Manchester Memoirs, Vol. xlviii. (1904), No. 35. 21 



addition to this, other discrepancies seem to occur. Thus, 

 for example, line 20 of the extract from PI. 30 of the 

 Ciineiform Inscriptions of W. Asia, Vol. IV. (No. 2) ' filled 

 with lamentation on the day that he fell, and (was) in 

 distress' (in Semitic Babylonian Nissatam mali ina tlm 

 imqutu-ma ina idirtim) is a rendering of the seven short 



words : — 



Isis - na - su fi subba - na - su 

 For his lamentation, for the day of his fall. 



Were the Babylonian translators at fault here? It 

 would seem so, for none of the other passages where the 

 root subha occurs imply that that word includes the idea 

 of falling in or into distress. Of course, one cannot speak 

 in such matters with certainty, but when we see that the 

 translator (or was it merely the scribe ?) has omitted the 

 word 'his' in line 23 of the same extract, and translated 

 'his' instead of 'thy' in line 21, doubts as to the correct- 

 ness of his renderings in other passages naturally arise. 

 If, therefore, I have gone astray in my rendering of the 

 Manchester Museum tablet — and there is no doubt that I 

 have in many cases done so — I have at least one consola- 

 tion and good excuse, namely, that of having sinned in 

 good company, the company of the Babylonian scribes 

 themselves. Moreover, it will be but little short of 

 wonderful if I have even approximately hit upon the 

 correct drift of the individual paragraphs.* 



Since this paper was read, it has been thoroughly 

 revised, and additions have been made thereto. The 

 translations have also (it is thought) been somewhat 

 improved, and a few additional lines of the sixth column 

 of the Manchester tablet have been rendered into English. 



* In the presence of so many homophones as Sumerian contains, one 

 wonders how the people understood each other. In all probability they 

 resorted to tones, as is done in Chinese, with which, as argued by the late 

 Terrien de la Couperie and the Rev. C. J. Ball, Sumerian has close 

 connection. 



