CLA/WLIT 196
Ancient Lyric Poetry

Variatio: Putting it All Together

Examples

1.Gilgamesh 11.146 ff.

I sent forth (A) and set free a dove (B).
The dove (B) went forth (A), but came back;
Since no resting-place (C) for it was visible (D), she turned round (E).

The I sent forth (A) and set free a swallow (B).
The swallow (B) went forth (A), but came back;
Since no resting-place (C) for it was visible (D), she turned round (E).

Then I sent forth (A) and set free a raven (B).
The raven (B) went forth (A) and, seeing (D) that the waters had diminished (C),
he eats, circles, caws, and turns not round (-E).

The underlying device is parallelism (repeated material in red typeface) It also involves a tricolon crescendo since the three avian dispatches reach a dramatic climax with the raven not returning. This in itself introduces variation to the parallelism, since the pattern established by the first two members is negated in the third (antithesis); moreover this occasion requires using a number of words  which have not yet been seen, and this adds further emphasis to the climax. The overall structure is modulated by two chiasmuses. The first (A:B:B:A) operates at the level of the word (sent forth: bird: bird: went forth), but achieves variation because the type of bird changes with each repetition. The second chiasmus (C:D:D:C) is more subtle and thematic, using synonyms and paraphrases (no resting place: visible: seeing: waters had diminished)


2. Gilgamesh 11.25 ff.

Tear down this house, build a ship!
Give up possessions, seek thou life. (ship = life)
Forswear worldly goods and keep the soul alive!
Aboard the ship take thou the seed of all living things

There is a simpler kind of variation in the parallelism of this passage. "Build a ship" in the first line is answered by the rather different "seek thou life". The logic behind this implicit equation of the two is progressively clarified in lines three and four.


3. Atrahasis 3.4.10 ff.

(Nintu:) “I saw and wept over them,
I have exhausted my lamentation for them”.
She wept, giving vent to her feelings,
While Nintu wailed, her emotion was spent.
The gods (A) wept with her (B) for the land.
She (B) had her fill of woe, she (B) was thirsty for beer.
Where she (B) sat weeping, they (A) too sat,
Like sheep they filled a stream bed
Their lips were agonized with thirst

The use of parallelism here is quite striking. The basic couplet involves the idea of weeping (red typeface) leading to the exhaustion of grief (blue typeface).  This is a natural progression, but each time the couplet is repeated there is a violation of temporal logic (at least from the point of view of linear narrative). Moreover, as the couplets repeat  there is a pleasing variation in the number of words used to express the two ideas. In the fifth line, instead of some version of the expected "exhaustion of grief", a third motif is introduced: the consequence of haveing flooded the earth and destroyed makind (green typeface). This motif is then interwoven with the first two in a sort of three-point fugue. Note also the use of chiasmus in the 5th, 6th and 7th line; it may be significant that this occurs at the moment the third motif is introduced, perhaps as a way to patch the three together.