An elegy on the death of Nawirtum (Elegy 2)

Translation · reference

High confidence

An evil day ...... upon the maiden in her ....... Upon the fair woman, the well-favoured maiden, the evil eye ....... Upon the fledgling overstepping its nest, a net has ....... The fecund mother, the mother of children, is ...... by a snare. The yellow cow, the fertile (?) wild cow, ...... like a gakkul vessel. Nawirtum, the fertile (?) wild cow, ...... like a gakkul vessel. She who never said "I am sick" was not cared for. She who did not ...... did not ...... the divine place. Like their resting-place, their hurled ...... was not ....... Nibru is covered in fog (?); in the city .......…

Source: ETCSL c.5.5.3: An elegy on the death of Nawirtum (Elegy 2). 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.5.5.3

Why it matters

Transliteration

Scholarly note

Composition c.5.5.3 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.5.5.3: An elegy on the death of Nawirtum (Elegy 2). 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.5.5.3.

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