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Ishtar's Love Spell
On page 111 of the Nec there is a
love spell. I have taken the liberty of translating it. As the only thing I
have to work with is the shabby transliteration of what Simon had I have
done my best to A) Keep in line with the "feel" of the rest of the book, and
B) To try to make it make as much sense as possible.
A few notes before I begin.
To translate the verse I have used five sources.
- The
Pensylvania Sumerian Dictionary (http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/)
- The
Summerian Lexicon (http://www.sumerian.org/)
-
The ETCSL (http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/)
- Glossaries/text from books I currently own.
- Random notes I've taken from various books at
the library.
The last two sources were suplimental at best.
In most instances I used the PSD and Lexicon, and only relied on my own
notes when I could find nothing close to those more reliable.
YE had NO translations in ANY of
my sources so I have omitted it from my translations. IMHO, it's nothing
more then a sound "OH" "YEA" etc.
On line two the word XashXur
had nothing similar to it in my sources so I broke it down as follows ?.ash.?.ur
(as a few of my sources have an X where a word is either unknown or
incomplete). This gave me ?+ONE(1)+?+loins
Several of the words when
broken down had SEVERAL possible translations. I tried to run through a few
of them. Many of them made no sense to me so I ignored that particular
version and went to the next possible and so on, till I came up with a
workable sentence.
EX: GISHNU means either
Alabaster or Unnatural & URMA is either LION or Bound Slave-girl...I chose
unnatural & slave-girl.
Overall the translations
seemed to be more of a binding of the will rather then a 'love poem' so in
cases where it may have been one or the other, I stuck with the one that
seemed to coincide with the binding.
The end result of each line
has been rearranged into a workable sentence via poetic license. While I may
not be DEAD on I am likely DAMN close.
Lastly, I may be WRONG, that
is OK...this is how I translated it. You can believe me or not. It's how I
am putting it in my notes as it is the version I am happy with. I will
not break it down further, so if you have any qualms about it feel free
and look it up yourself

So with all that said here
is my translation:
Little woman who is pure
Lady, you will take my penis unto your loins
-- as I have
bound you as my unnatural slave
Until my semen dries up you shall remain
With this gift you are bound to desire
-- At my words
you will take my penis into you
My instructions to you lady are like an unbroken bond
-- And you shall
remain in your place
To not stand high at my side will bring my fury!
On a side note, even if I am
wrong on the translations, the spell CERTAINLY is a love spell! Though, I
STRONGLY suggest that NO females cast it...it binds a woman to the man, and
it references the casters penis. If you are a female I fear you may be doing
nothing but binding yourself to the person you wish to bind.
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