A reading, published with its checks still open. A Vigslist translation.
The Lament That Lets No One Rest — an Eme-sal lament to Enlil. Its refrain cancels every posture of a settled world: a man does not stand, a man does not sit, he does not lie down; a maiden stands at the Ekur with no joy raised for her.
Published as a reading. No first-translation claim is made for this piece. The checks that would settle such a claim are named in the notes below and are still open; the wording on this page claims nothing they have not settled.
Status: BUILT — witness reading, fragments class · claim: none — English rendering of this tablet's preserved lines on present evidence, identification open (below) · built 2026-10-22 by the overnight B2 Ni number-space sweep (record in neither program census; found by direct probing of the Ni number space on eBL).
The piece: Ni 4121 · Istanbul Museum (Nippur) · Old Babylonian · CDLI P356477 · copy: Kramer, Sumerian Literary Tablets and Fragments in the Istanbul Museum I (SLTN/ISET 1) · transliteration: Jeremiah Peterson (eBL, 2023-04-20; rev. 2025-07-18) · 0 #tr.en · 35 line-units · genre: Eme-sal lament (balaĝ-type) to Enlil — named on the clay as Enlil and, in the dialect's own form, Mullil.
A lament in Eme-sal, the chant-dialect of the gala singers, addressed to Enlil. What survives is not narrative but the machinery of the genre: Enlil's epithets ("lord of the lands," "lord of the true word," "the lord is my father; he is my herald") and a refrain exchange built on rest denied —
a man does not stand, a man does not sit — …let me speak… …he does not lie down.
The god is not at rest, so no one is: standing, sitting, lying down — the three postures of a settled world — are all negated around him. A maiden appears at the Ekur with no joy raised for her; Enlil sets his eye on someone and hangs something on a neck. The tablet does not say what has happened. Laments rarely do, in the parts that survive.
Identification, stated plainly: the composition is not named on its record — no description, no edition reference, one handbook trace (Borger, HKL 3, p. 37). Its distinctive strings — the refrain lu₂ na-gub lu₂ na-tuš, the negative da-nu₂, u₃-mu-un, niĝir-si, tu₅-tu₅-na — occur zero times in the 3,559,111-line local CDLI ATF export (checked string by string, 2026-10-22). Neighboring scholarship exists and is named here so nobody mistakes it for an edition of this tablet: Delnero's study of CBS 10417, an unfinished Enlil lament from Nippur ("The Silences of the Scribes, Pt. II"), treats the same world and the same epithets; no link between that tablet and this one is shown, and none is claimed. This reading is offered as an English rendering of this tablet's preserved lines, on tonight's evidence. Visual layer: not consulted. Dragon scan: the ATF as served carries no dragon or serpent wording.
Obverse, column 1 — four lines, surface lost. Nothing rendered.
Obverse, column 2
Obverse, column 3
Reverse, column 4 — the refrain
Notes on the words: u₃-mu-un is the Eme-sal "lord"; dug₄-ga zi-da, "the true word/speech"; a-a, "father" in the dialect; niĝir-si, the herald who walks before a lord; tu₅, to bathe or wash — the "who bathed him" phrases are rendered as read and left open, their object lost with the line-heads; the refrain's negation da-nu₂, "he does not lie down," answers the singer's repeated ga-am₃-dug₄, "let me speak."
Rendered 23 of 35 line-units — 3 whole / 9 part / 11 fragment / 0 invented. Unrendered: column 1 entire (4), col. 3 5′, rev. 19′–20′, and pure-sign lines.
Gates run: zero #tr.en on the record (first-claim-eligible for this tablet's lines); the composition unattested in the local corpus on five independent distinctive strings; no edition, translation, or discussion of this tablet found (record references: copy only, plus a Borger handbook trace); neighboring Delnero CBS 10417 article named, not conflated. Doors: a composite identification via CLAM/eISL when ORACC access returns (balaĝ catalogue), and collation of the tu₅ phrases against the finished copy (SLTN 52-class copy in ISET 1).
Built from the eBL fragment record Ni.4121 (fetched 2026-10-22). Transliteration © Jeremiah Peterson / the eBL project; hand copy © Kramer, ISET 1. English rendering of this witness's preserved lines: Vigslist translations — AI-assisted, cross-checked against the transliteration as served.
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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