A hymn to Nergal from Nineveh — the first complete English translation. A Vigslist translation.
The hymn stands on one tablet in two pieces, K.4809 and K.4925, both in the British Museum. R. Borger joined them in 1971. They come from Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh, and what they carry is bilingual — Sumerian, with an Akkadian translation line set under each Sumerian line. T. G. Pinches copied the obverse in 1891 for The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, where it stands as IV R 24 no. 1. The hymn itself is older than the tablet that carries it: it was composed in the Old Babylonian period, and the Akkadian version was added later, by Middle Babylonian scribes. The scribes titled it by its opening words — a ḫuš-ba ri-a, "Begotten in Fury" — and the colophon at the end still calls it that.
The form is a roll of names. The hymn opens with the god's begetting: conceived in fury in the Deep of Enki, adorned with radiance there, and given his sovereign power out of the Ekur, Enlil's temple. Then the obverse runs through seventeen epithets for Nergal — warrior, foremost one, prince of the great gods, lord who goes about by night — each one sung three ways: the Sumerian line, its Akkadian translation, and a refrain that repeats the Sumerian under Nergal's name. The reverse is mostly lost. What survives of it is the end of a petition spoken on behalf of a solitary man, and then Ashurbanipal's own colophon.
The tablet has been edited twice, both times in German: J. Böllenrücher edited K.4809 in 1904, and R. Borger edited K.4925 in 1973. In English there was only ever a part. Charles Gordon Cumming's The Assyrian and Hebrew Hymns of Praise (1934) printed an English rendering attributed to Morris Jastrow — seventeen couplets covering obverse lines 14–64, and nothing else. The opening of the hymn, its last obverse line, the whole reverse, and the colophon were never in it. In 2012, Matteo Viano rendered the opening lines of another witness, the Boğazköy tablet from Anatolia, in English. The Nineveh text itself was never translated complete into English — until this one.
One of Cumming's seventeen couplets does touch the dragon lines, and misses the dragon. At obverse lines 35–37 the hymn calls Nergal ušumgal maḫ — the august dragon. Jastrow Englished ušumgal as "giant": "Lofty giant, who spittest out poison." The word is the dragon-word. The Akkadian line underneath writes the same word out in syllables, ušumgallu, and in both languages the being named is a dragon, heaping up and pouring out venom on the god's enemies. A reader of the 1934 book, or of anything in English since, has never met a dragon in this hymn. The lines, in transliteration:
uš[umg]al maḫ uš₁₁ i₃-dub-dub-bu diri-ne-ne [x x]
u₂-[šu]m-gal-lu ṣī-ru ta-bi-ik im-ti e-li-šu₂-nu [x x]
{d}n[e₃-er]i₁₁-gal ušumgal maḫ <(uš₁₁ i₃-dub-dub-bu diri-ne-ne x x)>
"The august dragon, who heaps up venom, who surpasses them […]"
"The august dragon, who pours out venom upon them […]"
"Nergal, the august dragon, who heaps up venom, who surpasses them […]"
The Sumerian's first word is partly restored on the tablet — uš[umg]al — and the refrain carries the word again in full, under Nergal's name. The restored signs still want collation against photographs of the tablet, and that is stated here rather than smoothed over.
Brackets and gaps are exactly what they look like: places where the tablet is broken. Nothing has been filled in. The obverse first, then what survives of the reverse.
[Begotten in fury, the fierce […] …] Nergal — [begotten in splendour(?)], great wild bull, august son of the Great Mountain. Nunamnir — begotten in fury — in the house of the Deep, Enki-Nudimmud [decreed a great fate for him]. August ibex(?) of Ekuda(?), who dons august radiance, who knows the divine powers and the tablet, […]. Ea, in the deep, adorned you with august radiance. Nergal, mighty one among his brothers, who subdues the hostile ones — […] your name […]. From the Ekur he gave you sovereign power; fierce radiance [he gave you …].
Nergal, warrior, laden with august radiance, [full of terror …]. Nergal, foremost one, gleaming of face, burning of mouth, fierce Gešbar(?) […]. Nergal, legitimate son, beloved of the god Duranki, great šita-priest(?) […]. Nergal, prince of the great gods, filled with true terror in his body. Nergal, massive one(?) of the Anunna, [heaping up(?)] fierce radiance […]. Nergal, lord of the raised head, august, beloved of the Ekur, whose name is proclaimed […]. Nergal, exalted one of the great gods, who brings judgement and decision to completion(?). Nergal, the august dragon, who heaps up venom, who surpasses them […].
Nergal, whose appearance is changed, whose limbs he has raised(?) — the fierce gallû-demons strike(?) the head at his right side and at his left side. Nergal, long(?) of arm — when he smites, the evil one at his side [does not …]. Nergal, the great […]god(?) — at the sound of his feet, the bolted house […]. Nergal, lord who goes about by night — bolted doors [open] of themselves in his path(?) […]. Nergal, warrior — his whip rises(?), he utters a cry; his šita-weapon […]. Nergal, perfect one(?), whose might surpasses — like a dream, [it] cannot […] to you. Nergal, warrior, who seizes the enemy of the Ekur, the foe of Duranki […]. Nergal, frightful wall(?) — fierce Gešbar(?), [who has] no [rival] in battle. Nergal, the flood, outstretched, which flattens the disobedient land, surpassing in strength, who speaks(?) to the great gods […]. […] fierce(?) […] — traces only; nothing more of the obverse survives.
The wo[rd …]. My son(?) […]. My counsellor(?) — [I will say to you …]. To the sanctuary, [I will] speak [to you …]. "My counsellor(?) : 'To the sanctuary do not cross over(?) : do not be made to cross over(?)'" "To my counsellor(?) : 'I have waited(?) for my sanctuary : may he pay heed(?)'" The solitary man — do not let him die! […]
[Tablet 1] of "Begotten in Fury" — not finished. Palace of [Ashurbanip]al, king of the world, king of Assyria. [To whom Nabû and] Tašmētu granted broad wisdom; who took up [with his own eyes the choicest of the scribal art]. [Among the kings] who went before me, no one had taken up [that] work […].
The hymn as the Nineveh tablet preserves it runs to 76 line-units: 8 rendered whole, 66 in part, and 2 unrestorable — two lines where only traces stand, printed as traces. Twenty-five of the 76 are Englished here for the first time: the opening thirteen lines, the obverse's broken last line, and the whole reverse, colophon included. The dragon distich stands inside the part Cumming printed, but with its dragon restored it is Englished in substance for the first time. The full line-by-line bilingual text, with the apparatus and every divergence from Jastrow's renderings stated, accompanies this article as a Zenodo deposit.
Zenodo DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23501973
The tablets are held by the British Museum (K.4809 and K.4925, joined by R. Borger, September 1971; CDLI P357098 and P418111). Hand copy: T. G. Pinches, The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia IV, 2nd ed. (1891), plate 24 no. 1. Editions: J. Böllenrücher, Gebete und Hymnen an Nergal (1904), pp. 24–30, no. 5, for K.4809; R. Borger, in the Festschrift for F. M. Th. de Liagre Böhl (1973), pp. 47–50, for K.4925. Partial English rendering: Charles Gordon Cumming, The Assyrian and Hebrew Hymns of Praise (Columbia University Press, 1934), printing a rendering attributed to Morris Jastrow, covering obverse lines 14–64. Boğazköy witness: Matteo Viano, "A Sumerian Hymn from Boğazköy," Die Welt des Orients 42 (2012), pp. 231–237. The transliteration is the eBL record: Tonio Mitto (2020), revised by Enrique Jiménez (2025). The translation printed here was made from that transliteration; the parallel witnesses — the Boğazköy tablet and the Babylon fragments — were not collated into it, and the restored signs of the dragon lines still want collation against photographs of K.4809. The full working text, with the identification checks, the coverage map of the 1934 rendering, and the apparatus, accompanies this article and is available to any scholar who wants to check the work.
Nuvira Technologies conducts this research with AI assistance, cross-verified against the primary sources to scholarly integrity standards. Uncertain readings are marked; broken lines are left broken.
— Richard Vigslist, Founder, Nuvira Technologies
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