Page:An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic - Morris - 1920.djvu/89

 savage and the civilized being. The contrast is put in the form of an opposition between the two. The primitive man is the stronger and wishes to destroy the one whom he regards as a natural foe and rival. On the other hand, the one who stands on a higher plane wants to lift his fellow up. The whole of column 4, therefore, forms part of the lesson attached to the story of Enkidu, who, identified with man in a primitive stage, is made the medium of illustrating how the higher plane is reached through the guiding influences of the woman’s hold on man, an influence exercised, to be sure, with the help of her bodily charms.

Line 135. uk-ki-ši (imperative form) does not mean “take away,” as Langdon (who entirely misses the point of the whole passage) renders, but on the contrary, “lure him on,” “entrap him,” and the like. The verb occurs also in the Yale tablet, ll. 183 and 186.

Line 137. Langdon’s note to lu-uš-šú had better be passed over in silence. The form is II. 1, from ešû, “destroy.”

Line 139. Since the man whom the woman calls approaches Enkidu, the subject of both verbs is the man, and the object is Enkidu; i.e., therefore, “The man approaches Enkidu and beholds him.”

Line 140. Langdon’s interpretation of this line again is purely fanciful. E-di-il cannot, of course, be a “phonetic variant” of edir; and certainly the line does not describe the state of mind of the woman. Lines 140–141 are to be taken as an expression of amazement at Enkidu’s appearance. The first word appears to be an imperative in the sense of “Be off,” “Away,” from dâlu, “move, roam.” The second word e-eš, “why,” occurs with the same verb dâlu in the Meissner fragment: e-eš ta-da-al (column 3, 1), “why dost thou roam about?” The verb at the end of the line may perhaps be completed to ta-ḫi-il-la-am. The last sign appears to be am, but may be ma, in which case we should have to complete simply ta-ḫi-il-ma. Taḫîl would be the second person present of ḫîlu. Cf. i-ḫi-il, frequently in astrological texts, e.g., Virolleaud, Adad No. 3, lines 21 and 33.

Line 141. The reading lim-nu at the beginning, instead of Langdon’s mi-nu, is quite certain, as is also ma-na-aḫ-ti-ka instead of what Langdon proposes, which gives no sense whatever. Manaḫtu in the sense of the “toil” and “activity of life” (like עָמָל throughout the Book of Ecclesiastes) occurs in the introductory lines to