Ras Shamra Notes. VII the Ugaritic Fantasia of the Gracious and Beautiful Gods

THE UGAiTIac composition here partly presented in translation was first published by Virolleaud, under a title of which the above is a translation, in Syria, 1933: 128 fif. It has been republished in all the several subsequent collectanea of the Ugaritic texts. The discussions of this fascinating composition have been numerous and varied in treatment.' Of particular interest to the present writer is Gaster's very original presentation of the dramatic character of what is really a playa phase of literary discussion which is still desiderated for all the IUgaritic 'epics.' Gaster's work, by reason of its foreign publication, may not be known at large. But he has presented a sample of it in a recent article, 'Ezekiel and the Mysteries,' JBL 1941: 289 Sf., in particular, pp. 290 f.., along with valuable parallels from the ancient Oriental fields.2 Gaster has most ingeniously presented the dramatic character of the composition with its rubrics and refrains, along with the attempt to picture the attendant performance of the actors. There may also be cited the brief but illuminating remark by Dussaud in his study of the drama of 'Anat (RHR 1938: 137) : Il ne faut pas perdre de vue que ces recits mythiques etaient une representation du rituel et qu'ils etaient recites au cours des ceremonies religieuses. The first part of the composition is complicated with various details, themes, rubrics, introduction of the personae dramatis. It opens with the introductory invocation: I will invoke the Gracious and Beautiful Gods,7 etc., repeated with expansion in 11. 23iff. The theme, Peace of nomads and settled folk, is given twice (11. 7, 26). Motand-8r, the god of infertility, is presented as sitting, in his hand the sceptre of barrenness, in his hand the sceptre of widowhood (1. 8), followed by the presentation of pruning of the vines, evidently an agricultural rite. There are introduced in double course the divine heroines of the drama, Atirat and Rahmay (11. 13, 28).3 L. 14 is a rubric directing a sacrifice, 'the cooking of a kid in curds'; cf. Ex. 23: 19. The following study deals only with 11. 32-68a, the centre of the drama. The goddess's cry to Il

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• Bibliography of James Alan Montgomery

  E A Speiser•Bulletin of the American Schools…•1950

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