Headlining at Ashurbanipal's Garden Party

Ashurbanipal was the last powerful Assyrian king, ruling from about 668 BC to 627 BC. He is famous for amassing a large library at Ninevah, lion hunting, military accomplishments and extreme cruelty to his enemies.

Which is why I was surprised, on my visit to the British Museum, to see a wall relief called "The Garden Party of Ashurbanipal:"

Here is Ashurbanipal with his queen, reclining in a leafy pavilion. They are drinking wine and being cooled by fans and serenaded by musicians. The king, as is customary, is depicted as slightly taller, and seated slightly higher than anyone else. The detail of the furniture, the instruments, and the plants, is exquisite. I remember seeing this with my husband and commenting how unusual a domestic and romantic scene like this was in Assyrian art. I really liked the queen's crown too.

My husband, like King Ashurbanipal, had his eye on the big picture. "What's on that tree over there," he asked, "...a head?"

Yes, the King is looking over his queen and her crown, at the head of his recently decapitated enemy, King Teumman of Elam, hung festively in a tree.

Well, why settle for a party lantern when you've got an Elam-(l)ite? Say what you will about their garden parties -- the Assyrians knew how to get ahead.

Hercules, Diogenes and Ulysses

Truthfully, I'm not sure the actual title of the fabulous movie referenced above--I think it was "Hercules and the Princess of Troy"--but it featured Hercules, Diogenes and Ulysses. I always liked the combination: one is mythological, one is historical, and one is fictional.  But they're all sailing to(!) Troy and fighting pirates together.

In that spirit, dear reader, I bring you three tag clouds, courtesy of Wordle. One is classical, one is biblical and one is liturgical (from a Jewish poem).  Can you guess which is which?  Extra credit for author or title.  Leave your best guess in the comments!

Mazel tov and bona fortuna!

Gazelles & Warriors in the Song of Songs

The Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) is like a garden in the desert, lush and unexpected. It has more in common with Egyptian love poems than with other books in the Tanach. It's been elaborately allegorized, interpreted in dazzling multiplicity, and called the holy of holies. It's at least 2,000 years old and still packs a poetic punch.

There are many words and phrases that are unique in the Bible and notoriously hard to understand. Here is verse 3, line 5:

I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,   

by the gazelles, and by the hinds of the field,

that ye stir not up, nor awake my love,

till he please.

In context, this line doesn't actually seem too strange. The translators are largely consistent here...with the exception of the Septuagint, which balks at swearing by gazelles and hinds (hinds are young female deer). The phrase in question in Hebrew:

בִּצְבָא֔וֹת א֖וֹ בְּאַיְל֣וֹת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה

Bitz'vaot (by the gazlles) o (or)  b'aylot (by the hinds) hsadeh (of the field)

The Septuagint translates:

ὥρκισα ὑμᾶς θυγατέρες Ιερουσαλημ ἐν ταῖς δυνάμεσιν καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἰσχύσεσιν τοῦ ἀγροῦ ἐὰν ἐγείρητε καὶ ἐξεγείρητε τὴν ἀγάπην ἕως ἂν θελήσῃ

“I have adjured you, o daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and forces of the field,

Do not stir up or awaken love until it wishes.”

Why does the Septuagint translate “by the powers and forces” rather than “by the gazelles and by the does”?

The translator of the Septuagint knows the words as "gazelles and does" and translates them accordingly in Deuteronomy in describing clean and unclean animals. (Deut 12:15, 12:22, 14:5, 15:22). Closer to our passage, the bride compares her lover to a gazelle leaping on the mountains, and the Greek translates "gazelle:" Songs 2:9, 4:5, 7:3, 8:14,  δορκάδι, deer, gazelle, n.f.; in Songs 2:17, δόρκωνι, roe [deer] n.m.. There are two different Greek words but both are for ruminant herbivores, not “powers and forces.” 

So the translator (no surprise) knew what he was reading. But does swearing by gazelles and deer make any sense?  Clearly other translators, like Jerome, saw this as part of the poem's pastoral vibe. But then again, these animals are used elsewhere in the Songs only as part of a metaphor or simile. Moreover they are known for swiftness, as in 2 Samuel 2:18, “Asahel was as quick on his feet as one of the gazelles in the field.” So, the translator might wonder, why swear by a shy animal that would run away?

But what else might these words mean?  The Hebrew word for gazelle, צְבִי (tz'viy) has a second root meaning “beauty, honor” as in the passages Isaiah 13:19, “Babylon, the most admired of kingdoms” and Jeremiah, 3:19, “a beautiful heritage among the armies of nations", nachalat tsviy tsvaot goyim) נַחֲלַת צְבִי צִבְאוֹת גּוֹיִם.

"Beauty" might work as a swear-by but now we have a better choice.  The clue is in Jeremiah’s wordplay: צְבִי צִבְאוֹת, heritage among the armies: צָבָא, army, host.  Heritage=tsviy, (with plural tsvaot) and armies=tsvaot. These root words for "beauty/heritage" and "army" are homonyms...so Jerome sounds like "inheritance of the infantry," only better.

Adonai Tsvaot is Lord of the Hosts, a frequent appellation of God in the Bible. So in fact the verse sounds like "swear by of-the-Hosts"; and “swear by of-the-hosts” could be a read as a shortened form of God's name used out of respect given the context. If I were an Alexandrian Jew, translating my sacred work for a large audience of intellectuals and--heavens forfend--classicists, I might not want to show Jews swearing by animals. (Clean animals, but still). But now I have another interpretation for my tsvaot.

The Greek for Lord of the Hosts: frequently κύριος τῶν δυνάμεων, kurios ton dunameon, (I Kings 18:15, 2 Kings 3:14, Psalm 24:10). So, δυνάμεσιν dunamesin of the field makes sense. δύναμις dunamis means “power, might, strength.”  And "deer" is similar to a word that means "ram" or "oak" or "leaders"; and in it you can hear "El."  Parallelism is the engine of biblical poetry, and isxus, force/strength is a good parallel for dunamis, power.  Isxus also captures the idea of "leaders."

Now we have a nice compromise: the "powers and force of the field" have a nice pastoral quality connoting the numinous powers of the countryside and for the in-crowd, we're really swearing by Jahweh.

                                                                                                                                                        

Michael Fox, in his wonderful "The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs" (The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985) cites a more scholarly and complete version of this argument: 

The best explanation is that of Gordis (1961:26-28), who argues that צְבָא֔וֹת and אַיְל֣וֹת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה are circumlocutions for titles of God, the first for צְבָא֖וֹת אֱלֹהֵי, (God of) Hosts, the second for and El Shadday… The author uses these animal names to avoid divine titles in a secular context…We see here the first sign of a tendency, which becomes important in the Talmudic period, to substitute for divine names and titles in oaths various words, sometimes meaningless words such as “by the fish net” and “by the life of summerfruit.” (Fox, 110)

The "El Shadday" comes from the deer and of-the-field, sadeh. 

So what does the poem say:  armies, gazelles or God?  In a poem filled with wordplay, the answer is surely "yes." Gazelles are often used figuratively of young warriors in the ancient Near East (although the Septuagint translators wouldn't have known that) and the warriors of David make an appearance later in the Song. The circumlocutions for God certainly work; and the gazelles and deer are like the maidens of Jerusalem (all are feminine) and fit the lush pastoral setting.

So knowing all this, we come to the next question: is the speaker, the bride, asking the maidens of Jerusalem to swear by a pun?

“How are you going to make it move? It doesn't have a – "

"Be very quiet," advised the duke, "for it goes without saying."

And, sure enough, as soon as they were all quite still, it began to move quickly through the streets, and in a very short time they arrived at the royal palace.”

― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

I leave it to you, dear reader, to translate.

The Lamassu

I was lucky enough to visit the British Museum last year.  My visit was on a Friday night, about an hour before closing, when it had that magic-twilight empty “night at the museum” quality.  

Friday night in Assyria

In the fabulous Assyrian collection is the lamassu, a winged, human-headed lion. He guarded the entrances into the throne room of King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC).  Lamassus also guarded the gates of cities. According to the British Museum, “The helmet with horns indicates the creature's divinity.”

The museum also has relief panels in its Ninevah room showing the transport of lamassu sculptures. According to the Museum, these guys weighed up to 30 tons. You think they would have carved them in place, but maybe the king didn’t like the hammering.

Their most interesting feature, and one I completely failed to notice, is that lamassus all have five legs. From the front, they appear to be standing firm and protecting the gates, and from the side, striding forward, going forth to protect the city.

Photo from the British Museum -
count the feet!

I wonder how this came about? A mistake? Two sculptures seem from an angle that gave someone a great idea?  Or just one visionary sculptor?  If ever you feel like a fifth wheel, remember lamassu guarding the king from the demons of chaos, and take heart. You’re in good company.  

If you want to read more, here is the British Museum’s  description of the lamassu.

The pleasures of reading in the original

Some of the reasons reading in the original language is so pleasant (aside from the bragging rights):

Connotations: some words don’t have equivalent English word clouds. “Priscus” in Latin means ancient, but also carries the sense of something venerable, noble and pious.  It’s an upright kind of word, and to my ear, distinctly Roman praise. For fun, compare and contrast our use of "gravitas."

Structure: Latin is the obvious example because it has no articles, and doesn't truck much with pronouns or prepositions; it’s all about construction of beautiful clauses.

Hebrew has some flexibility of word order and also has a direct object marker which is attached to definite objects. When God addresses Abraham in Genesis 22 and says, “Abraham, please, could you take (direct object) your son…(direct object) your only one …(sub-clause) whom you love…(direct object) Isaac… ” it does seem a little wordy. God knows perfectly well who Isaac is without all the qualifiers; he was there for the conception.

And then: “... and bring him up as a sacrifice on a mountain.”  Wait, what?  But Abraham just packs his wood and saddles up his donkey. It's the same story, but with a slightly different rhythm.

Speed:  translation slows you down. Especially reading the classics which, let’s face it, you've read in English so many times you can pretty much skim. Moses and the plagues: “and God said,  ‘locusts’ and boom! there were locusts but, still, the Pharaoh wouldn't let the people go, and so on."  

“So Moses held out his rod over the land of Egypt and the Eternal drove an east wind over the land all that day and all night; and when morning came, the east wind had brought the locusts.”

The Hebrew does have some “creation / let there be” elements:  the day and the night, the wind and the morning. But it’s not so much the words that strike me as the detail of that wind that blows all day and night. Whether it makes you think of sky deities or Stephen King, it’s creepy.  And easy to miss if you are breezing (I said it) through the English.

In reading Exodus, with its page after page of wonders, and incident after incident of “murmurings”, (the Israelites doubting Moses) you really start to wonder if the Israelites are...well...idiots. Hey, Israelites, remember the manna? Look at the page across from this one you're on--it's right there.  But then, remember that thing you read yesterday, how cool it was, and how you couldn't see how anyone could ever be bored in this world? And then today, when you could hardly get out of bed? The Israelites had a point: given any length of time, even a page or two, the universe can seem pretty fickle.