SAA 10 043. The King Must Give up Fasting (ABL 0078) [from astrologers]


Obverse
o 1o 1	a-na LUGAL EN-ni	(1) To the king, our lord: your servants Balasî and Nabû-ahhe-eriba. Good health to the king, our lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, our lord!
o 22	ARAD-MEŠ-ni-ka
o 33	^mba-la-si-i
o 44	^m^dPA—PAB-MEŠ—SU
o 55	lu-u DI-mu a-na LUGAL EN-ni
o 66	^dPA ^dAMAR.UTU a-na LUGAL
o 77	lik-ru-bu LUGAL EN-ni	(7) The king, our lord, will pardon us. Is one day not enough for the king to mope and to eat nothing? For how long (still)? This is already the third day (when) the king does not eat anything. The king, a beggar!
o 88	re-ma-nu šu-ú
o 99	01-en UD-mu e-ṣe-e
o 1010	ša LUGAL ik-ku-šu ú-kar-ru-ni
o 1111	ku-sa-pu la e-kul-u-ni
o 1212	a-di im—ma-te šá-al-šú
o 1313	ina UD-me an-ni-i-e
o 1414	LUGAL NINDA-MEŠ la ek-kal
o 1515	LUGAL muš-ke-e-nu
o 1616	ki-ma SAG.DU ITI	(16) (Surely) when, in the beginning of the month, the moon appears, he says: "I will not fast (any more)! It is the beginning of the month! I want bread to eat and wine to drink!"
o 1717	^d30 it-ta-mar
o 1818	ma-a ra-me-ni
Reverse
r 1r 1	la ú-šar-ra
r 22	ma-a SAG.DU ITI šu-ú
r 33	NINDA-MEŠ la-a-kul GEŠTIN-MEŠ
r 44	la-as-si ú-ma-a	(r 4) Now Jupiter is the moon. The king can ask for food for even the whole of the year! We became worried and were afraid, and that is why we are (now) writing to the king.
r 55	MUL.SAG.ME.GAR ^d30 šu-u
r 66	šá MU.AN.NA gab-bi a-na ḫur
r 77	LUGAL NINDA-MEŠ le-re-eš
r 88	TA^v ŠÀ-bi-ni^*
r 99	ni-id-du-bu-ub
r 1010	ni-ip-ta-⸢làḫ⸣ ina UGU
r 1111	a-na LUGAL ni-is-sap-ra

Adapted from Simo Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (State Archives of Assyria, 10), 1993. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2016, as part of the research programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair in the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at LMU Munich (Karen Radner, Humboldt Professorship 2015). The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P334027/.