Ištar and the Zombies

[sovay]

atû mê pita bābka
pita bābkama lūruba anāku
šumma lā tapatta bābu lā erruba anāku
amahhas daltum sikkūru ašabbir
amahhas sippuma ušabalakkat dalāti
ušella mītūti ikkalū baltuti
eli baltuti ima'idū mītūti

Gatekeeper, hey! Open your gate,
open your gate, I would come in.
If you do not open your gate and I do not come in,
I will strike the door, I will break the bolt,
I will strike the doorjamb, I will overthrow the doors.
I will raise up the dead, they will eat the living,
the dead will outnumber the living.

(Lines 14—20 of Ištar's Descent to the Underworld, Akkadian version; manuscript from the library of Aššurbanipal in Nineveh.)

You have no idea how happy I am right now.

Comments

Mmmmmm....

[(Anonymous)]

Mmmmm... akālum baltūti...
baltūti i nīkal...

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's interesting.

(Don't get mad, but I'm only proficient in two languages. And it may be a bit of a stretch as far as the second is concerned...)

[sovay]

Why would I get mad? I'm hardly proficient in Akkadian; I'm just happy that I can finally read "Ištar's Descent" in the original (. . . decently enough that no Assyriologist has yet posted corrections to my livejournal . . .) It's possible I have peculiar ideas of happiness. : P

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was being facetious. LOL. Sorry. I did not mean for you to take that seriously ;)

Hey, a wee moment of your time for two questions

1) Want to read Gone when it's finished? It's *very* different from Saint Iago.

2) Want to read more poems for the collection?

This can wait for however long you need it to.

[spectre-general.livejournal.com]

This is awesome. Historical zombies.

Ainsley told me all about this, and now it must be used somewhere, in some kind of zombies story

[sovay]

. . . That was deeply, deeply wrong.

I approve wholeheartedly.

[spectre-general.livejournal.com]

If you thought THAT was wrong, check out this!

[sovay]

I'm beginning to sense a theme . . .

[oldcharliebrown.livejournal.com]

Will you be posting more excerpts?

[sovay]

I hadn't especially thought to. Is there a mass desire to read more translated Akkadian epic? Unfortunately, there will be no more zombies . . .

[asakiyume]

I came hunting for some of this after reading your today's entry (which I have yet to comment on). All this was before I knew you, another world that I can only see through glass and can't enter, but wow, I love the translation, love that the dead eating the living has been around since Akkadian times, love your joy.

[sovay]

All this was before I knew you, another world that I can only see through glass and can't enter, but wow, I love the translation, love that the dead eating the living has been around since Akkadian times, love your joy.

Thank you.