Page:An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic - Morris - 1920.djvu/83

 upon Enkidu by the woman’s bodily charms, which make him forget everything else.

Lines 46–47 form a parallel to I, 4, 21, of the Assyrian version. The form šamkatu, “courtesan,” is constant in the old Babylonian version (ll. 135 and 172), as against šamḫatu in the Assyrian version (I, 3, 19, 40, 45; 4, 16), which also uses the plural šam-ḫa-a-ti (II, 3b, 40). The interchange between ḫ and k is not without precedent (cf. Meissner, Altbabylonisches Privatrecht, page 107, note 2, and more particularly Chiera, List of Personal Names, page 37).

In view of the evidence, set forth in the Introduction, for the assumption that the Enkidu story has been combined with a tale of the evolution of primitive man to civilized life, it is reasonable to suggest that in the original Enkidu story the female companion was called šamkatu, “courtesan,” whereas in the tale of the primitive man, which was transferred to Enkidu, the associate was ḫarimtu, a “woman,” just as in the Genesis tale, the companion of Adam is simply called ishshâ, “woman.” Note that in the Assyrian parallel (Tablet I, 4, 26) we have two readings, ir-ḫi (imperf.) and a variant i-ri-ḫi (present). The former is the better reading, as our tablet shows.

Lines 49–59 run parallel to the Assyrian version I, 4, 33–38, with slight variations which have been discussed above, p. 58, and from which we may conclude that the Assyrian version represents an independent redaction. Since in our tablet we have presumably the repetition of what may have been in part at least set forth in the first tablet of the old Babylonian version, we must not press the parallelism with the first tablet of the Assyrian version too far; but it is noticeable nevertheless (1) that our tablet contains lines 57–58 which are not represented in the Assyrian version, and (2) that the second speech of the “woman” beginning, line 62, with al-ka, “come” (just as the first speech, line 54), is likewise not found in the first tablet of the Assyrian version; which on the other hand contains a line (39) not in the Babylonian version, besides the detailed answer of Enkidu (I 4, 42–5, 5). Line 6, which reads “Enkidu and the woman went (il-li-ku) to walled Erech,” is also not found in the second tablet of the old Babylonian version.

Line 63. For magrû, “accursed,” see the frequent use in Astrological texts (Jastrow, Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens II, page