/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13903879]

>You dolt, numskull, school pest, you illiterate, you Sumerian igno-
ramus, your hand is terrible; it cannot even hold the stylus properly;
it is unfit for writing and cannot take dictation. (And yet you say) you
are a scribe like me.

[Anonymous No.13903928]

>What do you mean I am not a scribe like you? When you write
a document it makes no sense. When you write a letter it is illegible
(?). You go to divide up an estate, but are unable to divide up the
estate. For when you go to survey the field, you can't hold the measur-
ing line. You can't hold a nail in your hand; you have no sense. You don't know how to arbitrate between the contesting parties; you aggra-
vate the struggle between the brothers. You are one of the most in-
competent of tablet Writers. What are you fit for, can any one say (?)?

[Anonymous No.13903931]

>Why, I am competent all around. When I go to divide an estate,
I divide the estate. When I go to survey the field, I know how to hold
the measuring line. I know how to arbitrate between the contesting
parties. I know how to pacify the struggle between the brothers and
soothe their feelings. But you are the laziest (?) of scribes, the most
careless (?) of men. When you do multiplication, it is full of mistakes
(?) . . .I n (computing) areas you confuse (?) length with width.
Squares, triangles, circles (?), and sectors—you treat them all without
understanding as if . . . You chatterbox, scoundrel, sneerer, and bully,
you (dare say) that you are the "heart" of the student body I

[Anonymous No.13903932]

>>13903879
What am I
What are you?
Place Death in front
and life behind
As though I could slip the limits
Of my time
Others give me hope
But others are my hell
Nausea flushes my senses
Until I'll hear that bell

[Anonymous No.13903934]

>Taking this sentence as a cue, his opponent begins with the query;
"What do you mean I am not the 'heart* of the student body?" He
then continues with a description of his talents as a keeper of
accounts and ends with these lines:
Me, I was raised on Sumerian, I am the son of a scribe. But you are
a bungler, a windbag. When you try to shape a tablet, you can't even
smooth (?) the clay (?). When you try to write a line, your hand cant
manage (?) the tablet . . . You "sophomore/* cover your ears! cover
your earsl (Yet) you (claim to know) Sumerian like me!
At this point a long passage follows which is so poorly pre-
served that it is difficult to follow even the shift of speakers. Fi-
nally, someone (probably the ugula, that is, a monitor of some
sort) became so incensed at one student—Enkimansi—that he was
ready to lock him up and put him in chains, to judge from the
following passage toward the very end of the composition, which
in the following tentative translation reads:
Why do you behave like this! Why do you push, curse, and hurl
insults at each other! Why do you raise a commotion in the school!
(There follow four unintelligible lines.) The commotion has reached him!
Why were you insolent (?), inattentive (?), (why do you) curse, and hurl
insults against him who is your '*big brother" and has taught you the
scribal art to your own advantage (?)! Even the ummia who knows every-
thing shook his head violently (?) (saying): "Do to him what you please."
If I (really) did to you what I pleased—to a fellow who behaved like
you (and) was inattentive (?) to his "big brother"—I would (first)
beat you with a mace—what's a wooden board (when it comes to beat

[Anonymous No.13903936]

"Where did you go?"
"I did not go anywhere.*
"If you did not go anywhere, why do you idle about? Go to school,
stand before your 'school-father' (professor), recite your assignment,
open your schoolbag, write your tablet, let your *big brother* write your
new tablet for you. After you have finished your assignment and reported
to your monitor, come to me, and do not wander about in the street.
Come now, do you know what I said?"
"I know, I'll tell it to you."
"Come, now, repeat it to me."
'Til repeat it to you."
"Tell it to me/'
Til tell it to you."
"Come on, tell it to me."
"You told me to go to school, recite my assignment, open my school-
bag, write my tablet, while my *big brother is to write my new tablet.
After finishing my assignment, I am to proceed to my work and to come
to you after I have reported to my monitor. That's what you told me."
"Come now, be a man. Don't stand about in the public square or
wander about the boulevard. When walking in the street, don't look
all around. Be humble and show fear before your monitor. When you
show terror, the monitor will like you.
(About fifteen lines destroyed)

[Anonymous No.13903943]

"You who wander about in the public square, would you achieve
success? Then seek out the first generations. Go to school, it will be
of benefit to you. My son, seek out the first generations, inquire of
them.
'Terverse one over whom I stand watch—I would not be a man did
I not stand watch over my son—I spoke to my kin, compared its men,
but found none like you among them.
"What I am about to relate to you turns the fool into a wise man,
holds the snake as if by charms, and will not let you accept false
phrases.
"Because my heart had been sated with weariness of you, I kept
away from you and heeded not your fears and grumblings—no, I
heeded not your fears and grumblings. Because of your clamorings,
yes, because of your clamorings, I was angry with you—yes, I was angry
with you. Because you do not look to your humanity, my heart was
carried off as if by an evil wind. Your grumblings have put an end to
me, you have brought me to the point of death.
'1, never in all my life, did I make you carry reeds to the canebrake.
The reed rushes which the young and the little carry, you, never in
your life did you carry them. I never said to you 'Follow my caravans/
I never sent you to work, to plow my field. I never sent you to work,
to dig up my field. I never sent you to work as a laborer. 'Go, work and
support me/ I never in my life said to you.
"Others like you support their parents by working. If you spoke to
your kin and appreciated them, you would emulate them. They provide
10 gur of barley each—even the young ones provided their f athers with
10 gur each. They multiplied barley for their father, maintained him
in barley, oil, and wool. But you, you're a man when it comes to per-
verseness, but compared to them you re not a man at all. You certainly
don t labor like them—they are the sons of fathers who make their
sons labor, but me—I didn't make you work like them.
"I, night and day am I tortured because of you. Night and day you
waste in pleasures. You have accumulated much wealth, have expanded
far and wide, have become fat, big, broad, powerful, and puffed. But
your kin waits expectantly for your misfortune and will rejoice at it
because you looked not to your humanity.*'
(Here follows an obscure passage of forty-one lines which seems
to consist of proverbs and old saws; the essay then concludes with
the father's poetic blessing:)
From him who quarrels with you may Nanna, your god, save you,
From him who attacks you may Nanna, your god, save you,
May you find favor before your god,

[Anonymous No.13904118]

This thread is pretty cool