Text
§2 Ammel šīunimi kuitmuza annašmiš ḫašta numu ammel šīunimi šallanuš. Numušan lāmanmit išḫieššamita zikpat šīunimi. Numukan āššawaš antuḫšaš anda zikpat šīunimi ḫarapta innarāwantimamu pēdi iyawa zikpat šīunimi maniyaḫta. Numuza ammel šīunimi Kantuzilin tukašta ištanzanaštaš ÌR-nantan ḫalzait. Nuza DUMU-annaz kuit šiunašmaš duddumar natkan šākḫi nat kanišmi.
§5 Ḫuišwatarmapa anda ḫingani ḫaminkan. Ḫinganamapa anda ḫuišwanniya ḫaminkan. Dandukišnaša DUMU-aš uktūri natta ḫuišwanza. Ḫuišwannaš šiwattuššiš kappuwanteš. Māmman dandukišnaša DUMU-aš uktūri ḫuišwanza ēšta manašta mān antuwaḫḫaš idāluwa inan arta manatwa natta kattawatar.
§10 Numu pirmet inani peran pittuliyaš pir kišat numu pittuliyai peran ištanzašmiš tamatta pēdi zappiškizzi. Nu wētti mieniyaš armalaš maḫḫan nuza ūka apeniššan kišḫat kinunamušan inan pittuliyaša makkēšta. Nat šīunimi tuk memiškimi.
Translation
§2 My God, since my mother gave birth to me, you, my God, have raised me. Only you are my name and my reputation, my God. Only you have joined me together with good people, my God, and to a position of strength, my God, only you have directed my deeds. My God, you have called me, Kantuzili, the servant of your body and your soul. Since childhood, my God’s mercy, I recognise and acknowledge it.
§5 Life is tied to death. Death is tied to life. A child of humankind does not live forever. The days of his life are counted. If a child of humankind could live forever, even if human ills and sickness arose, they would not be a grievance to him.
§10 But my house, because of the sickness, has become a house of anxiety, and because of the anxiety, my soul is dripping away to another place. Such as someone who is sick throughout the year, so have I become, and now the sickness and the anxiety have grown too great. My God, I keep saying it to you.
NOTES
- ḫašta, “to give birth”, literally means “to open”
- ÌR is the Sumerogram (a sign that stands for an entire word, taken from Sumerian) for “servant”. A Hittite would’ve read it out loud as the Hittite word. In this text, I have replaced several Sumerograms and Akkadograms with their Hittite equivalents (šīunimi for DINGIR-YA, annašmiš for AMA-YA) but unfortunately the Hittite word for “servant” is unknown, so I had to read out the Sumerogram instead.
- the same goes for DUMU, “child”
- manatwa natta kattawatar: until recently, researchers were unsure whether this was a rhetorical question (would they not be a grievance to him?) or an assertion (they would not be a grievance to him). The publication of a Sumerian hymn to the Sun-god Utu has shown that the sentence is directly adapted into Hittite from the Sumerian text, and that it is an assertion: if human beings could live forever, sickness wouldn’t matter anymore.
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