Position in chronology
A song of Inana and Dumuzid (Dumuzid-Inana R)
Written in modern English
Inana is praised in cascading refrains: she has a glossy, flowing mane, the crest of an ibex, and the shimmering colour of a heaped pile of grain — beautiful enough for a king, beautiful enough for Dumuzid. She is a full-grown shock of two-row barley, ripened to perfection. Then her own voice breaks in: she is queen, she is maiden, she is seed brought forth by An himself, she is fine oil and sweet perfume — all lines that trail off into damaged sections too broken to read. The passage closes with a repeated image of someone mooring a boat, but both lines are too fragmentary to recover their full meaning.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSLMaiden, glossy mane, lovely beauty, Inana, glossy mane, lovely beauty! Maiden, mane of the ibex, ...... red deer, ...... red deer, Inana, mane of the ibex, ...... red deer, ...... red deer! Maiden, colourful as a pile of grain, fit for the king, Inana, colourful as a pile of grain, fit for Dumuzid! Maiden, you are a shock of two-row barley, fully developed in loveliness, Inana, you are a shock of two-row barley, fully developed in loveliness! I am the queen, I am the queen, I am ...... full of loveliness! I am the maiden, I am the queen, I am ...... full of loveliness! I am the queen, seed engendered by An, I am ...... full of loveliness! I am good oil, good oil, ...... sweet perfume! ...... may he moor the boat ....... ...... may he moor the boat .......
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).
Scholarly note
Composition c.4.08.18 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.4.08.18: A song of Inana and Dumuzid (Dumuzid-Inana R). 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.4.08.18.
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