Sumerian disputations

TheSumerian disputation poemorSumerian debateis a genre ofSumerian literaturein the form of adisputation.Extant compositions from this genre date to the middle-to-late 3rd millennium BC. There are six primary poems belonging to this genre. The genre of Sumerian disputations also differs fromAesopicdisputations as the former contain only dialogue without narration. In their own language, the texts are described asadaminin thedoxologiesat the end of the poem, which literally means "contests (between) two".

Scholars have referred to the genre by various other names as well, such as "precedence poems", "debate poems", and so on.The genre outlived its Sumerian form and continued to resonate in texts written inMiddle Easternlanguages for millennia.

The most well-attested of these poems are theHoe and Plowand theEwe and Grain,with over 60 and 70 manuscripts available for each respectively.

Description

Structure

Disputations are poetic and are written in verse. They follows a tripartite structure:

1. Prologue
2. Disputation between two contenders
3. Adjudication scene (where the winner is declared)

The structure is sometimes laid out as five parts, though, with two additional parts listed to signal transitions in the text between the aforementioned (1) and (2), and (2) and (3):

1. Prologue
2. Transition 1 (where the cause for dispute is described)
3. Disputation between two contenders
4. Transition 2 (where at least one party seeks a judge to settle the dispute)
5. Adjudication scene (where the winner is declared)

Features

As dialogues, and unlike fables or other narrative texts, very little narration is present in Sumerian disputations. The contenders are inarticulate objects or creatures, like trees or fish. Unlike dialogues from other cultures or genres which aims to resolve a problem, these disputations aim to establish what is superior.Typically, the winner of the debate is also afforded more speaking time and has higher-quality argument over the course of the dispute.

Each exchange typically involves two speeches and rejoinders on the part of each contender. Common arguments pertain to the utility of lack thereof of what is being debated to humans. The disputation section ends when the contenders decide to appeal to a higher authority, perhaps a god (e.g.EnlilinHoe and Plough) or man (e.g.ShulgiinTree and Reed), to elect the winner. There is some evidence that these disputations were used in public performances.

Prologue

With the exception of theHoe and the Plough,all these poems also contain aSumerian cosmogonydescribing the creation of the cosmos and its creatures (including the two contenders) by the gods.Other Sumerian texts also contain cosmogonical prologues, likeGilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld.The function of these prologues is to not to provide a broad cosmological discourse but instead to introduce the forthcoming subject.

Ending

All disputations end with adoxologyin the following format, where X and Y are the two contenders, and DN is the adjudicator who decides the winner of the dispute:

Sumerian: X Y a-da-mìn dug₄-ga | X Y diri-ga-ba | DN zà-mí

English: Because in the disputation that X held with Y, X prevailed over Y, may DN be praised!C

Comparison with Akkadian disputations

Main article:Akkadian disputations

Sumerian disputations ceased to be copied after theOld Babylonian Period.The oldestAkkadiandisputation poemdates to the 18th century BC, and from this period onwards, it was Akkadian disputation poems that were copied in the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. None of the known Akkadian disputation poems are translations from Sumerian disputations; they use different literary conventions and verse structure, debate different topics, and so on, although the AkkadianTamarisk and Palmhas one Sumerian loanword.Nevertheless, some remarkable phraseological continuity is attested, such as betweenHoe and Ploughwith the AkkadianPalm and Vine,even though two millennia separate their composition.However, there is a weakness to the literature of the Akkadian disputations: even though they are more recent, they are relatively fragmentary compared to the Sumerian disputations. Examples of this include that only a dozen lines survive of theDonkey Disputationand that less than a tenth is now known of theSeries of the Poplarand theSeries of the Fox,which, originally, would have been hundreds of versees in length.

Scholarship

The major work behind the reconstruction of the disputation poems was done by M. Civil during the 1960s. The transliterations and translations subsequently became available on theElectronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature(ETCSL) in the early 2000s: as of 2017, only the content ofTree and Reedis not publicly available in a database.

List of Sumerian disputations

Six major disputations

Since the 1950s, every list of Sumerian disputations have included the six following texts:

1. Debate between the hoe and the plough(CSL5.3.1) (translation)
2. Debate between sheep and grain(CSL 5.3.2)
3. Debate between Winter and Summer(CSL 5.3.3)
4. Debate between tree and reed(CSL 5.3.4)
5. Debate between bird and fish(CSL 5.3.5)
6. Debate between silver and copper(CSL 5.3.6) (translation)

Controversial classifications

Kramer notes several other disputations:

1. Debate between the millstone and the gulgul-stone
2. The Disputation between Enkmansi and Girnishag
3. The Colloquy between an ungula and a Scribe
4. The Disputation between Enkitalu and Enkihegal
5. Disputation between Two School Graduates
6. Disputation between two unnamed ladies

Jimenez identifies another three disputation texts, normally labelled as "epics" or "love poems", with the same basic tripartite structure as the six main poems:

1. Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta (CSL 1.8.2.3)
2. Enmerkar and Ensuḫkešdana (CSL 1.8.2.4)
3. Dumuzi and Enkimdu (CSL 4.8.31) (or: "Disputation between a shepherd and a farmer" )

According to Jimenez, however, these works have features that distinguish them from Sumerian disputations proper: (1) In all six poems except for theHoe and Plough,a cosmogonic prologue is contained; by contrast, none of these additional texts have a cosmogonic prologue (2) Unlike the inanimate objects of the six poems, the contenders in these disputations are humans (3) The six poems only have narration in the introduction but these other disputations have narration throughout the text.

Finally,Tamarisk and Palm(CSL 5.3.7) has been included by some scholars among the Sumerian disputations, but it is a translation of an Akkadian disputation, and so does not belong to the proper corpus of Sumerian literary works. Other works that have been suggested but cannot be properly classified as disputation poems include theSong of the Millstone(CSL 6.2.9),Goose and Raven(CSL 6.2.10), andHeron and Turtle(CSL 6.2.3).

References

Sources

• Brock, Sebastian (2002)."The Dispute Between the Cherub and the Thief".Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies.5(2): 1–13.
• Brock, Sebastian (2009)."The Dispute Poem: From Sumer to Syriac".Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies.1(1): 3–10.
• Gadotti, Alhena (2014).Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld and the Sumerian Gilgamesh Cycle.De Gruyter.
• Jimenez, Enrique (2017).The Babylonian Disputation Poems.Brill.
• Kramer, Samuel Noah(1963). "Literature: The Sumerian Belles-Lettres".The Sumerians: Their History, Culture and Character, Samuel Noah Kramer.University of Chicago Press. pp. 165–228.
• Mittermayer, Catherine (2020). "The Sumerian Precedence Debates: The World's Oldest Rhetorical Exercises?". In Jimenez, Enrique; Mittermayer, Catherine (eds.).Disputation Literature in the Near East and Beyond.De Gruyter. pp. 11–32.ISBN978-1-5015-1021-2.
• Mittermayer, Catherine (2023)."Learning Rhetoric through Sumerian Disputations".In Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago (ed.).Back to School in Babylonia.University of Chicago Press. pp. 181–190.ISBN978-1-61491-099-2.

Further reading

• Reinink, G.J.; Vanstiphout, Herman L.J. (1991).Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East: Forms and Types of Literary Debates in Semitic and Related Literatures.Peeters Publishers.ISBN978-90-6831-341-3.
• Mittermayer, Catherine. "Animals in the Sumerian Disputation Poems" in (eds Mattila et al)Animals and their Relation to Gods, Humans and Things in the Ancient World,Springer, 2019, pp. 175–186.
• Vanstiphout, Herman L.J. (1990). "The Mesopotamian Debate Poems: A General Presentation (Part I)".Acta Sumerologica.12:271–318.
• Vanstiphout, Herman L.J. (1992). "The Mesopotamian Debate Poems: A General Presentation. Part II: The Subject".Acta Sumerologica.14:339–367.

External links

• Disputations or Literary Debates, at Gateway to Babylon