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June 22, 2008
Tit for Tat
Yesterday John Hobbins at Ancient Hebrew Poetry wrote on Isaiah 66:11 and the Hebrew word זִיז. Correctly, I think, John says it means "nipple" there and should be translated as such. En passant John refers us to the Ugaritic text KTU 1.15 II:27 to help us understand another Hebrew word, מצץ. It's best to start line 25,
[If you see squares, rectangles or something else that doesn't look right, please install the Charis SIL font.]
lk . tld . yṣb . ģlm
ymq . ḥlb . aṯrt
mṣṣ . ṯd . btlt [rḥmy]
mšnq[t ilm]
She shall bear the lad Yassib,
who will suck the milk of Athirat
who will lap the breast of the virgin [Rahmay]
the wetnurs[es(? of the gods ???].
So here, we have in rather graphic terms the Ugarit the evidence that John pointed out for his understanding of the Hebrew word מצץ, meaning "lap" or "slurp." But, truthfully, the Hebrew better informs the understanding of the Ugaritic than the other way around. Arabic and Aramaic cognates as well as internal Hebrew evidence support both the Ugaritic and the Hebrew understandings. John doesn't claim otherwise. For various options on how to read and understand the Ugarit passage, see Wyatt, 209-210. Except for translating mṣṣ, "lap," I have taken a rather traditional approach to the text.
Perhaps even more abnormally interesting are three Ugaritic passages from KTU 1.23.
KTU 1:23:23-24
iqran . ilm . nʿmn [. agzruym . bn] ym
ynqm . bap zd aṯrt . [w rḥmy]
Let me evoke the glorious gods, [glutinous from b]irth
who suckle at the nipple (the nose of the zd, breast!) of Athirat and [Rahmay.??]
Notice the phrase bap zd, "at the nose of the breast" which, along with many others, I understand as "nipple." Again, see Wyatt, 329, for slightly different ways to understanding the passage but not the subject phrase.
KTU 1.23:59b
ynqm . bap [.] ḏd [.] <št>
Who suckled at the nipple (nose of the ḏd) of <the lady>.
KTU 1.23:61
ynqm . bap . ḏd . št
Who suckled at the nipple (nose of the ḏd) of the lady.
Note: Dietrich et al, 69, reads ḏḏ here but a quick look at a high-resolution photograph of KTU 1.23 confirms the most common reading, ḏd.
The thing to notice is that the two words, zd and ḏd are used, seemingly interchangeably, in these three passages and neither of them, by themselves, means "nipple." bap precedes each of them to form a phrase that connotes "at the nipple." It occurs to me that the scribe intended the same word in each of these three cases but mangled it once or twice during the process of dictation. But don't quote me; I need to check some secondary material on this. There are a few problems in understanding the details of a comparative phonetic basis for zd and/or ḏd being cognate with Akkadian zīzu and Hebrew זִיז but these problems extend well beyond these two words which likely sounded very much the same if they did not sound exactly the same. One might posit the Proto-Semitic root *ZḎ. Nonetheless, I think it fairly clear that they are cognates, even if the Ugaritic possible cognate(s) mean "breast" rather than "nipple."
Update: Changed my translation of št to "lady."
Reference:
Posted by Duane Smith at June 22, 2008 12:46 PM | Read more on Ugarit |
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