II. TWO MORPHOLOGICAL PARALLELS TO THE JONAH STORY
2.2.1 The Lugalbanda Story as Wondertale
From the sixth millennium BCE up to the early 2nd millennium BCE the southern part of modern-day Iraq, very near to the Persian Gulf, was populated by peoples we call the Sumerians, after their name for that land. Their legacy to modern civilization is enormous because they devised the earliest known writing system. And though the Sumerians were likely not the earliest peoples to inhabit this region, their success at
107 This story is also known simply as "The Shipwrecked Sailor" in some scholarship but I will follow Miriam Lichtheim's title for the piece.
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administrative programs makes them among the earliest peoples we can study. The very earliest texts that may be "read" are pictographic tallies and economic records, dating to around 3200-3000 BCE from Uruk. Sumerian had become a language of stature and erudition in the Sargonic court, and it experienced a second flourishing during a period known conventionally among scholars as Ur III period.108 Narratives that had been most likely transmitted through the spoken word found written form during the Ur III
period.109
One such tradition survives in a two-part narrative concerning Lugalbanda, a legendary king of the Sumerian principality of Uruk. These tales are part of a larger cycle chronicling the struggles between Uruk and the distant city-state of Aratta.110 Collectively these two epic texts are sometimes referred to as the "Lugalbanda cycle" or, individually, as Lugalbanda I (or "Lugalbanda in Hurrumkurra") and Lugalbanda II (or
"Lugalbanda and Enmerkar"). Their provenance is unclear but there is much reason to believe that although these are two distinct works in all surviving copies they were treated as companion pieces even in antiquity, and current scholarship usually follows suit. Most philologists recognize that, ―neither of them is a complete story without the other‖111 and that, "The two poems can best be seen as interrelated as two parts of one
108 Academic shorthand for the ‗third dynasty‘ of Ur, from the Sumerians' own division of their history.
109 Nick Veldhuis has noted the complications inherent of our understanding of the history of Ur III literary texts. He summarizes, "We may date tablets, but only rarely may we date compositions. Literary
compositions existed in a more or less fluid state." Veldhuis, "Sumerian Literature," in Cultural Repertoires: Structure, Function and Dynamics (ed. Gillis J. Dorleijn and Herman L.J. Vanstiphout;
Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 29-43.
110 The other two tales are not linked to one another as the Lugalbanda poems are. Enmerkar is their primary protagonist. These are known conventionally as ―Enmerkar and Enšuḫgirana‖ and ―Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.‖ Rather than simply framing the critical action of the epic, as is the case with the Lugalbanda poems, the conflict and competition with Aratta are at the heart of these epics‘ content.
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cycle of tales."112 The latter opinion suggests that the received text of the Lugalbanda material is an aggregate of units which were initially separate or, perhaps, an amalgam of competing traditions. Regardless of whichever possibility is closer to truth, it cannot be denied that both as a literary text and as a narrative the Lugalbanda poems reflect a high level of refinement and manipulation of its parts. There is some evidence to suspect that the story draws upon thematic precedents.113
Folklore is inherently pliable, and we recognize folkloric features as those flexible, universal elements which may crop up across cultures, such as the repetition of the number three. Epic, on the other hand, is a literary form concerning the persons and events important to a particular nation or culture. Thus Lugalbanda (like Jonah ben Amittai) is given an historical context and his purported deeds are portrayed as foundational to Uruk's socio-political identity. These categories are not mutually exclusive, and the survival of the story as epic does not at all preclude a folkloristic reading of the Lugalbanda narrative; epics especially are saturated with folkloric content since they often incorporate sequences from share many leitmotifs with wondertales. The Lugalbanda poems, for example, employ stock characters such as the hero's brothers whose limited contributions and anonymity suggest a folktale situation over an historical one. Lugalbanda's historicity is clouded by folkloric details and the hero himself is
111 Vanstiphout, Epics of Sumerian Kings, 97; After reviewing the arguments, Jeremy Black acknowledges the separate literary traditions of the poems, but maintains that, 'Lugalbanda can be treated as a complete work of literature in its own right.' and he makes note of "certain implied narrative references" between the two; Reading Sumerian Poetry, 69, 122.
112 Bendt Alster, "Interaction of Oral and Written Poetry in Early Mesopotamian Literature," in Mesopotamian Epic Literature: Oral or Aural? (ed. Marianna Vogelzang and Herman Vanstiphout;
Lampeter, UK: University of Wales Press, 1992), 23-69; cf. Claus Wilcke Das Lugalbandepos (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1969).
113 Sol Cohen notes variations in some of the younger epic texts concerning Aratta written in Old Babylonian; ―Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta‖ (PhD diss., The University of Pennsylvania, 1973), 13.
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characterized archetypally. Several facts support the assertion that he exists more as a legendary folk hero more than as an historical personage: his name114 his legacy as the husband of the goddess Ninsun in the Fara god-lists, and the fantastic nature of his feats.115 The Lugalbanda poems (and the other two Aratta poems, for that matter) are set in a world of fantastic and magical happenings. Other folkloric qualities abound here as well: normally no more than two characters are active at one time, repetition occurs threefold, characterization is simple, and so forth.116 Therefore, there are hints that this literary epic is shaped heavily by fantasy, most likely by the adaptation of a wondertale or series of tales to epic length and form.117 I follow the opinion of Bendt Alster: "I do not [italics his] want to say that our poems are folktales, but that they draw upon a popular narrative tradition which permeates them in many ways."118
Every Mesopotamian literary narrative, irrespective of whether it was passed orally by the Volk prior to its written form or not, was the creation of a literate elite that was able to produce poetry worthy of a highly developed aesthetic. This is where the
114The translation ―junior king‖ is offered by William W. Hallo. If accurate, the king‘s name is even more meaningful given my argument that he matures into his kingship through his trials in the mountains. The Ancient Near East (New York: Harcourt, 1971), 45; another proposed translation is "dancing king."
115 But if Lugalbanda was an historical personage of some kind then we have an interesting problem: does the king-list retroject Lugalbanda‘s name falsely onto a past age, or is Lugalbanda‘s worship as divine in the Old Babylonian period of Nippur and Uruk reflect euhemerism? I find the former explanation to be more plausible for several reasons, not the least of which is my suspicion of the king list‘s historicity.
There are significant discrepancies between the lengths of reigns of those early kings vis-à-vis kings from later and better-documented periods such as Lugalbanda's supposed 1200 year reign.
116 These features are noted by Alster in dialogue with the "epic laws" of Axel Olrik; "Epic Tales from Ancient Sumer: Enmerkar, Lugalbanda, and Other Cunning Heroes" in CANE 3, 2315-2326.
117 Jeremy Black disputes the use of the term 'tale' for the narrative because "it suggests something linear (and usually prosaic) which provides a coherent, full tale to the hearer. In fact these poems often plunge in media res, frequently presupposing the details of the narrative to focus in a highly selective way on particular episodes while omitting others"; Reading Sumerian Poetry , 71.
118 Alster, "Interaction of Oral and Written Poetry in Early Mesopotamian Literature" in Mesopotamian Epic Literature, 23-69.
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folklorists' old romantic preconceptions about the Volk give way to a more inclusive understanding of what constitutes folklore as argued by Dundes and others. The astute reader will notice features within this particular story that make a folkloristic reading not only possible but also desirable.