Position in chronology
A hymn to Nungal
Written in modern English
The prison stands like a furious storm battering its enemies — the gods' own jail, a great neck-stock binding heaven and earth. Inside, the light is dim as evening, a spreading dusk, and the place radiates a dread that stops people cold. It rises like a raging sea whose surging waves go no one knows where. It is a pitfall for the wicked, a finely woven net that sweeps people up as plunder, watching both the just and the guilty alike — no evildoer slips free of its grip. The text then describes it as a river of ordeal that leaves the innocent... and here the surviving lines break off.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSLHouse, furious storm of heaven and earth, battering its enemies; prison, jail of the gods, august neck-stock of heaven and earth! Its interior is evening light, dusk spreading wide; its awesomeness is frightening. Raging sea which mounts high, no one knows where its rising waves flow. House, a pitfall waiting for the evil one; it makes the wicked tremble! House, a net whose fine meshes are skillfully woven, which gathers up people as its booty! House, which keeps an eye on the just and on evildoers; no one wicked can escape from its grasp. House, river of the ordeal which leaves the just ones…
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).
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Scholarly note
Composition c.4.28.1 in the ETCSL catalogue. Sumerian literary text reconstructed from multiple cuneiform manuscripts, the great majority Old Babylonian (c. 1900–1600 BCE). Translation reproduced from the ETCSL edition.
Attribution
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Translation excerpted from ETCSL c.4.28.1: A hymn to Nungal. Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Robson, E. & Zólyomi, G. (eds.), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.4.28.1.
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