Position in chronology
A song of Inana and Dumuzid (Dumuzid-Inana F1)
Written in modern English
A voice — almost certainly a woman's — describes lying beside her lover on a honey-drenched bed, hand in hand, foot to foot, her lips on his mouth. Two lines are too damaged to read. She compares him to a bracelet on her hand and lapis lazuli at her throat, and calls him precious, bright as silver. He has brought her into his garden, and the poem lingers on two trees — one standing, one lying down — before he lays her down among the dates. Among the apple trees, the fig trees, and what may be willow trees, someone speaks to her, and each time she responds with the same phrase — 'my precious sweet' — though the surface is too cracked to recover what follows.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSL...... my side. ...... on a bed dripping with honey. ...... his hand in my hand. ...... his foot by my foot. ...... my lips on his mouth. 2 lines fragmentary ...... like a bracelet on my hand. ...... lapis lazuli on my neck. ...... like silver ...... of my bridegroom. The brother ...... in his garden. ...... stand ...... his standing tree. ...... lie down ...... his recumbent tree. He laid me down ....... ...... dates. The ...... spoke to me among the apple trees. My precious sweet ...... my head. The ...... spoke to me among the fig trees. My precious sweet ...... my ....... The ...... spoke to me among the willow (?) trees. My precious sweet ....... The ...... spoke to me ....... My precious sweet ...... my .......
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).
Scholarly note
Composition c.4.08.32 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.4.08.32: A song of Inana and Dumuzid (Dumuzid-Inana F1). 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.4.08.32.
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