Style and Form in Old Babylonian Literary Texts.

Fritz, Michael

Style and Form in Old Babylonian Literary Texts. By NATHAN WASSERMAN. Cuneiform Monographs, vol. 27. Leiden: BRILL-STYX, 2003. Pp. xxvii + 239.

In his book about style and form in Old Babylonian Akkadian literary texts Nathan Wasserman tries to establish "a wide perspective of the more prominent features of the Old Babylonian literary system, aiming to arrive at general conclusions regarding its distinctive style and to define what singles it out from prose texts" (p. 1). These features are Hendiadys, Tamyiz, Damqam-inim, Merismus, Simile, and Rhyming Couplets. These titles show that the author appropriately deals with Akkadian literature in the light of its own character and in the context of comparative Semitic studies.

Using the complete literary corpus of a single period, the author is able to analyze the use of elements of style and form in the entire Akkadian literature of that time. So he gives a broader basis of examples than a study of a single literary genre would offer--bearing in mind that due to the incidental and fragmentary nature of what we have, as the author states the field of "Mesopotamian literature is constantly undergoing a process of redefinition and expansion" (p. 175).

Welcome is the survey of the scholarly discussion given at the beginning of every chapter, and the author's special attention to the distribution of style according to the different literary genres in his conclusions of each single chapter.

Unavoidable in research of such an extent, some of his examples require discussion. In the first chapter about hendiadys (pp. 5-28) Wasserman distinguishes between nominal and verbal hendiadys. A little confusing, to my mind, is the use of the term hendiadys in the case of verbal expressions using words like redum, bitrum, kanum, sanum, tarum, hiasum, gamarum, wasabum, magarum and le'um, Wasserman's database for verbal hendiadys (pp. 19-22). Are these examples really the same as nominal hendiadys? Or are these intransitive verbs with a meaning like "do a second time, repeat," "endure," etc., not only a mere possibility in Akkadian for the verbal expression of repetition, duration, willingness and so on, without being hendiadys, and is the hendiadys inherent only to our translation? Buccellati's "coordinative adjunctivation" (p. 17) is preferable in my mind for this kind of construction, since it separates the matter clearly from nominal hendiadys.

It should be stated that Wasserman chose his examples with commendable scientific caution, separating them from circumstantial clauses by excluding equivocal sentences without congruency of tenses (p. 23). Only two examples do not necessarily belong in this chapter (both p. 22): alki in example 15.1.2 seems to me to be rather an interjection, cf. Sumerian a-n a or a-n a m, (1) which has the same meaning: le'um is a verb of inner condition and is not part of hendiadys; the example shows a sequence tele''i (prs.) ... tasdud (prt.), which is a general-continuative case of the past. (2) Nevertheless, this minor criticism doesn't affect Wasserman's conclusions about the generic distribution and the main functions of hendiadys (pp. 27-28). Nevertheless the observations on the use of verbal hendiadys in Akkadian literature (pp. 16-18) are undoubtedly very useful.

The examples of nominal hendiadys listed by Wasserman (pp. 6-13) are all characterized by a clear relationship, either part-whole, substance-entity, or complementary-inclusive (p. 16). Only one example (p. 11, no. 5.3.1) in table 1 (p. 14) has the "wrong" sequence, being the only literary source to do so. But is this really hendiadys? In most of the sources, as Wasserman points out, surru and naglabu are joined by u, "and." Unfortunately a determinative for metal or stone is missing before naglabu here, but many of the other passages (3) show a connection with metal or metalwork. The use both of flint knives and metal knives in medicine was usual in ophthalmic surgery until the invention of laser technology. Wasserman's suggestion of a scribal mistake or haplography would eliminate a problem and unify the collection of examples for nominal hendiadys. A minor point concerns the interpretation of [.sup.gis.gidru] ni-si-sa (p. 13). It is not necessarily a genitive construction and corresponds fully with the Akkadian version of the inscription. (4)

Perhaps the most important chapters of the study are those about Tamyiz (pp. 29-43) and Damqaminim (pp. 45-60). After a short but valuable introduction to the phenomenon (pp. 29-30, 45-46), Wasserman gives a summary of previous treatments of parallel phenomena in other Semitic languages (pp. 30-31, 46) and in Assyriological literature (pp. 31, 46-47). This enables the reader to establish his own approach to the themes, not only in Akkadian, but also in other Semitic languages. Therefore the book is a highly accessible work not only for the Assyriologist, but also for comparative studies in literature. In these chapters Wasserman again shows his scientific thoroughness, separating out similar, but not identical, constructions (pp. 39-40, 53-55), which he treats nevertheless in a few small paragraphs. I only doubt whether example 2.1.5 (p. 32) is really a Tamyiz construction; isn't it rather an asyndetic relative clause? This is hard to decide, because the nominative form of lubustu(m) with the possessive suffix (here the feminine possessive suffix) is also lubustasa. Note that the stative form is followed by -ma, and that this example is in the paragraph about "possessive pronouns added to the POSSESSUM" (pp. 35-36), the only one with word order noun with possessive suffix + stative (+ma), whereas the usual order is stative + noun with possessive suffix. For that I would prefer an interpretation as an asyndetic relative clause. Similarly, rasbatam kalissa in ex. 2.1.1 (p. 47) in my opinion isn't to be treated with Damqam-inim constructions, for it uses a possessum in the terminative adverbial instead of in the genitive. It should rather be treated as a related construction (pp. 53-55). It is noteworthy that this example is the only one in the chapter where the possessum is followed by a possessive suffix (cf. p. 51).

One of the longest chapters of the book is that about simile (pp. 99-156). The list of examples (pp. 104-30) according to genre and syntactic categories is as impressive as the extensive analysis (pp. 130-46). Besides researching the syntactic (p. 130) semantic categories (pp. 135-40), Wasserman provides a chapter on form, distribution, and position of the simile-markers, which is a very welcome tool for understanding Akkadian grammar. At this point a detailed discussion of M. Streck's detailed analysis of simile and metaphor in Akkadian epics (5) would have been desirable, although there are at least some hints about this work at the beginning of the chapter (pp. 99-101).

In the concluding discussion (pp. 146-56) Wasserman classifies various types of simile and tries to find an explanation for the use of images of the running chicks (p. 154), the flying bird (p. 155), the wild bull (pp. 155-56) and naval vessels (p. 156).

This book is completed by a useful catalogue of all Old Babylonian and some Middle Babylonian literary texts (pp. 187-224), including hymns, epics, incantations, dialogues, riddles, proverbs, love-lyrics, funeral texts, letters to gods, and even a royal inscription of Ipiq-Istar of Malgium and of the prologue to the Codex Hammurapi. In the catalogue Wasserman lists for each of his 275 compositions the cuneiform text, the main edition (or editions), genre, museum number and designation. This will be a useful compilation for all kinds of research in the theme.

This monograph will be a cornerstone of all further research not only into Akkadian literature, but also of those into style and form in all the other languages of the ancient Near East.

MICHAEL FRITZ

FREISING

1. For this interjection in Sumerian, see M. Thomsen. "The Sumerian Language," Mesopotamia vol. 10 (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1984), 86.

2. See M. P. Streck, "ittasab ibakki 'weinend setzte er sich,'" Or 64 (1995): 44.

3. Cf. W. von Soden, AHw vol. 2 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1972), 711.

4. Cf. A. Falkenstein, Grammatik der Sprache Gudeas von Lagas, II (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1978), 38.

5. M. P. Streck, Die Bildersprache der akkadischen Epik (Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1999).