Gilgamesh, o la angustia por la muerte (poema babilonio).

Pardo, Jose Gonzalo Rubio

This is the second edition of the first Spanish translation of Gilgamesh, made directly from the original Akkadian.(1) Until now, only the Hittite version had received such an honor (A. Bernabe, Textos Literarios Hetitas [Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1987], 93-115).

The book is intended for both the layman and the scholar from other fields. Thus, Silva tries to avoid the traditional philological conventions, substituting others that are easier to follow: the restoration of broken words or signs is indicated by italics, full (ad sensum) restorations by brackets, and, where the Old Babylonian version is used to fill a textual gap, it is given in a different font. Also, the traditional division into tablets is replaced by thematic chapters, although keeping the conventional humeration of tablets, columns, and lines.

The subtitle the translator gives the poem, la angustia por la muerte ("Anguish over Death"), along with the introduction and notes, alerts the reader to the Weltanschauung of the epic. In that sense, it is the opposite of such modern works as, for example, Gunter Dux's Liebe und Tod im Gilgamesh-Epos: Geschichte als Weg zum Selbstbewusstsein (Vienna: Passagen, 1992), where Dux seems to rethink Gilgamesh in the light of der Engel der Geschichte of the ninth thesis of W. Benjamin's Uber den Begriff der Geschichte (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1991), 691-764 - especially pp. 697-98, a reflection (illumination) on Paul Klee's painting Angelus Novus.

The introduction initiates the reader into the historical and literary context of the poem. Many footnotes help to explain diverse passages, including fragments of the Hittite version which allegedly complement some of the broken parts of the Akkadian epic. At the end, several philological notes address assorted problems of interpretation.

Tablet twelve is translated in an appendix, following the communis opinio among scholars and ignoring some recent revisionist approaches, such as, for instance, N. Vulpe ("Irony and the Unity of the Gilgamesh Epic," JNES 53 [1994]: 275-83), who defends the unity of the twelve tablets of the epic but ignores the strong linguistic, thematic, and structural arguments against that view (see S. N. Kramer, "The Epic of Gilgames and its Sumerian Sources," JAOS 64 [1944]: 22-23; J. H. Tigay, The Evolution of Gilgamesh Epic [Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1982], 5, 26-27, 49; A. Shaffer, "Sumerian Sources of Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgames" [Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1963], 43, 146). Because of its content, S. Parpola's similar assumption ("The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy," JNES 52 [1993]: 192-95) would deserve a very detailed comment which exceeds the limits of this review. One may argue that any proof of the unity of an epic work should follow W. Schadewaldt's procedure for the Hiad (Iliasstudien [Leipzig: Hirzel, 1938]), based on the study of book XI as a preparation (Vorbereitung) for the rest of the epic, and books I-IX as a postponing or deferring (Aufschub) of book XI - book X being an addition. It is interesting that H. N. Wolff (A Study in the Narrative Structure of Three Epic Poems: Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, Beowulf [New York: Garland, 1987]), who, like Vulpe, uses a comparative approach, seems not to mention Gilgamesh tablet twelve anywhere. It is easy to find modern examples of these "unreal presences" (paraphrasing Steiner): Antoine Galland inserted his translation of Sinbad in his Les Mille et Une Nuits (12 vols.; Paris, 1704-17), although the story of the sailor is not present in any of the manuscripts of Alf Layla wa-Layla, and clearly is not part of that work (see M. Mahdi, The Thousand and One Nights, part 3 [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994], 17-20, 190).

Silva succeeds in his effort to give both a literary and a philologically accurate translation. Having said that, one can, however, disagree with him in some points of this translation. For instance, in 1.1, although the translation of the first edition (Hard que el mundo conozca / a quien penetro en el abismo) is improved now (Hare que el mundo conozca / a aquel que rio el abismo), Silva continues to understand nagbu as "abyss" mainly because of the parallel with [sa ta-ma-a]-ti, as Oppenheim proposed ("Mesopotamian Mythology II," Or., n.s., 17 [1948]: 17). However it should be recalled that there are two nagbus, one meaning both "spring, fountain" and "underground water," and the other meaning "totality, all" (CAD, N/1: 108-11; AHw: 710-11). The gap at the beginning of line two is reconstructed [sa kul-la]-ti by many scholars (Campbell Thompson, Speiser, Dalley, Pettinato, Tournay), although [sa ta-ma-a]-ti (Oppenheim, Schott-von Soden, Matous, Diakonoff, Silva) or [sa kib-ra-a]-ti (Heidel, Wilcke, Gallery-Kovacs) are also possible. Nevertheless, the parallel sa nagba imuru//sa kullati idu seems to be regarded as the most likely.

On minor points, it must first be remarked that, though Sham-hat may have a meaning (p. 200, n. 24), it is a proper name (see I. M. Diakonoff, Epos o Gilgamese [Moscow: Akademija Nauk, 1961], 149; and his reviews of F. M. Th. de Liagre Bohl, Het Gilgamesj Epos [Amsterdam, 1958], and L. Matous, Epos o Gilgamesovi [Prague, 1958], in BiOr 18 [1961]: 62a). Second it is interesting that for most Sumerian names Silva puts the stress on the last syllable (Enkidu, Ninsun, Sumuqan). It is clear that, even if Sumerian is a tonal language (A. Falkenstein, Das Sumerische [Leiden: Brill, 1959], 23), it also has stress (as is the case, for example, also for Chinese; see J. Norman, Chinese [Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988], 148-49; similarly for Japanese; see M. Shibanati, The Languages of Japan [Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990], 177-84). Regarding proper names, it is very difficult to decide where the stress was, but some clues lead us to infer that, for instance, Sumuqan must be Sumuqan (/sumaqan/), if one accepts J. Krecher's interpretation of the non-orthographic Sumerian writing su-mu-un-ga-an ("Verschlusslaute und Betonung im Sumerischen," Lisan mithurti: Festschrift W. F. yon Soden [Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1969]: 179).

In my review of the first edition of this book (JNES, forthcoming), I congratulated Silva on the literary quality of his translation, while noting some technical mistakes and typographical errors. The popularity of the first edition precluded any correction of the minor problems, since the author was called upon to provide a second edition almost immediately, leaving time only for some stylistic corrections in the translation. Thus the main aim of the work, providing a readable translation for the Spanish-speaking public, has been advanced. [A third edition of this book (1996) has now appeared. -ed.]

One can only welcome and be grateful for Silva's translation, hoping that further editions will present a book free of typographical errors.

JOSE GONZALO RUBIO PARDO JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

1 Jerrold S. Cooper and Philip Jones kindly read earlier drafts of this review, sharing with me their comments. Responsibility for the ideas expressed, however, is entirely mine.