Position in chronology
A hymn to Kusu
Written in modern English
The hymn opens with a string of fierce invocations: the great butting bull, the torch, the bull of Enki rising aggressively from the abzu — the pure underground waters — and Gibil the fire god, radiating enormous power, his face partially lost to damage. Nun-bar-ana follows, an angry avenger bringing a great torch up from the abzu and lifting his head in divine authority. Then comes a catalogue of sacred materials: the curved horn of a mountain goat, cedar, cypress, juniper, and boxwood, white and black wool, white and black birch, apples and figs strung together, butter flowing from the holy cattle-pen and sheepfold, offerings purified by fire, and reeds bound and set alight. The passage closes with two lines too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSLO angry great butting bull! O torch! O great bull of Enki, standing aggressively, coming forth from the abzu, the pure place! O Gibil the god of fire, ...... the palace ......, as he radiates great awesomeness, his countenance ......! O Nun-bar-ana, angry avenger (?) ......, bringing forth the great torch from the abzu, lifting his head with the noble divine powers! O antler-like horn of a mountain goat! Cedar, cypress, juniper and boxwood, white wool and black wool, white birch and black birch, a string of apples tied to a long string of figs, butter flowing from the holy cattle-pen and sheepfold ...... in the oven and purified by the torch, ...... reeds are tied up and lit ....... 2 lines fragmentary
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).
Scholarly note
Composition c.4.33.2 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.4.33.2: A hymn to Kusu. 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.4.33.2.
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