Position in chronology
A balbale to Inana and Dumuzid (Dumuzid-Inanna C)
Written in modern English
Someone — a brother, perhaps — asks the young woman what she has been doing alone in the house. She answers in detail: she bathed, scrubbed herself with soap from a white stone bowl, rinsed with water from the sacred kettle, and rubbed good oil from a stone bowl into her skin. She dressed herself in Inana's formal robes, lined her eyes heavily with kohl, arranged her hair at the nape of her neck, and washed her long hanging locks. She also readied the weapons that bring good fortune to her lover's reign. The passage breaks off there, with at least one line too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSL"My sister, what have you been doing in the house? Little one, what have you been doing in the house?" "I was bathing, I was rubbing myself with soap. I was washing myself with water from the holy kettle, I was rubbing myself with the soap from the white stone bowl. I was anointing myself with good oil from the stone bowl, and dressing myself in the formal dress proper to Inana. That is how I was busying myself in the house. "I have put lots of kohl on my eyes, I have arranged ...... the nape of my neck. I have washed my dangling hair, I have tested my weapons that make his reign propitious.…
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).
Scholarly note
Composition c.4.08.03 in the ETCSL catalogue. Sumerian literary text reconstructed from multiple cuneiform manuscripts, the great majority Old Babylonian (c. 1900–1600 BCE). Translation reproduced from the ETCSL edition.
Attribution
Image: .
Translation excerpted from ETCSL c.4.08.03: A balbale to Inana and Dumuzid (Dumuzid-Inanna C). Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Robson, E. & Zólyomi, G. (eds.), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.4.08.03.
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