Page:An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic - Morris - 1920.djvu/91

 beginning of the twelfth tablet (Haupt’s edition No. 56), as well as in column 2, 29, and column 3, 6, of this twelfth tablet). In the two last named passages pukku is a synonym of mekû, which from the general meaning of “enclosure” comes to be a euphemistic expression for the female organ. So, for example, in the Assyrian Creation Myth, Tablet IV, 66 (synonym of ḳablu, “waist,” etc.). See Holma, Namen der Körperteile, page 158. Our word pukku must be taken in this same sense as a designation of the female organ—perhaps more specifically the “hymen” as the “net,” though the womb in general might also be designated as a “net” or “enclosure.” Kak-(ši) is no doubt to be read epši, as Langdon correctly saw; or perhaps better, epiši. An expression like ip-ši-šú lul-la-a (Assyrian version, I, 4, 13; also line 19, i-pu-us-su-ma lul-la-a), with the explanation šipir zinništi, “the work of woman” (i.e., after the fashion of woman), shows that epêšu is used in connection with the sexual act. The phrase pitî pûk epiši a-na ḫa-a-a-ri, literally “open the net, perform the act for marriage,” therefore designates the fulfillment of the marriage act, and the line is intended to point to marriage with the accompanying sexual intercourse as one of the duties of man. While the general meaning is thus clear, the introduction of Gish is puzzling, except on the supposition that lines 149 and 151 represent later additions to connect the speech, detailing the advance to civilized life, with the hero. See above, p. 45 seq.

Line 154. aššat šimâtim is the “legitimate wife,” and the line inculcates monogamy as against promiscuous sexual intercourse. We know that monogamy was the rule in Babylonia, though a man could in addition to the wife recognized as the legalized spouse take a concubine, or his wife could give her husband a slave as a concubine. Even in that case, according to the Hammurabi Code, §§145–146, the wife retained her status. The Code throughout assumes that a man has only one wife—the aššat šimâtim of our text. The phrase “so” (or “that”) before “as afterwards” is to be taken as an idiomatic expression—“so it was and so it should be for all times”—somewhat like the phrase maḫriam ù arkiam, “for all times,” in legal documents (CT VIII, 38c, 22–23). For the use of mûk see Behrens, Assyrisch-Babylonische Briefe, p. 3.

Line 158. i-na bi-ti-iḳ a-bu-un-na-ti-šú. Another puzzling line, for which Langdon proposes “in the work of his presence,” which