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Akkadian poetry: metre and performance*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

M. L. West
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Despite scholarly efforts that now extend over more than a century, the governing principles of Akkadian verse remain elusive. It is obviously not based, like Greek or Latin verse, on the counting and measuring of syllables. The idea that it is based on the counting of accentual peaks has a much greater immediate appeal. There are long stretches of poetic texts that seem amenable to analysis on these lines. Most scholars would be willing to recognize the existence of a “standard” Vierheber, a verse with four apparent accentual peaks, giving the sense of a balance of two against two, as in Enūma eliš I 47–50:

īpulma Mummu / Apsû imallik,

sukkallum lā māgiru / milik mummīšu:

“Hulliqamma, abī, / alkata ešīta;

urriš lū šupšuhāt, / mūšiš lū ṣallāt.”

This measure may be called “standard” because it occurs at all periods, and in many texts it predominates. But everywhere we find shorter lines interspersed, on no discernible principle, and often longer ones too. The shorter lines generally have three apparent accents, but on occasion only two, while the longer ones may have five or six. According to A. E. Housman,

To think that two and two are four

And neither five nor three

The heart of man has long been sore

And long 'tis like to be.

But what vexes the Akkadian metrician's heart, if he has one, is

To think that two and two are four

but sometimes five or three.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 59 , 1997 , pp. 175 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1968 

Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented in a seminar at the Oxford Oriental Institute on 31 January 1995. I am grateful to the participants for their interest and their constructive comments.

References

1 I list here the main discussions of Akkadian metrics known to me: Zimmern, H., ZA 8 (1893), pp. 121–4Google Scholar; 10 (1895), pp. 1–24; 11 (1896), pp. 86–8; 12 (1897), pp. 382–92; Delitzsch, F., Das babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos (Leipzig, 1896), pp. 60–8Google Scholar; Sievers, E., ZA 38 (1929), pp. 1–36 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; de Liagre Böhl, F. M. Th., JEOL 15 (1957–1958), pp. 141–53Google Scholar (in Dutch; shortened French version in Garelli, P. (ed.), Gilgameš et sa légende (CRRA 7, Paris, 1960), pp. 145–52Google Scholar); Kuryłowicz, J., Studies in Semitic Grammar and Metrics (Polish Academy, 1972), pp. 177–87Google Scholar; Groneberg, Brigitte, Untersuchungen zum hymnisch-epischen Dialekt der altbabylonischen literarischen Texte (Münster Diss., 1972), pp. 129–67Google Scholar; Hecker, Karl, Untersuchungen zur akkadischen Epik (AOATS 8, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1974), pp. 101–60Google Scholar; Soden, W. von, ZA 71 (1981), pp. 161–204 and 74 (1984), pp. 213–34Google Scholar; Fehling, D. in Tristram, H. L. C. (ed.), Metrik und Medienwechsel. Metrics and Media (Tübingen, 1991), pp. 23–31 Google Scholar.

2 RLA 8 (1993), p. 149 Google Scholar s.v. Metrik: “Irgendwelche über längere Strecken bestehende Regelmäßigkeiten lassen sich nicht nachweisen.”

3 Lambert, W. G., JCS 16 (1962), pp. 66 f., 76 Google Scholar.

4 Lines 72(?), 235, 238. It is possible that one or two more occurred in the broken passages. In 72 one may find a Vierheber by invoking a secondary accent on il-ligimîyāma. But 235 and 238 offer no such escape.

5 For details see W. G. Lambert's edition in his Babylonian Wisdom Literature.

6 Al-Rawi, F. N. H. and Black, J. A., JCS 46 (1994), pp. 131–9Google Scholar. In the case of the Uruk manuscript of Tablet VII (LKU no. 38), to which the authors refer as a parallel, the left side of the tablet is broken away and only one segmentation-line is visible. It is not clear to me whether a second one further left is to be postulated. The distribution of the text to left and right of the segmentation-line seems erratic; sometimes it breaks a word in two. This copy is unusable as evidence.

7 Kuryłowicz (as n. 1), pp. 179–81.

8 Kuryłowicz, pp. 181–3.

9 Lines 8, 57, 70, 252, 254, 256, 266, 277, 291, 294. Cf. Kuryłowicz, pp. 183 f., who regards these as three-stress lines.

10 Similarly Enūma eliš I 10 (cf. III 4, 68, 125) Lahmu–Lahamu, 12 Anšar-Kišar, 109 urra u mūsa, 130 mūša u immu, III 11 i'ir alik, 132 ahu ahi; Adapa B 49 Dumuzi Gizzida.

11 Edited by B. Groneberg (as in n. 1), pp. 29–94, and RA 75 (1981), pp. 107–34Google Scholar; cf. Hecker, pp. 88–98.

12 On the tablet the line-divisions in the second half of the excerpt come after ṣerrēt, ukīʾal, and ištarātašin.

13 Edited by von Soden, W., ZA 44 (1938), pp. 32 ffGoogle Scholar.

14 Following the reading in CAD Z 105b.

15 As in the first two tablets at I 45 f., 67 f., 157 f.; II 1 f., 43 f., 65 f., 71 f., 77 f., 143 f., 153 f. On I 1–8 see the Epimetrum at the end of the present paper.

16 ZA 71 (1981), p. 169 Google Scholar.

17 Instances are listed by Hecker, p. 110.

18 Ludlul II 73–9, 84–5, 106–9, III 13–16, etc.Google Scholar; Counsels of Wisdom 31–9, 41–6, 135–47; Hecker, pp. 111 f.

19 “Die Einführung der direkten Rede in den epischen Texten”, ZA 46 (1940), pp. 225–35Google Scholar.

20 VII 145–8, 157 f.; cf. LKA 62 rev. 7–9 Google Scholar, “Let me ever sing of Aššur's strong victory … May the earlier man hear and rep[eat it] to the later.”

21 Tukulti-Ninurta epic, vi (B rev.) 30′–2′; Shamash hymn for Assurbanipal, KAR 361 obv. 1 ffGoogle Scholar.

22 Pedersén, O., Archives and Libraries in the City of Assur 2 (Uppsala, 1986), pp. 34–41 Google Scholar.

23 The above paragraph is an abridged excerpt from a fuller discussion of oral performance and transmission in Mesopotamia in my book The East Face of Helicon (Oxford, 1997), pp. 590–9Google Scholar.

24 We can do this in English verse: when there is a variable number of unstressed syllables between the stressed ones, we make the stresses equidistant, speeding up the intervening syllables if there are more of them, slowing them down if there are less. But the number of these syllables is limited to between zero and two. If we try to put in more, a secondary accent automatically develops among them and the rhythm is ruined. In Akkadian verse no such constraint applies. We cannot here be dealing with a system of equally spaced stresses as in English. It is inconceivable that the same time-slot could be filled now by one, now by six or seven syllables: either the one would have to be unbearably dragged out, or the six gabbled at a ridiculous speed.

25 CRRA 7, p. 146 Google Scholar: “On s'attend précisément, dans les poèmes épiques, à une régularité plus grande que celle que pourrait offrir la métrique verbale qui est plus simple.”

26 ZA 71 (1981), p. 169 Google Scholar.

27 The reader curious for longer specimens will find about fifty pages of them in von Soden's two articles in ZA.

28 From the poem “Allow Me, Madam, but It Won't Help” in Ogden Nash, Good Intentions.

29 Landsberger, B., Islamica 2 (1926/1927), p. 371 Google Scholar: “jeder akkadische Vers endet auf einen Trochäus”. Soden, Von, ZA 71 (1981), pp. 170–2Google Scholar, strains to eliminate exceptions.

30 Hecker, pp. 102–8, has collected scores of exceptions and classified them. Some of them may be only apparent, for example proper names of Sumerian origin such as An(n)u, Anunnak(k)ū, Gilgameš (or Gišgimmaš, or however it was read; CAD writes Gilgāmeš), Ereškigal (written at Amaraa -ki-i-ga-a-al), and others. A form such as šamê, found several times at line-end, may conceal the older form šamāʾī(cf. Atram-hasis (OB) I 101 Google Scholar [ša]-me-e as against I 19 š]a-ma-i, 170 ša-ma-i (v.1. -m]a-mi), III ii 35, iii 7, 48; Agušaya A iv 1 a-gu-ú as against U 16889 ( UET VI 395 Google Scholar; Lambert, W. G. in Abusch, T. et al. [eds.], Lingering over Words. Studies … in Honor of William L. Moran, Harvard Semitic Studies 37, Atlanta 1990, p. 291 Google Scholar) obv. 7 šar-ru-um ša a-ga-i; B. Groneberg [as n. 1], p. 158). Some of the exceptions are statives of the paris type, which at least have the accent on the penultimate syllable.

31 Descent of Ishtar 14–20.

32 Atr. I 91–8Google Scholar.

33 Margalit, B., The Ugaritic Poem of AQHT. Text, Translation, Commentary (Berlin & New York, 1989), pp. 495–500 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Margalit also recognizes a higher-order unit, the paragraph or strophe, comprising between three and seven stichoi.

34 From κόμμα, the smallest subdivision of the sentence (smaller than a colon) recognized by Greek rhetoricians.

35 The system used for the principal poetic books (Psalms, Proverbs, and Job) differs from that used in the other 21 books, though it has common elements; it is richer and more complicated, though fewer different types of accent are distinguished, and it is presumably older, as the need to notate the delivery of the Psalms and other poetry would have been felt earlier than the need to regulate prose readings. The actual signs used are related to Byzantine neumes and punctuation-marks.

36 Cf. Idelsohn, A. Z., “Parallelen zwischen gregorianischen und hebräisch-orientalischen Gesangweisen”, Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft 4 (1922), pp. 515–24Google Scholar; id., Jewish Music in its Historical Development (New York, 1929)Google Scholar; Wagner, P., “Der gregorianische Gesang”, in Adler, G., Handbuch der Musikgeschichte (Frankfurt am Main, 1930), i. 77 Google Scholar; Sendrey, A., Music in Ancient Israel (New York, 1969), pp. 228–33Google Scholar.

37 I collected some references on this point in the Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 63 (1986), pp. 43 f.Google Scholar; see also Lane, E. W., Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (Everyman, ed.), p. 398 Google Scholar; various writers in Hatto, A. J. (ed.), Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry 1 (London, 1980), pp. 107 Google Scholar (Old French), 202 (Serbo-Croat), 225 (Ob-Ugrian), 294 f. (Mongol), 304 f. (Kirghiz), and vol. 2 (London, 1989), p. 98(Uzbek); Gerson-Kiwi, E. in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ix, p. 638 Google Scholar (Yemen); Pandey, S. M., The Hindi Oral Epic Canainī (Allahabad, 1982), p. 58 Google Scholar.

38 I am grateful to Professor W. G. Lambert for his comments on the idea, which does not persuade him.