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Abschnitt 1ID=1: Address formula |
| 1ID=1 | -- | [Thus (says) His Majesty, to …] |
Abschnitt 2ID=2: Summary: previous communications |
| 2ID=2 | -- | [You have said/written that …]1 an eagle (from) the riv[er …] flew [lengthwa]ys. |
| 3ID=3 | -- | Then [it] flew in front far away from the unfavorable side. |
| 4ID=4 | -- | Then, it flew diagonally taru(yali-). |
| 5ID=5 | -- | You have tracked it down2 |
| 6ID=6 | -- | and then you crossed the river. |
| 7ID=7 | -- | But you let that escape3 |
| 8ID=8 | -- | and then you wrote as follows: |
| 9ID=9 | -- | “The birds enclosed(?) us,4 |
| 10ID=10 | -- | and we crossed the river there”. |
Abschnitt 3ID=3: Reprimand of the augurs |
| 11ID=11 | -- | Is it (normal) of augurs (that) they act as such, |
| 12ID=12 | -- | and (that) they keep letting river birds escape?5 |
| 13ID=13 | -- | If somewhere a river bird (appears) to the augurs, in the place in which it takes flight, |
| 14ID=14 | -- | won’t they linger waiting it exactly there? |
| 15ID=15 | -- | Instead, why did you not stay and wait (for) that eagle? |
| 16ID=16 | -- | (What) if it came in front from the favorable (side), |
| 17ID=17 | -- | or perhaps it would have [come]6 lengthways from the favorable (side), |
| 18ID=18 | -- | or if it came (instead) behind the river? |
Abschnitt 4ID=4: Decision |
| 19ID=19 | -- | Herewith I – My Majesty – have condoned you the matter of the eagle. |
| 20ID=20 | -- | Pull yourselves together,7 |
| 21ID=21 | -- | nevermore go ahead (like this).8 |
| 22ID=22 | -- | If not, you will be going to lose your heads.9 |
| 23ID=23 | -- | kuršalla-10 people act as such, |
| 24ID=24 | -- | (those) who keep being/behaving kuršali-. |
| 25ID=25 | -- | For those, have not their head rolled? |
Abschnitt 5ID=5: Final instructions |
| 26ID=26 | -- | And now, come (on), come (on)!11 |
| 27ID=27 | -- | As (soon as) you reach the river Maraššanda, |
| 28ID=28 | -- | at the river, you will do your job12 (with the) favorable birds, |
| 29ID=29 | -- | and from the river you will look up (at) the favorable birds. |
| 30ID=30 | -- | [Come (on)!] |
| 31ID=31 | -- | Please! |
| 32ID=32 | -- | The (matter of the) river is very important! |
Abschnitt 6ID=6: Addendum for the scribe (fragmentary) |
| 33ID=33 | -- | Thus (says) His Majesty: |
| 34ID=34 | -- | [Say] to the scribe: |
| 35ID=35 | -- | Come (on)! |
| 36ID=36 | -- | Please! |
| 37ID=37 | -- | […] I will not keep sending … |
| 38ID=38 | -- | […] |
breaks off |
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Tentative, based on the letter’s content. The king is recalling a previous report received from the augurs.
lit. “taken”. The meaning of para da- here is quite unclear. Similarly Archi A. 1975e, 138, Marizza M. 2009a, 112 “l'avete individuata”. Unclear, in my view, the translation of Sakuma Y. 2009b, II, 632: “Ihr … nahmt ihn fort”. Kloekhorst A. 2008a, 817 lists the form as imp. 2 pl. act., but context suggests this is more likely a form of 2 pl. pret.
For warpilāēr ‘to enclose(?)’ see Kloekhorst A. 2008a, 967. Whatever the meaning of this form, which could be context-specific or idiomatic, the interpretation in CHD L-N, 2 seems incorrect: “they released for us the birds in/from the enclosure”. Who let the birds go? Here the subject is clearly the birds, as the front position in the sentence suggests by default. Also, the verb la- does not simply mean ‘let go’ (Hitt. tarna-), but ‘unbind’, from a physical bond (e.g. a rope: ‘untie, unlatch, detach’) or an ideal one (a sorcery, spell: ‘dispel’). In fact, in the few cases of birds set free in oracular context, KUB 18.12+ obv. 18 and perhaps KUB 5.24 II 34-35, the verb employed is tarna-. I would thus exclude that this passage suggests birds are let go “artificially” for the oracular observation, which is also implausible in context: the augurs are accused of failing the observation of a certain eagle, and explained that the birds did something which interrupted the observation, or forced them to move away from their location. The meaning of the sentence is well conveyed as a rhethorical question (e.g. Marizza M. 2009a, 112), also in consideration of the following lines; likewise, Archi A. 1975e, 138 understood the statement as rhetoric: “Dunque gli auguri agiscono così, e quindi piantano in asso gli uccelli del fiume!”. našma=man=aš, optative/irrealis.
para nannai- ‘drive straight ahead’ vel sim.; idiomatic.
I am not convinced of the interpretation by Sakuma Y. 2009b II, 634, that here the verb ‘to go’ points to the location where the augurs should carry out the next observation. The sentence is clearly connected to the previous: para nanništen … para lē iyatteni (note the usage of lē + PRS tense as negative imperative (prohibitive). The king intimates to the augurs to “straighten their path”, adding that they will not “keep going forward” (i.e. in this manner). The usage of =at must also be understood as phraseological. The sentence is euphemistic, lit. “you will go (to) leave from your own heads”.
Unclear. The form might be an IMP of we- ‘come’ (= uwat〈ten〉?). Otherwise, the usage as INTJ is clear both from its repetition as well as the usage infra (rev. 35´).
kattan dai- ‘(Dienst) verrichten, erledigen’ ( Tischler J. 2001a, 159). Differently from Archi A. 1975e, 138, “ disponete [uccelli ] favorevoli”; Hagenbuchner A. 1989a, 38 “ setzt die guten [Vög ]el zum Fluss hinab”; Marizza M. 2009a, 112: ; “dovrete disporre [uccelli ] favorevoli giù al fiume”. As pointed out in n. 4, also in this case it is not evident that birds are to be purposefully set free by the augurs.
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