Position in chronology
A balbale to Inana as Nanaya (Inana H)
Written in modern English
The poem opens by praising a goddess worthy of An, her mastery of ladyship without equal — though several lines are too damaged to read, glimpses survive of a throne set for a man in the house, a throne set for a woman in the shrine, and a gold ornament on a garment fastened with a pin. A voice — likely the speaker addressing Nanaya directly — asks to touch her in intimate ways: at her breast, where something sweet as flour waits, and at her navel, though those lines break off before completing the thought. The speaker then urges her to come away from the entrance to the shrine, and one manuscript adds a single extra line: 'Come, my beloved sister, let my heart rejoice.' The surviving fragment ends mid-description, with her hand called womanly and her foot — the surface cracks there and the rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSL"Worthy of An, ......, ...... unsurpassed in ladyship, a throne ...... a man in the house, a throne ...... a woman in the shrine, a gold ornament ...... on the dress, a ...... pin ...... the nijlam garment. "Let me ...... on your ...... -- Nanaya, its ...... is good. Let me (?) ...... on your breast -- Nanaya, its ...... flour is sweet. Let me put ...... on your navel -- Nanaya, ....... Come with me, my lady, come with me, come with me from the entrance to the shrine. May ...... for you. (ms. c adds 1 line: Come my beloved sister, let my heart rejoice.) "Your hand is womanly, your foot is…
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).
Scholarly note
Composition c.4.07.8 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.4.07.8: A balbale to Inana as Nanaya (Inana H). 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.4.07.8.
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