Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

292. d ezina 2.e ki.sikil sa 6.ga.gin 7
125
And Ezina came forth in splendour like
ni 2 pa e 3 bi 2.ak a beautiful maiden,
This example also occurs above in chapter 1, where I provide some justification for my
interpretation of a.gar 3.a.gar 3.ra as “plantations.” Here, in the midst of a pair of ba.ni-√
verbs, the reduplicated BNBV inal construction seems to form a purpose clause rather than
a causal one. The only difference, however, between a causal relation and a purpose
relation is between past and future tense, so the causal predicate in 290 simply seems to
be occurring in a future context rather than a past one.
(30) Sumerian Proverbs, UM 55-21-278 = 3 N-T 179 [6.2.1]
(Alster 1997, 305; Karahashi 2000, 181)
ka 5.a zu 2 bi 2.in.sud 2.sud 2
Because a fox bites,
saœ nam.mi.bul.bul you should pay attention to it (to avoid being
bitten)
In general terms, the inherently decontextualized nature of proverbs makes any definitive
interpretation of them quite difficult, but the basic lexical meaning of both verbs is quite
obscure as well: von Soden cites a few texts in which BUL is associated with naßû and
later in the same entry saœ bu.bu is juxtaposed to the Akkadian nu-uß qaq-qa-di (V R 16,
47 cd; ZA 43, 243, 268; AHw 762); CAD identifies re¢ß naßû as an idiom meaning “to