Page:An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic - Morris - 1920.djvu/95

 Line 212. For the completion of the line cf. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Letters, No. 214.

Line 214. For ribîtu mâti see the note above to line 28 of column 1.

Lines 215–217 correspond almost entirely to the Assyrian version IV, 2, 46–48. The variations ki-ib-su in place of šêpu, and kima lîm, “like oxen,” instead of ina bâb êmuti (repeated from line 46), ana šurûbi for êribam, are slight though interesting. The Assyrian version shows that the “gate” in line 215 is “the gate of the family house” in which the goddess Ishḫara lies.

Lines 218–228. The detailed description of the fight between the two heroes is only partially preserved in the Assyrian version.

Line 218. li-i-im is evidently to be taken as plural here as in line 224, just as su-ḳi-im (lines 27 and 175), ri-bi-tim (lines 4, 28, etc.), tarbaṣim (line 74), aṣṣamim (line 98) are plural forms. Our text furnishes, as does also the Yale tablet, an interesting illustration of the vacillation in the Hammurabi period in the twofold use of im: (a) as an indication of the plural (as in Hebrew), and (b) as a mere emphatic ending (lines 63, 73, and 232), which becomes predominant in the post-Hammurabi age.

Line 227. Gilgamesh is often represented on seal cylinders as kneeling, e.g., Ward Seal Cylinders Nos. 159, 160, 165. Cf. also Assyrian version V, 3, 6, where Gilgamesh is described as kneeling, though here in prayer. See further the commentary to the Yale tablet, line 215.

Line 229. We must of course read uz-za-šú, “his anger,” and not uṣ-ṣa-šú, “his javelin,” as Langdon does, which gives no sense.

Line 231. Langdon’s note is erroneous. He again misses the point. The stem of the verb here as in line 230 (i-ni-iḫ) is the common nâḫu, used so constantly in connection with pašâḫu, to designate the cessation of anger.

Line 234. ištên applied to Gish designates him of course as “unique,” not as “an ordinary man,” as Langdon supposes.

Line 236. On this title “wild cow of the stall” for Ninsun, see Poebel in OLZ 1914, page 6, to whom we owe the correct view regarding the name of Gilgamesh’s mother.

Line 238. mu-ti here cannot mean “husband,” but “man” in