Poetics of Magic and Mediation
Jul 5, 2009 7:30:46 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Jul 5, 2009 7:30:46 GMT -5
The Poetry of Magic
reviewing Niek Veldhuis
- The Verbal parts of a magic ritual obey rules that do not fundimentally differ from those governing other materia magic -
Pursueing again the volume Mesopotamian Magic (Abusch, van der Toorn 1999), I've come to Veldhuis` article on the Poetry of Magic. I have long wondered about what the author has to say on this but have only now come to review the 13 page article itself - I hope this will add a new dimension to the discussion of magic at enenuru as it seems to be the first consideration of the poetical aspect yet reviewed here.
Framing Incantations and literature/
Veldhuis begins by pointing out that the exorcist and his incantations were felt by the ancients to be in some way inferior to the scribe and scribal literture (or at least this was the opinion of the scribes who are the ones who left us anything to read at all). This opinion is evident in an early proverb which reads "an unsuccessful scribe, he will be an incantation priest"; additionally in the text "the advice of a Supervisor to a young Scribe" the junior scribe compares a recited incantation to the mooing of an ox in a retort against his superior - all of this suggests to Veldhuis that in the ancients view incantations and literature were not the same or equal. Incantations, it is astutely noted, are "not meant to entertain, to display verbal virtuosity, or to construct imaginary worlds. They are meant to be used in magic rituals, in order to influence the course of events." Why then do modern scholars percieve literary trappings such poetic values in the incantation lore?
Poetics and Persuasive Language[/color]/
To help establish the function of poetics in language in persuasive language in general, the author alludes to the study of poetic function put forth by a literary scholar, Roman Jakobson. Jacokson understood that poetic function concentrates on the message of a communication itself, and he established a principal that states that poetic function is "the projection of the principal of equivalence from the axis of selection to the axis of combination" - or, to put it in more comprehensible words, Veldhuis has given the Eisenhower campaign slogan "I like Ike" as a phrase that uses this principal. It utilizes phonetic similarity to suggest a relation of meaning (think how much more effective this word choice is than "We like Eisenhower" or "I want Ike".) By different sorts of repetition, lexical repetition, syntactic parallelism, rhyme etc., poetic language is created through overlaping connections - feedback.
Incantations as Poetic Persuasive Language/
Veldhuis next alludes to several incantation texts which illustrate how poetic language assists in reinforcing efficacy and in interconnecting disseperate concepts. The author refers to an Old Babylonian incantation against childbirth; the first four clauses of which begin with phonetically similar words (and are therefore poetic):
From the fluids of intercourse was created a skeleton (ina mê nâkim ibbani esemtum), from the tissue of muscles was created an offspring (ina šīr širḫānim ibbami llidum), In the turbulent and fearful sea waters (ina mê ayabba šamrūtim palḫūtim), in the distant waters of the ocean, where the little one's arms are bound (ina mê tiāmtim rūqūtim ašar seḫrum kussâ idāšu).
In these clauses, connected by their phonetical closeness (ina me...and utim in the 3rd and 4th clause) the setting of the trapped unborn baby is transferred from the womb, a natural setting, to some sort of mythological setting, an open sea, where before long (as the incantation progresses) the unborn is spotted by Asalluhi, the god of healing magic and son of Enki. Thus as Veldhuis implies, it is through an underlay of intricately and poetically connected words that the spell progresses persuasively - and the unborn moves to the attention of the gods. In an abstract sense, poetic language seems itself to act as a divine mediator, if a structural one, connecting through poetic symbolism the realm of the subject and the realm of the divine.
In another example, an incantation against Lamashtu, Veldhuis points to the number of beats and syntactical parallelism in the sentences, but most interestingly, to a particular rhyming scheme that can be discerned: the first four lines of the incantation demonstrate a regularly occurring suffix -ši, while the last 11 lines demonstrate a repeating -ki suffix. Veldhuis believes these rhyming words act to connect the beginning and the end of the incantation, in effect the problem and it's solution. I have typed the incantation below together with highlighted suffixes:
Transliteration
:1. Anum ibīši Ea urubbīši
2. pānī labbatim išīmši Enlil
3. īṣat rittīn arrakat
4. ubanātim ṣuprātim
5. arrak ammāš? ..
6. bāb bīti irrum [ ]- ti
7. iḫallup ṣerram
8. iḫlup ṣerram ītamar ṣeḫram
9. ina imšišu adi 7 iṣbassu
10. usḫī ṣupriki
11. rummī idīki
12. lāma ikšudakki
13. apkallam šipir Ea qardu
14. rapaški ṣerrum puttā dalātum
15. alkīma atallakī ina ṣēri
16. epram pīki
17. tarbuḫam pānīki
18. saḫlê daqqātim
19. umallû īnīki
20. utammīki māmīt Ea
21. u tattallakī
Translation:
1. Anum created her, Ea brough her up,
2. Enlil destined for her the face of a she-lion
3. She is short handed, but her fingers are
4. long and her fingernails
5. are long. Her elbows ...?
6. She enters the house through the door [ ]
7. she slips past the door-pivot.
8. Now she slipped in past the door-pivot and saw this child.
9. Seven times she seized his belly.
10. Retract your fingernails!
11. Loosen your grip
12. before the expert, sent by Ea, the hero,
13. reaches you.
14. The door-pivot is wide enough for you, the doors are open,
15. go and roam in the desert!
16. They will fill your mouth with earth,
17. your face with dust,
18. with seeds of fine cress
19. your eyes.
20. I adjure by the curse of Ea
21. and you will go away!
[/center]
In addition, the author comments on the poetic interplay of the phonetically similar ṣerru 'door-pivot', seḫru 'child', and ṣēru 'desert' - these words occurring at turning points in the incantation also indicate the direction or re-direction of Lamastu; further Veldhuis states, 'door-pivot' and 'desert' are "stock symbols" in Babylonian magic, enhancing their significance in the text.
Verbal magic and materia magica/
Veldhuis hits upon the essential here so I quote in full: "The Verbal parts of magic ritual obey rules that do not fundamentally differ from those governing the other materia magica. The transfer of property is achieved by the symbolic manipulation of similarities. In most cases, the materia magica is characterized by more than just some similarity. The objects used must be pure, they must be collected at night, or derive from a strange country. In other words, they must be set apart from ordinary objects. Thus, they are made appropriate for use in a sacred context. This is another perspective from which we can discuss the language of incantations.
Distinguished (persuasive) language and Mumbo Jumbo/
Veldhuis: "Magic language is usually distinguished from ordinary language. There are, in principle, three ways to achieve such a distinction. The first is to use a sacred language. The second is to use poetic, heightened language. These two options are, in fact, available for a large variety of purposes where a text must be marked as other than ordinary. Thus, a large proportion of the scholarly works of classical Greece are written in verse. During a long period of European history the same functional place was occupied by Latin, a language only accessibly to the initiated. A third possibility is almost restricted to magic or ritual uses of language, and that is Mumbo-Jumbo. All three possibilities are used in Mesopotamian magic.
We have discussed the poetic use of language in a few Akkadian incantations. Sumerian incantations of the Old Babylonian period are partly directed the same illnesses, demons, and animals as the Akkadian ones. There is one sphere where the Sumerian is clearly preferred: the ritual incantation meant for purifying ritual ingredients. There is every reason to believe that this has to do with the place these purifying rituals have in society and religion. Mumbo-Jumbo spells are known from all periods and genres of the Mesopotamian incantation literature. Modern discussion of these texts has in the main been limited to the identification of the language from which they are derived. Some are clearly in garbled Sumerian, others seem to be in Hurrian or Elamite, in an unidentified language, or in no language at all."
Veldhuis gives an example of late garbled Sumerian mumbo-jumbo from BAM 514:
17: En2 igi-bar igi-bar-bar igi-bar-ra bar-bar igi-ḫul igi-ḫul-ḫul igi-bar-ra ḫul-ḫul
[/center]
The author observes that the regular repetition of syllables is a characteristic of Mumbo-Jumbo, yet even this language isn`t necessarily devoid of meaning as the repeated "igi" relates to eyes or sight, and ḫul to "evil' - other mumbo jumbo is also suggestive of simply yet efficious messages.
At this point it`s also interesting to note use of mumbo jumbo in the Greek incantation context for which George has provided a nice example on the Sleep and Death thread, reply number 16. This aspect of incantation lore, familiar from popular depictions of magic and occult spoofs, is likely to be academically verifiable from the middle ages as well.
