The Poet(s) of the Iliad
This section has examined some of the metapoetic qualities of the Iliad – a text that is consciously engaged with its status as a literary artefact. The Homeric poet, along with some of the Iliad’s chief human protagonists, such as Helen and Achilles, is keenly aware of the role of poetry in the commemoration of past events; specifically in the transmission of kleos and in the commemorative mourning of sorrows. The poem makes no explicit reference to its sources, its predecessors, or contemporary narrative traditions, with the poet instead claiming at various points to serve as a conduit for the omniscient Muses. Nevertheless, the Homeric epics still display a profound awareness of a much broader tradition of stories and depict a world where a range of different people can engage in poetic activity – bards and non-bards, men and women, victors and vanquished. As this demonstrates, the world of the Iliad was a world where poetry was everywhere, where it enjoyed a high status, and where it served a range of important social functions.
But were these metapoetic qualities of the Homeric poems unusual? Can similar concerns be found in the interconnecting epic traditions from which the Homeric poems emerged? In this next section of the chapter, Naoíse will seek to address these questions.
Naoíse: The Erra’s poems
The metapoetics of the Iliad can be compared with those in the poem of Erra and Ishum, an ‘epic’68 poem composed over a period of time between 1150 and 750 BCE, roughly around the same time as the Iliad.69 The Erra also has some thematic similarities with myths of the Trojan War – it describes the destruction of cities and the devastation of population through the will of the gods, specifically through the anger of the god Erra. Like the Iliad, its key theme is the wrath of its central character and the havoc caused by this wrath.70 More significantly for the topic of this chapter however, the Erra is also like the Iliad in that it is deeply concerned with poetry and the poetic process.
In this section, I shall first consider the complex narrative strategies adopted in the Erra to highlight issues of storytelling and memorialization through song. This will be followed by an examination of the poem’s representation of both itself and its author. I will then expand the analysis to include other examples from Mesopotamian literature, reflecting first on how poems are represented, and then on the treatment of poets and authors. This comparison of Homeric and Mesopotamian poetics should prompt reflections on what is unique in both traditions, whilst highlighting in both cases the shared significance of tradition itself.
The Narrators of the Erra
The poem of Erra and Ishum is noted for its unusual interest in the process of narration and the voice of the narrator. Unusually for Akkadian poetry, much of the action of the story is told in direct speech, voiced by several different characters and using various different narrative strategies.71 This marks the poem out from other Akkadian compositions.
The poem is focused on the deeds of the god Erra, and specifically on his destruction of cities and populations in a fit of heroic wrath. The initial scenes of the poem deal with the prelude to this violence, and the reasons for Erra’s anger. The final scenes describe how Erra was eventually calmed by his counsellor Ishum, and the aftermath of Erra’s rage. At the core of the poem, however, is the narration of Erra’s destructive rampage. The poem offers no fewer than three separate accounts of these events, presented by three different narrators, with the tale told at increasing length each time.
In the first tablet, Erra is encouraged to violence by seven magical warriors called the Sibitti, who, in a brief speech (Tablet 1, lines 45–91), wish for the destructive events that will happen later in the poem. The Sibitti foretell the events of the epic in the future tense, raising audience expectations and anticipation of the events themselves. Later in the poem, Erra’s dismissal from his guard post leads to him to embark on precisely this foretold rampage, the details of which are described at greater length and in the present tense in another, more extended speech (Tablet 2, Pericope C2, line 40ʹ – Tablet 3, Pericope A). Remarkably, it is Erra himself who is the narrator of this section. In the speech, Erra gives a running commentary in the first person on the death and destruction he is currently causing, describing each new violent action apparently as he undertakes it. This speech is unique in Akkadian literature and has prompted much discussion due to the strangeness of recounting events in the first person present tense.72 Yet later, when Erra is calmed by Ishum, Ishum then delivers one of the longest speeches in Akkadian literature (Tablet 3, Pericope D, line 2 – Tablet 5, line 127).73 This speech recounts for a third time the same terrible events, now at even greater length and in the past tense. It seems that Ishum is eventually able to placate Erra through this speech – by describing to him his own recently completed deeds in poetry. The poem then concludes with Erra ordering that the story of his deeds (i.e. the poem itself) be preserved and honoured – a topic that we will return to later.
The main action of the poem – Erra’s wreaking of war and destruction over the lands – is therefore recounted in direct speech no less than three times, by three different voices, in three different tenses. It is obvious that the Erra, no less than the Iliad, is crucially interested in the praxis of poetry. The experimentation we see here with the narrative voice is complex – first, the use of direct speech to recount the key events of the story; secondly, the use of different persons and tenses; finally, the use of narrative repetition, with the cumulative effect of each new layer expanding and building on the last. The poet of the Erra is playing games with the idea of storytelling and pushing at the conventions of how a tale should be told.
These ‘songs within a song’ in the Erra are markedly different to comparable episodes in the Homeric epics. As Jan described above, when characters in the Homeric poems engage in song, they are usually self-consciously aware of their own poetic practice. In contrast, internal narrators in the Erra offer no explicit clue that they acknowledge their actions involve poetry. Instead, each of the three ‘songs’ begin, not with a statement of poetic intent, but in tradition hymnic form with an invocation to a god (in these three cases, Erra). The Sibitti begin their speech with an appeal to Erra: ‘Up, do your duty!’ (tebi izīzma; Tablet 1, line 46; trans. Foster 2005); the main body of which is a string of subjunctive phrases, such as: ‘Let sovereigns hear and fall prostrate before you’ (mālki lišmuma likmisu šápalka: Tablet 1, line 65; trans. Foster 2005). Erra’s own speech opens with the god struggling to control his feelings of outrage. His heart had been ‘stung’ (Tablet 2, Pericope C2, line 38′), and he addresses it directly, asking it to: ‘Lead the way, and let me begin the campaign!’ (ṭuda pitema lūṣbat ḫarannu: Tablet 2, Pericope C2, Line 12; trans. Foster 2005). The speech from this point is comprised of present tense first person narrative statements. At no point does Erra make reference to the fact he is narrating his actions, or engaging in any kind of speech act. Ishum’s speech is similarly structured to that of Erra, also beginning with an invocation: ‘O warrior Erra!’ (quradu1 dÈrra: Tablet 3, Pericope D, line 1; trans. Foster 2005). After this follow several lines of praise, before the main body of the speech comprising narrative statements in the present tense and second person. At its conclusion, Ishum speaks in Erra’s voice, reporting in the future tense what Erra has said he would do (Tablet 5, lines 115–28). This final narrative shift – with one internal narrator adopting the voice of another – is further testament of the poem’s metapoetic interest. But once more, there is no explicit acknowledgement in the speech that Ishum is creating or performing a song. It seems that neither Ishum and Erra nor the Sibitti narrate tales in the self-consciously poetic manner of Homeric storytellers.
Poet and Poem in the Erra
If the poets within the poem do not explicitly refer to their own poetic praxis, the same cannot be said for the poet of the Erra itself, who is a significant presence within the poem. The three speeches discussed above and other sections of direct speech are all connected by the poet as external narr
ator; but the poet’s voice is most evident at the start and the end of the poem. He opens the epic in traditional fashion by invoking a deity (interestingly, while the three songs within the poem begin by invoking Erra, the poem itself invokes Ishum). In this case, he addresses Ishum in a pair of honorific couplets (Tablet 1, lines 1–4) before turning to describe Erra in a state of restlessness. During the description of Erra, the poet establishes himself within the frame of the poem by addressing Ishum directly twice in the second person: ‘he even says to you’ (iqabbima1 ana kašá2: Tablet 1, line 9; trans. Foster 2005, emphasis added); and ‘until you rouse him, he will sleep in his bedroom’ (adi atta tadēkkušú ṣalil uršūššú: Tablet 1, line 19; trans. Foster 2005, emphasis added).74 It is worth noting that in a performance context, this direct address of a character would have blurred into the direct address of the audience, resulting in an identification of the audience with Ishum (I shall return to this point below).75
The poet then comes into focus fully in the final section of the poem. Strangely, given the prevalence of direct speech elsewhere in the poem, we do not hear the poet’s voice in this passage. Instead, he is named in the third person, with the rather odd effect of making him a character within his own story.
šá dÈr-ra i-gu-gu-ma ana sa-pan matātimeš
ú ḫul-lu-uq ni-ši-šin iš-ku-nu pa-ni-šú (40)
dI-šum ma-lik-šú ú-ni-ḫu-šu-ma i-zi-bu ri-ḫa-ni-iš
ka-ṣir kam-mi-šú mKab-ti-ilanimeš dMar-duk mār mDa-bi-bi
ina šat mu-ši ú-šab-ri-šú-ma ki-i šá ina mu-na-a-ti id-bu-bu a-a-am-ma ul iḫ-ṭi
e-da šu-ma ul ú-rad-di a-na muḫ-ḫi
iš-me-šu-ma ul dÈr-ra im-da-ḫar pa-ni-šú (45)
šá dI-šum a-lik maḫ-ri-šú i-ṭib elī-šú
ilāni meš nap-ḫar-šú-nu i-na-ad-du it-it-šú
How it came to pass that Erra grew angry
and set out to lay waste (40)
the lands and destroy their peoples:
But Ishum his counsellor calmed him and he left a remnant:
The composer of its text was Kabti ilani Marduk, of the family Dabibi.
He revealed it at night, and, just as he (the god) had discoursed it while he (K.) was coming awake, he (K.) omitted nothing at all.
Nor one line did he add to it.
When Erra heard it he approved. (45)
What pertained to Ishum his vanguard satisfied him.
All the gods praised his sign.
Erra and Ishum, Tablet 5, lines 39–47 (trans. Foster 2005)
This passage explicitly names the author as Kabti-ilani-Marduk, and his relationship to the poem is described in some detail.76 The key formula used to refer to him is: ‘the composer of the text’ (kāṣir kammišu; line 42). The word used for composing, kaṣāru, which has the literal meaning of someone who ‘binds something together’, can also be used of weaving cloth. The use of this image for authors – those who bind or weave words together – is familiar from elsewhere in the Mesopotamian literary corpus,77 and the Homeric resonances of weaving of stories or words have already been explored above. What Kabti-ilani-Marduk is weaving in this phrase however, is not words but rather a ‘text’. The word used here for ‘text’, kammû, is a rare one, and implies written documents of venerable antiquity.78 It seems, then, that Kabti-ilani-Marduk was not responsible for an act of poetic creation, or the composition of a poem in the way that we would usually envisage it. Instead, he is described as undertaking the writing of a pre-existing account.79
This is made more explicit by what we are told of the process of composition. It is said that the poem was revealed to Kabti-ilani-Marduk by Ishum – that Ishum literally ‘caused him to see’ it (ušabrišuma: line 43). It is unclear whether the implication is that Kabti-ilani-Marduk ‘saw’ the events of the poem unfold before his eyes in some kind of cinematic vision, or whether he ‘saw’ the poem in its physical written form as words on a divine tablet (i.e. that he read the poem). In either case, the central action involves the perception of something pre-existing, rather than the wholesale creation of something new. Following this, we are told that Kabti-ilani-Marduk ‘spoke’ the poem (idbubu: line 43) exactly as it had been revealed to him. This is not an act of invention but one of repetition, once more predicated on the pre-existence of the thing being repeated. At the end of a long poem that plays throughout with expectations of speech and narration, this final image of Kabti-ilani-Marduk ‘speaking’ the entire poem is especially loaded. The external narrator now presents himself as an internal narrator, and makes the recounting of the tale into part of the tale itself. Furthermore, the sound of the verb used for speaking – idbubu – puns on the sound of Kabti-ilani-Marduk’s family name of Dabibi.80
Kabti-ilani-Marduk was not, therefore, credited with the creation of the Erra. His poem, like those of the Homeric poet(s), was ultimately attributed to a divine source. Kabti-ilani-Marduk’s role is to repeat and disseminate what he has been shown by Ishum. But Ishum is no Muse – his role in the poetic process is more direct.81 It is Ishum who first narrates the deeds of Erra in full detail after they have occurred (Tablet 3, Pericope D, line 2 – Tablet 5, line 127), thereby bringing into existence the first account of the epic events. Indeed, in the passage from Table 5 quoted above, the poem itself is explicitly said to belong to Ishum: ‘What pertained to Ishum his vanguard satisfied him [Erra]’ (šá dIšum alik maḫrišú1 iṭib elīšú2: line 46; trans. Foster 2005). This attribution of the poem to Ishum is particularly interesting, given the slippage between Ishum and the audience at the start of the poem. Here we are presented with the poet, describing himself narrating a poem to an audience which has itself been cast as the poem’s initial creator. The lines of responsibility for this poem, then, implicate not only the authors, both human and divine, but also the audience. One more figure is also implicated in the creation of this poem however: Erra. Crucially, the poem is described as partaking of Erra’s essence: we are told that Erra was pleased with the poem and that the other gods praised Erra’s ‘sign’ (ittu: line 47). In this context, the poem is evidently being referred to as the ‘sign’ of the god.
If Kabti-ilani-Marduk was the writer of the poem, and Ishum (or the audience?) was its creator, then why are we eventually confronted with a description of the poem as a ‘sign’ of the god Erra? At several points during the poem, we are told that Erra’s anger flared up because, as he saw it: the people of the earth ‘hold me in contempt’ (leqû šīṭūtī: Tablet 1, line 120: Tablet 3, Pericope D, line 15; Tablet 4, line 113). With the creation and praise of the poem – his sign – he was appeased. His was a quest for recognition, or perhaps for the kleos that can be bestowed by poetry.82 As we have already seen, there is relatively little kleos here for Kabti-ilani-Marduk, in contrast to the poetic professionals within the Homeric epics (e.g. Demodocus and Phemius in the Odyssey 8.479–81 and 9.3.11, respectively; see above for discussion). There is limited kleos even for Ishum, although he is celebrated at the start of the poem (Tablet 1, lines 1–4), and Erra acknowledges that he has benefitted from Ishum’s calming influence towards the end (Tablet 5, line 14). Instead, most of the kleos generated by the poem seems to have been directed to Erra. For it is Erra who literally has the final say, the poem closing with him engaging in direct speech, setting out the divine benefits that will be bestowed on all those who honour the poem.
u ki-a-am iq-ta-bi qu-ra-du dÈr-ra
ilu šá za-ma-ru šá-a-šú i-na-du ina a-šìr-ti-šú lik-tam-mer-ta hé-gál-lum
ù šá ú-šam-sa-ku a-a iṣ-ṣi-na qut rin-na (50)
šarru šá šu-mi ú-šar-bu-ú li-be-el kib-ra-a-ti
rubú šá ta-nit-ti qar-ra-du-ti-ia i-dab-bu-bu ma-ḫi ra a-a ir-ši
lunāru šá i-ṣar-ra ḫu ul i-mat ina šip-ṭi
eli šarri u rubê da-mì-iq at-mu-šú
luṭupšarru šá iḫ-ḫa-zu i-šet ina māt lunakri i-kab-bit ina mātī-šú (55)
ina a-šìr-ti um-ma-a-ni a-šar ka-a-an
šu-mì i-zak ka-ru ú-zu-un-šú-nu a-pet-ti
ina bīti a-šar ṭup-pu šá-šú šak-nu dÈr-ra li-gug-ma liš-gi-šú dSi-bi-it-[ti]
pa-tar šip-ṭi ul i-ṭe-ḫi-šu-ma šá lim-tu šak-na-as su
za-mar-ru šá-a-šú a-na ma-ti-ma liš-šá-kin-ma li-kun ga-du ul-la
ma-ta-a-ti nap-ḫar-ši-na liš-ma-ma li na-da qur di-da (60)
nišimeš da-ád-me li-mu-ra-ma li-šar-ba-a šu-mì
Then the warrior Erra spoke thus:
ln the sanctuary of the god who honours this poem, may abundance heap up.
But let the one who neglects it never smell incense. (50)
Let the king who extols my name rule the world.
Let the prince who discourses this praise of my valour have no rival.
The singer who chants it shall not die in pestilence,
But his performance shall be pleasing to king and prince.
The scribe who masters it shall be spared in an enemy land and honoured in his own. (55)
In such sanctum where the learned make frequent mention of my name, I shall grant them understanding.
The house in which this tablet is placed, though Erra be angry and the Seven [the Sibitti] be slaughtering,
The sword of pestilence shall not approach it: safety abides upon it.
Let this song abide forever, let it endure till eternity.
Let all lands hear it and praise my valour. (60)
Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War Page 4
