The ending to the story of The Great Fatted Bull is missing due
to damage on the tablet. However, we can surmise how the story ends.
If you haven’t already read the story, I suggest you first read the Annotations. This way you won’t know the ending before
you fully comprehend the story (although it is not entirely necessary).
Tablet #36, front. You read a cuneiform tablet from left to
right, and down the “page,” like in English.
The Great Fatted Bull, the bull who would be king.
The story begins with the birth of Lu-mah. He grows up and
develops into manhood during the course of events. The story covers his
entire lifespan until his retirement ("out to pasture").
[x-] = Missing or damaged text {… }
= explanatory comments
[Unknown number of lines missing]
You [x-x…]
Fate [x-x…]
Lu-mah is a fat bull [x-x…]
May he be the abundant gift of fatherhood [x-x…]
Great Fatso is treasured. To the Great Fatso the workmen send [x-x…]
He bellows: To the bull, "Bring to me the gifts of food!" To the bull, "Now send to me my lady!"
Lu-mah declares, "My abundant fate
is like the Majestic Shrine.
"It's accumulating up to the heavens!"
He goes into the village to make the rounds.
He wanders through the marketplace, feeling most important.
He passes by Grain Field #5 . . .
He enters Grain Field #5, to fill his great bull hands!
“I proclaim this field a gift! And this henbur grain I'll take!
"With many different wives for my virile self.
"And so with my labor, I'll support myself and my mother!”
He gets into a huge argument with everyone. {the owners of the
field}
[x-x…] . . . goes the angry lord.
[Lord (?)] [x-x] [something, something] {The tablet is
heavily damaged in this area.}
Then the Lord Fatso returns to his village. He proclaims,
“I'm the man who yoked the bandits!”
He drags the slave women and their captive kinsmen into his fortress.
Lu-mah commands, “I order the father to trample his fields into mash!”
{He says to Su-ba, "the shepherd brother," son of the
unfortunate father
and the brother of the slave
women: }
"I'll sell you Pasture #5. Give me all your heaps of
grain.”
[x-x…]-like, the shepherd brother.
Tablet #36, back. After you finish reading the front of a
tablet, you don’t turn it right to left like the page of a book. Instead,
you flip it bottom-to-top and begin reading down the back.
{The
shepherd brother speaks: }
"I will not bow before the man who seizes everything but wisdom.
"He is not a strong man.
"Earth and the heavens feel troubled
"when this man is bellowing for plunder!”
Beating ribs, beating back and shoulders, like a storm arose the angry
lord!
{The lord beats (kills?) the shepherd brother.}
{Later, at the victory celebration. . .}
He eats his food like a pig. The Pig divides the fodder into five big
bowls,
and with his hand, he crams it into his mouth and
chokes it down.
"My flanks grow fat!" he bellows, while eating all the food
his hands can grab.
A man, clothed in darkness, climbs in through the window.
The slave women rush to his side.
The man says, “Here’s a gift to anoint the bull! To make him
permanently bellow
with great burning indigestion!”
Nose to nose, the lord and the "man not his servant" {rebel,
enemy} throttle each other.
The lord opens his mouth and swears two oaths to his adversary.
He gasps, “Feed-grain . . . to abandon! This great eating to diminish!”
His mother says, “The Fatted Lord is not a lordly one.
"As for me, I know that I don't place great
trust in him.”
His wife shares his Mountain of Grain with his slave women
and their slave companions.
The fatted bull reaps one single twig of his henbur grain.
“What? Only one?” His stomach knows a great hunger.
{Lu-mah is sent into exile.}
A working woman offers him a garden,
with acres and acres of grain . . .
Grain Field #4!
In pasture he grows fat again.
The man goes to do his work. He walks in the pasture,
completely satisfied [x-x]
He converses with the neighbor woman [x-x]
The man is not strong, the woman not virtuous . . .
So… “The man is not strong, the woman not virtuous.”
What do you think happens next?
They have sex, of course (he’s a bull/man, after all).
What does sometimes happen when a man and a woman have sex?
An unplanned pregnancy.
Is Lu-mah married to the neighbor woman?
No.
What does that mean?
It means their son will be a “bastard.”
Flip the tablet over to the front and it announces the birth
of a son −
a bastard, both literally and figuratively.
Keep flipping the tablet end-over-end and it forms an “endless
loop,” with the same story happening over and over again for all eternity; i.e., A son is born. He grows up to be a greedy king. He is deposed and sent into exile. He has sex with a woman. A son is born. He grows up to be...
It’s so cool. It’s so incredibly cool.
Modern-day Literature Majors (like me) with 4,000 years
of world literature at their disposal, are familiar with this very sophisticated plot device. It is called a “circular story” or a “full circle story.” It isn't easy to write a story like this.
Bear in mind, however, that the scribe wrote the story of The Great Fatted Bull at
the dawn of literature, in the world’s most difficult language, when literature
was still very crude when compared to modern narratives.
The stories of The Princess Wife (parts one and two) are
likewise circular stories, where the same thing keeps happening over and over again.
Not to mention the fact that each story
is a lighthearted comedy, a scathing political satire, and a murder mystery
that the reader must solve for himself by using the clues provided.
That is why I keep saying that the stories are literary masterpieces, and the scribes who wrote them are some of the best writers in all of world literature.
