Call number
TN-5EA-Geo
Genres
Publication
London ; New York : Penguin Books, 2003.
User reviews
LibraryThing member dorin.budusan
This one really surprised me. I did not expect to like this book so much. There are many interesting aspects about this text even if one leaves aside the fact that it is one of the first things the humankind has ever written. There are many stories in this epic that were later retold by the Bible,
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for example the story about the flood being one of the most famous. The epic ends in a very existentialist note, written some 5000 years before existentialism was officially formulated. Show Less
LibraryThing member Lukerik
I recommend Andrew George’s edition in the Penguin Classics. The others that I’ve seen seen to be either retellings or outdated in that their translators’ understanding of cuneiform is a bit ropey and more fragments have since been discovered. Not that there’s anything wrong with a
What is George does is give the Standard Version first. This is the famous one with analogues of Adam and Eve and the Flood. It’s also the most complete, but where it fragments he fills in with text from older versions. This way you can orient yourself within the story, but he always makes it clear exactly which text you’re reading. There follows a whole host of fragments from the various retellings and versions of the previous centuries and he closes with the unbelievably ancient Sumerian poems.
It’s of much more than academic interest. I found it very funny. I liked the sex scenes between Enkidu and Shamhat the temple prostitute (the Adam and Eve analogues). But then I am a bit of a pervert. It’s also at times very beautiful. This bit is from Tablet VII. Enkidu is dreaming of his own death and a Thunderbird has just struck him and turned him into a dove:
“He bound my arms like the wings of a bird,
to lead me captive to the house of darkness, seat of Irkalla:
to the house which none who enters ever leaves,
on the path that allows no journey back,
to the house whose residents are deprived of light,
where soil is their sustenance and clay their food,
where they are clad like birds in coats of feathers,
and see no light, but dwell in darkness.”
What is that, some sort of progressive parallelism, or is there a technical term for it? Love the way that the meanings of different lines rhyme with each other. And that’s just the bits that can be translated. There’s an appendix that describes the eye-wateringly difficult process of translating cuneiform where he takes a passage through to English and you’re losing alliteration and chiastic structure which have to go if you want to maintain sense and grammar.
There’s also a superb introduction that I think we can all be glad in printed in every single copy.
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retelling. They fulfil an important function. The texts in this book are themselves retellings, but I think there’s something to be said for getting as close to what they appreciated in those days, those far off days as possible.What is George does is give the Standard Version first. This is the famous one with analogues of Adam and Eve and the Flood. It’s also the most complete, but where it fragments he fills in with text from older versions. This way you can orient yourself within the story, but he always makes it clear exactly which text you’re reading. There follows a whole host of fragments from the various retellings and versions of the previous centuries and he closes with the unbelievably ancient Sumerian poems.
It’s of much more than academic interest. I found it very funny. I liked the sex scenes between Enkidu and Shamhat the temple prostitute (the Adam and Eve analogues). But then I am a bit of a pervert. It’s also at times very beautiful. This bit is from Tablet VII. Enkidu is dreaming of his own death and a Thunderbird has just struck him and turned him into a dove:
“He bound my arms like the wings of a bird,
to lead me captive to the house of darkness, seat of Irkalla:
to the house which none who enters ever leaves,
on the path that allows no journey back,
to the house whose residents are deprived of light,
where soil is their sustenance and clay their food,
where they are clad like birds in coats of feathers,
and see no light, but dwell in darkness.”
What is that, some sort of progressive parallelism, or is there a technical term for it? Love the way that the meanings of different lines rhyme with each other. And that’s just the bits that can be translated. There’s an appendix that describes the eye-wateringly difficult process of translating cuneiform where he takes a passage through to English and you’re losing alliteration and chiastic structure which have to go if you want to maintain sense and grammar.
There’s also a superb introduction that I think we can all be glad in printed in every single copy.
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LibraryThing member LibroLindsay
It was alright...actually my cooperating teacher has a version geared toward a younger audience, which is a lot more forthright than this translation. I'd be interested in learning Sumerian and translating it for myself. :) We're using it along with Siddhartha to teach about "the hero." I like
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Siddhartha better. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Language
Original language
Akkadian
Physical description
lv, 228 p.; 19.7 cm
ISBN
9780140449198