” Fortunately, the same phrase occurs also in the Yale tablet (l. 192), šá-nu-ú bu-nu-šú, in a connection which leaves no doubt that the aroused fury of the tyrant Ḫuwawa is described by it:

Ḫuwawa heard and his face was changed”

precisely, therefore, as we should say—following Biblical usage—“his countenance fell.” Cf. also the phrase pânušu arpu, “his