BM 46336+ (Bab. 9)

Up. edge

1 [By the command of B]ēl and Bēltiya, [may it go well!]

Obv.

i 1 [. . .] . . . [. . .]

i 2 [. . .] . . . [. . .]

i 3 [. . .] . . . fish [. . .]

i 4 [. . .] . . . birds . . . [. . .]

i 5 [. . .] they did not see. The bearer(?) not. . . [. . .]

i 6 [. . .our [go]od one. . . [. . .]

i 7 [. . .] the female musician, he . . . music [. . .]

i 8 . . . as . . . in [. . .]

----

i 9 [Yo]u are my mother, Ištar of Babylon, the beautiful one, queen of the Babylonians.

i 10 [Yo]u are my mother, a date palm of carnelian, the beautiful one, who greatly (surpasses all) the beautiful women.

i 11 (The one) who greatly (surpasses all) the lords, who . . . – his stature is beautiful.

i 12 Who . . . [. . .] . . . of the goddesses.

i 13 . . . and Babylon, the beautiful one, the protective shadow . . .

i 14 . . . Are my words (mere) slander, oh my beautiful? . . . the word(s) you . . .

i 15 . . . the courier of the gods – seizing his life [. . .]

i 16 . . . before Zarpānītu, his beloved, [. . . Ma]rduk [. . .]

i 17 [Zarpanītu, T]ašmētu, seizing his life . . ., Bēl . . . [. . .]

----

i 18 When we went down [to the garden] of yo[ur love], you ordered the guard ...

i 19 . . to the gate . . . wellness, I flourished. Guarding the temple(?) [. . .].

i 20 [One after] the other, the garrison posts of the lady, ditto, o[h chief gardener!]

i 21 . . . is not his wife . . . [. . .]

i 22 . . . who loves me. His wife, to the orchard, the lady . . . [. . .]

i 23 . . . the orchard . . . his wife . . . [. . .]

i 24 . . . inspect(?), to the roof(?) [. . .]

i 25 [. . .] . . . [. . .]

i 26 [. . .] . . . [. . .]

Rev.

r. Col. i'

r. i' 1' [. . .] . . . [. . .]

r. i' 2' [. . .] . . . my son fro[m . . .]

r. i' 3' [. . .] I came up from the grain heapin[g, ]oh Eru’[, your beseeching[ (comes) from the threshin[g floor[.

r. i' 4' [From(?) the tram]pling floor of the wheat (continuation unsolved).

r. i' 5' [Come, l]ord of the beautiful women to pass the month of Ulūlu! During the night of the dis[appearance of the moon (they) will get laid].

r. i' 6' [He of criminals] and prostitutes! He of the threshing [floor] of man . . .

r. i' 7' [He of the t]rampling floor of the wheat, (by) the maidens, the .[ . . .]

----

r. i' 8' [As for me], my [dar]ling, he frightens me. dit[to] (= my darling, he turns to me),

r. i' 9' (saying): “I will raise you high as (a city) wall, I will bring you down as a mo[at!”]

r. i' 10' [“I will break you] like a pomegranate!”, [I will fill (in) you] the area of the drawin[g plan.]

r. i' 11' [I will roll you] like . . . [. . .]

r. i' 12' [I will con]fine you like the beautiful women of the district [. . .]

r. i' 13' Come here, Bēl! Our beautiful women . . . [. . .]

r. i' 14' You will raise me high as a wall, in my shadow the peopl[e . . .]

r. i' 15' You will bring me down like [. . .] . . . [. . .]

r. i' 16' You will break me [. . .]

i' 17' You will roll me like [. . .]

r. i' 18' You will confine me like . . . [. . .]

----

r. i' 19' To me . . . [. . .]

i 11: It should be šá ana m[a-gal] ⌈ba⌉-nu-ú la-an-šú (Lambert 1975, 122) but the traces of the first sign are neither ma nor ul₄ (ul₄.gal = magal), but rather KUR/BU...

i 16: Or possibly ^dEDIN = ^dEru₅?

i 20: aḫammu is a later form of aḫamma. The reduplication aḫammu aḫammu creates an adverbial expression – not attested hitherto – of distributive: “one by one, one after the other” vel sim.

r. i' 6': The text has ḫa-riš^?-tu “a woman in confinement”. Lambert (REF) read ḫa-si-is-tu, i.e., “intelligent one”. The parallels read ḫarimtu which fit well with sarrū “criminals” in the same line. Hence, the lectio difficilior ḫarištu is probably a mistake for ḫarimtu, caused by a scribe writing two LAGAB signs, which look like SAG or si-is, instead of one (= rim).

r. i' 8': Taking the parallel BM 38425 i' 19' into account, the ditto (ki.min) stands for ana ía-a-ši ma-a-ru irta(gaba^ta) x […] “(My) darling, he [turns] to me, (saying)”.

r. i' 12': Contra CAD S 229. 2d, [a-s]i^?-⌈ir⌉-ki-ma (reading follows the parallel Rm II 385 i 5') we take this verbal form as deriving from esērum “to shut in, to enclose, to confine” (CAD E 334f.), not from sêrum. Admittedly, the spellings of the same verb in r. i' 18' with its parallels (BM 46415+ iii' 4': ta-sír-r[a^?-an-ni . . .] and Rm II 385 i 11': ⌈ta⌉-si-ir-r[a-an-ni ...]) suggest a media-weak verb, but it is hard to see how “to plaster, to cover with a clay slip, to rub  a part of the body with medication” makes sense here.