Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

of his translations through the use of “once” and in others the addition of “used to” or
past tense on the main verb in the translation.
(29) Lament for Sumer and Ur 338
(Michalowski 1989, 56-57, 98; Woods 2001, 120, ex. 133)
ne.mur dugud.gin 7 i 3.ra.a.re i.bi 2.bi ba.gul
As for the fire that used to burn like a heavy coal, its smoke is now extinguished,
(30) Nippur Lament 38-39
(Woods 2001, 120, ex. 135)
kuß ßem5 kuß a.la 2 mu.un.du 12.a.re i.lu gig.ga.a a.na.ße 3 u 4 mi.ni.ib 2.zal
As for those who used to play the shem and ala drums, why do they pass the day in
bitter lament?
These examples as well as the vast majority of the other examples occur—as we might
have expected for a syntactic construction that refers to entities that no longer exist—in
laments. I am even tempted to say that the frequent occurrence of *-re and the semantics
associated with it could probably be used as a criterion for the identification of laments
and elegies as generic categories. Interestingly enough, this example may represent an
exception to my earlier statement that the composers of OB texts no longer understood
the *XP nam bi-√ construction, but this is the only lament in which I have identified the
construction.
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