The sentence is translated in CAD Ṣ ṣītu 3b p. 218. AHw ešēgu p. 253 refers to ašāgu and considers it a demon in this text. However, I am not so convinced that the ašāgu is a demon, more likely a means used to exorcise the demon that has seized the patient. The clay figurine was probably stuck in the thorns of the thorn-bush so that the latter would retain and “channel” the evil it represented.

The rendering of the term garza follows CAD P parṣu 1c p. 198.

The translation of this sentence follows Meier’s edition in ZA 45 209 column IV line 35: “zeichnest du sieben Umkreise vor sieben”. However, it is not clear what these ‘seven’ are, perhaps the seven dried bread loaves mentioned in CTH 811.A Vs. II 20 (and CTH 811.B Vs. II 3). The hypothesis of Bácskay (2018: 173) according to which they would be “seven (gods?)”, perhaps the Sebettū, does not seem plausible because it is not consistent with the rest of the ritual, in which this “hepteade” is never mentioned, as well as because the divinity determinative would be missing in front of the number 7.

This is the only time in the text where the ašāgu is defined with the determinative (úe-še-ki). Another solution would be to consider ú a logogram in its own right for šamnu, as if ašāgu were an attribute; even in this case, however, it would be a unicum within the text. Meier (1939: 208) reads it as šà-ú (cf. also AHw libbu p. 550 “l.ú ešēgu ZA 45, 208, 9 unkl.”), and he interprets the word as an unclear meaning of libbu, thus his translation: “daß . . . des ešeku durch das geöffnete Tor nicht (wieder) zu mir hereinkommt!”, but this reading is not convincing either, because we would need libbi in bound form, not libbu in nominative case. Bácskay (2018: 169) transliterates in the same way as Meier, but then translates: “I praise you by the great gods who belong to the ašāgu thorn, (the disease) will not enter through the open gate”. This translation does not seem convincing to me both on a grammatical level, because for the reasons mentioned above we would need libbi, not libbu, and because it actually forces us to ask ourselves who are these phantom – and never before mentioned in the text – “great gods who belong to the ašāgu-thorn(bush)”.

The sentence is translated in CAD P petû p. 338: “let him not come in to me through the open city gate”. It is not completely clear whether -am is the 1st person suffix pronoun or simply the ventive particle, but since it was possible to maintain both nuances in English, I have translated accordingly; Meier (1939: 209) also translates “. . . durch das geöffnete Tor nicht (wieder) zu mir hereinkommt!”. Bácskay (2018: 174), on the other hand, translates “(the disease) will not enter through the open gate”, thus giving preference to the ventive, as, I must admit, would have been preferable in Italian as well in order to make the reading more fluid.