'The Home of the Fish': A New Interpretation

Author(s): Marie-Louise Thomsen

Source: Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Oct., 1975), pp. 197-200
Published by: The American Schools of Oriental Research
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1359322 .
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 'THE HOME OF THE FISH': A NEW INTERPRETATION

MARIE-LOUISETHOMSEN
UNIVERSITYOF COPENHAGEN

This text' has been edited by M. Civil, in Iraq 23 (1960) 154-75. He

describes it as 'a monologue by a deity, in all probability Nanse ... who, as
'mother of the fish,' has built a new house for them, and invites all of them
to come and spend the night there, where they will find a comfortable
place of rest and will be safe and secure from all the animals which usually
prey on them.'
In the text we are not told who the speaker is, and no goddess or god is
mentioned. However, Civil bases his identification of the speaker on the
'somewhat similar' composition 'Nanse and the Birds,' the last lines of
which he renders as follows, (Iraq 23 175 HAV 22 iv):
12'. [za-e] kua-musen-ki-ag-ga-me-en . . .
(the copy reads: [. . .] ku6 musen-e ki ag-me.en)
15'. [kl]-ama-dnanse
16'. [zag]-m'l-zu dug-ga-am
'[You] are the one who loves fish and birds ... oh, [holy] mother
Nan'se, your [pra]ise is good!'
In accordance with this, and because the fish in our text are addressed as
'my sons,' Civil restores the last two lines of our composition as follows:
[g]a-sa-an-lu-su-pesx-da [dnanse] za-ra he-en-da-hul, 'The queen of the
fishermen, [Nanse], will rejoice with you' (152-53). This is certainly an
acceptable restoration, but, in view of the expression 'the queen of the
fishermen,' the interpretation of the text as an offer of protection and
security seems to be too hasty. In this article I shall try to answer the
following questions: Who is the speaker, and what is the implication of
what he or she says?
First I shall give a brief account of the text. It starts with a description of a
house which the speaker has built for the fish. The house is called a granary
and a sheepfold where food and drink is abundantly available. Then
follows an invitation to the fish as well as to all its relatives and friends to
come to the house. The speaker continues as follows2:

1. I would like to express my sincere thanks for many helpful suggestions, and for much
encouragement, that I received from Bendt Alster during the preparation of this article. [In an
unpublished paper read at the meetings of the American Oriental Society in Chapel Hill, N.C.
in 1972, Dr. Mark E. Cohen independently presented a similar interpretation of the Home of
the Fish. Ed.]
2. My translation of this section, lines 24-51, differs in some respects from that of Civil, and
therefore I quote it in full.

197

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198 MARIE-LOUISE THOMSEN

Enter my beloved son,

25. Enter my goodly son!
Do not let the day go, do not let the night come,
Do not let the moon enter its (house)!
When the day is gone and the night is coming,
The one who enters will repose, I have prepared
a dwelling place for you!
30. In its midst I am setting up a seat for you.
My fish, the one who sleeps will not be disturbed,
The one who sits will not pick a quarrel.
Enter my beloved son,
Enter my goodly son!
35. Like a river with stagnant water you shall know no canals,
Like mud settled in the river you shall not be able to get up,
Like flowing water your bed shall not be fixed.
When the moon has entered3 its house, your bed shall not be fixed.
He4 shall not also come with you, (cast) your eyes at the shelter!
40. He shall not also come with you like a [... ] to your
bedding ground, (cast) your eyes at the shelter!
He shall not also come with you like a dog to your sniffing place,
(cast) your eyes at the shelter!
He shall not also come with you like a [. . .] to your standing
place, (cast) your eyes at the shelter!
43.5 He shall not also come with you like an ox to your stall,
like a sheep to your sheepfold, (cast) your eyes at the shelter!
Now, [he shall not also come with you] like an ox to your stall,
[(cast) your eyes at the shelter!]
45. But you shall enter, Suen [will rejoice with you!]
Now, [he shall not also come with you] like a sheep to your
sheepfold,
[(cast) your eyes at the shelter!]
But you shall enter, Dumuzi [will rejoice with you!]
[When you] raise your head like an ox to your stall,
The lord Asimbarbar-Suen [will rejoice with you!]
50. [When you raise] your head like a sheep in the sheepfold,
Dumuzi, the shepherd, [will rejoice with you!]
After a gap of about 14 lines, the invitation to enter the house is repeated.

3. So STVC 38. UET 6 45 reads: 'Do not let the moon enter.
4. If the translation is justified, 'he' would seem to refer to a fish of prey which may have
been expressly mentioned in the lacuna following upon line 52.
5. In lines 43-47 the two duplicates UET 6 45 and STVC 93+Ni 9668 differ widely. In my
translation I follow the latter. UET 6 45 reads: 'When you have entered the stall like an [ox],
my fish, Asimbarbar will rejoice with you. When you have entered the sheepfold like a sheep,
my fish, Dumuzi, the shepherd, will rejoice with you.

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 'THE HOME OF THE FISH' 199

in a long section, which takes up the majority of the composition, various

species of fish are named and described in a few lines each, all of them
being invited to enter the house. After another lacuna the speaker again
urgently invites them to enter the house, where, as is now stated expressly,
the enemies of the fish (i.e. birds of prey) cannot reach them. Then follow
the concluding lines: 'Oh my [fish], time is pressing, come to me, [time] is
pressing, come to me! The queen of the fishermen, [Nanse], will rejoice
with you!'
In brief, we may summarize the whole text as an address to the fish,
inviting them to spend the night in a certain house. So far we may take it at
face value, but certain questions have to be raised. First, who is the speaker
of this monologue? In view of the fact that Nanse is mentioned in the third
person in the concluding line, she would seem to be excluded. We could
then suggest that it is a fisherman, and this would explain, too, the explicit
mention of Nanse as the queen of the fishermen here.
This solution discloses an entirely different purpose in calling the fish,
namely the desire of every fisherman, that the fish will swim into his trap,
net, or weir. Thus the text becomes meaningful if we imagine the fisherman
reciting, or better singing, the text, while he places his trap in the river and
waits for his catch. In this case the 'house' would actually turn out to be a
metaphor for a weir, and the description of it as an attractive house simply
serves the purpose of trapping the fish. The concluding section, according
to which the fish, by entering the 'house,' will be safe from the birds of
prey, is of course ambiguous. If the fish hurries into the weir, it will indeed
escape the birds, but be caught by the fisherman instead.
We can now resume the problem raised by M. Civil with regard to the
relation between our text and the composition 'Nanse and the Birds.'6
Unfortunately the latter is poorly preserved, and therefore not always
quite intelligible. At times it is even fully broken. However, it is clear that
the structure of 'Nanse and the Birds' is quite different from that of 'The
Home of the Fish.' The former generally has the character of a narrative
text (being introduced by a description of Nanse, occasionally interrupted
by the direct speech of the goddess), while the latter is a monologue. With
regard to content, there is a certain similarity between our text and the
section of 'Nanse and the Birds,' HAV 22 iii and iv, where a number of birds
are named and described. Unfortunately it is impossible to establish an
exact narrative on the basis of the available duplicates, and there may not
have been any at all. A passage mentions the fowler's purpose,7 admittedly,

6. Sources: JCS 24 (1972) 177, ISET 172 Ni 2474, STVC 95+Ni 9728 (courtesy Alster), HAV
22, ISET 1 178 Ni 9638. With the help of these fragments it is possible to restore some 60 lines of
the beginning and about 20 lines of the end. The whole text may have contained
approximately 120 lines.
7. Note, however, that the introduction (line 24) concludes in the following obscure
statement: dnane-me.en musen-mu zar(?).ab.dus-se g6 ba-ma-si-si 'I, Nanse, let my birds
gather into a . . .' which is followed by the long description of the various birds.

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200 MARIE-LOUISE TIIOMSEN

but nothing suggests that the entire text would describe an invitation to the
birds to enter a trap, similar to the 'Home of the Fish.'8
Considering this we must conclude that the interpretation of Nanse as a
protector of the fish and birds is to be revised. To all appearances Nanse,
just because the fish belong to her, is the protector and helper of the
fishermen, or maybe a fisherman herself.

8. Cf. lines 44-45: rxl u4.ra.bu-musen nunuz-zu zal-zala-ga-am nunuz-zu PI

ku-ga-am
nunuz-[zu barbar]-ra-am 16 me.a ba-an-tum, 'raven, your shining eggs, your pure .. eggs,
your white eggs, where does the man take them?' - and lines 47-49: nunuz-bi nigil-la su nam-
ma-an-ti musen-e gi6-a en.nu.un im-mi-in-zu dba.ia-musen en.nu.un.ga u4
mi-ni-ib-zal-zal-e,
'(The ga.sir-birdsays:)'Do not takethoseeggs andcarrythemaway!'The birdkeepswatchat
night, the baja-birdspendstheday keeping watch.'

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