Chapter 2 Sumerian Narrative Myth and the Relational Nature of Rhetoric in the Aratta Epics

Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta has been described as a representative work of Old Babylonian literature, placing it in the period of linguistic development between 1650–1190 bce, perhaps a millennium or more before the composition of Phaedrus. Nine partial editions have been unearthed, including large sections from Ur, Kish, and Nippur (Vanstiphout, 2003a, p. 55). It must be considered that the sheer scope of distribution and number of copies found, however, in mutilus, suggests their widespread curricular use in ancient Sumeria. The poem was discovered in fragmentary condition, but secondary copies were discovered in comparatively complete condition at Nippur; two fragments of unknown origin are held in Berlin. Scholars reassembled the tablets by comparison with different sets. The reassembled and most complete edition consists of 27 tablets, 23 of which were found at Nippur (Figure 6). The text is still partially incomplete. The poem consists of approximately 640 lines. Vanstiphout has described the condition of the Enmerkar tablets compared to other Sumerian materials. Most of these texts came from Nippur, with a smaller number of fragments found in Ur (p. 13). They are distributed similarly to the core material, with most consisting of a few complete editions on large, single tablets featuring five to six columns per side. Additionally, a few more complete editions comprise half or one-third of the text in multicolumn editions with three to four columns per side. Many extract tablets with a single column (imgida) are also present. The writing style is typically small, regular, and meticulous, with few errors, alternate spellings, or readings (see, e.g., Vanstiphout, 2003a, pp. 12–13).

Vanstiphout (2003a) observed that “[t]he story seems deceptively simple” (p. 49). Enmerkar is a heroic narrative based on mental and technological challenges rather than martial feats and was not readily available in translation until the mid-twentieth century. The goddess Inanna advises Enmerkar, the Lord of Uruk, to seek ornaments and precious metals for her temple from the Lord of the city of Aratta (1999, I.B.2). A key detail of the colloquy with Inanna is that Enmerkar’s ultimate goal is not to be objectively pecuniary, but rather to unite all of humanity with one language in the wake of the collapse of the tower of Etemenanki. Inanna’s goal seems to be to rectify the linguistic diffusion that resulted in the wake of its destruction. To mark the significance of his ambition, Enmerkar even invokes a magical incantation to writing (II.C.3). This invocation is the so-called “Spell of Nudimmud,” which reads:

Page 51 →

Page 52 →It is the spell of Nudimmud!

One day there will be no snake, no scorpion,

There will be no hyena, nor lion,

There will be neither (wild) dog nor wolf,

And thus there will be neither fear nor trembling,

For man will then have no enemy.

On that day the lands of Subur and Hamazi,

As well as twin-tongued Sumer—great mound of the power of lordship—

Together with Akkad—the mound that has all that is befitting—

And even the land Martu, resting in green pastures,

Yea, the whole world of well-ruled people,

Will be able to speak to Enlil in one language! (Enmerkar lines 134–155)

Enmerkar recruits the most eloquent messenger he can find, who delivers a series of communiqués to Aratta. This results in a kind of contest of challenges and counterchallenges to resolve the dispute (II.E.1). In the final episode of this contest, Enmerkar invents writing and, by extension, its use to establish the concept of diplomacy and trade (III.Q.3.497–506). In the conclusion, there is an explosion of prosperity in Aratta, although the Lord of Aratta is at first baffled by the new technology of writing.

I have previously argued that Enmerkar contains extended analogical metaphors that convey a theory of written rhetoric (see, e.g., Ramsey 2021a). After Enmerkar accepts the challenge from the goddess Inanna, he recites “The Spell of Nudimmud.” This invocation reveals the systemic and relational nature of rhetoric-as-function in Sumeria. The possibility that Enmerkar does not merely teach one lesson, but many, seems consistent with the layering of meaning typical of myths as analogical metaphors, which often affect their didactic purpose through exemplars. Enmerkar certainly contains lessons concerning the nature of writing, trade, diplomacy, social systems of communication, and language as a unifying hallmark of cultural distinction in ancient Sumeria. Nisaba appears briefly to Enmerkar and opens “the House of Wisdom”; therefore, Page 53 →the appearance of rhetoric-as-concept is what causally prefigures all other developments in the poem. The knowledge of the means she conveys concerns the nature of rhetoric. The central mission of Enmerkar is further explained in the “Spell of Nudimmud”:

For on that day, for the debates between lords and princes and kings

… Shall Enki, Lord of abundance, Lord of steadfast decisions,

Change the tongues in their mouth, as many as he once placed there,

… And the speech of mankind shall be truly one! (pp. 147–155)

The overt didactic message of the Enmerkar epic relates to the teleological ends of rhetorical action. To the Sumerians, these ends were the promise of peace, security, and unity among humans. Rhetoric was a fundamentally relational perspective to the Sumerians whose telos concerned the resolution of conflict and promoting cooperation because, presumably, their lives depended upon trade. Enmerkar has been characterized as a parable concerning the invention of trade or the invention of writing; however, as a contextual artifact, it is far from being a lesson about economic exchange or technological advancement (Kramer, 1977). It is, instead, a story about human progress toward accord and rhetorical harmony through the relationally ontological medium of Sumerian rhetoric. Enmerkar likewise demonstrates notions of rhetorical agency and the role of the gods in rhetorical practice in the relational ontology of Sumerian rhetoric.

“The Spell of Nudimmud” is ultimately a form of magical invocation for the presence of a rhetorical ontology between all people: Enmerkar prays for a time when all humans will speak with wisdom as if the gods themselves placed the speech in their mouths. The spell foreshadows the remaining events in Enmerkar as an expression of the ends of Sumerian rhetorical theory. The telos of Sumerian rhetoric, through myth, was a didactic, social, and ethical lesson for student-initiates that superseded previous years of scribal education. The purpose of their education, as suggested in the myth of Enmerkar, was to engage them in a common project that was relationally rhetorical in nature. That common project was to provide the means to peace, unity, and accord among all people, which was functionally contrasted with division and argument in the events of the myth.

Narrative rhetorical myths, as generically and categorically driven sets of narratives, frequently have hallmarks known as “mythemes” in the parlance of mythographers. Enmerkar is perhaps the earliest example of a narrative Page 54 →rhetorical myth in the ancient world, which contains most common rhetorical mythemes and is, therefore, prototypical (Alster 1974). Such myths first generally posit that in some form, rhetoric is a force that is personified or numinous. Its numinous quality, that is, its pervasive and otherworldly nature, is typically associated with a nonlocal entity, a goddess, god, angel, or being or sometimes a dispersed spiritual force. They therefore presume or describe a secondary world in which this force resides, which transmits the knowledge of rhetoric from one world to our own. The protagonist in these narratives is typically beset by some problem that is rhetorical in nature. Through the intercession of this anthropomorphized or personified nonlocal entity, the protagonist arrives at some species of rhetorical enlightenment. The narrative then typically ends with the application of this rhetorical knowledge. Whether these myths existed before their graphic recordation is largely a subject of speculation and likely always will be. Rhetorical myths may be the final synthesis of an oral tradition, but this seems unlikely in the case of Enmerkar, since it concerns the invention of writing as a medium of rhetorical action. It is, therefore, logically impossible that a myth about the invention of writing would have antecedents in an oral tradition that preceded writing.

In addition to the straightforward narrative elements in Enmerkar, it addresses the application of written and oral rhetoric from a perspective that draws its definition from relations among beings and things. According to William W. Hallo (2004, 2010), unlike Graeco-Roman rhetoric, cuneiform literature does not offer a neatly packaged set of theoretical or practical guidelines for the art of public speaking. Likewise, Andreas Johandi (2004) has also noted the lack of information about public speaking in the Ancient Near East compared to the considerable amount available on the topic in ancient Greece and Rome (p. 72). While there is evidence of an advanced training apparatus for literate specialists among the Mesopotamians, there is little understanding of Mesopotamian rhetorical theory because of the culturally specific expectation of a “prepackaged corpus of theoretical prescriptions” or the extensive, untranslated cuneiform record (p. 72). But Vanstiphout (2003a) made the qualified statement that the Enmerkar epics have the hallmarks of a genre known as a “disputation”; they are distinct, however, from the verbal wrangling of school texts because of their narrative character. Disputations were “a kind of text that is explicitly mentioned by the poems themselves in the disputation. One of the poems claims in its final lines that the poem is a disputation. The Spell of Nudimmud in ELA claims that the purpose of the spread of Sumerian over the known world is that this will enable the lords, princes, and kings to Page 55 →hold disputations” (p. 12). Theories of rhetorical myth, however, could readily resolve the perceived division Vanstiphout perceived in the verbal wrangling of disputational school exercises—or models—and the mythic episodes of Enmerkar. For example, pedagogical texts might have been intended to give the students of Sumeria practice in disputation, while the Enmerkar poems might have stood as analogical lessons and exempla thereof for larger inquiries into rhetorical topics, only in the sense that myths were not the exercise models of Sumerian students; they were not pedagogical exercises (p. 13). Nor does Vanstiphout’s conditional conclusion that they were literary readings—of some sort—impose a logical purpose on their curricular presence in schools that taught writing. Nonetheless, it is clear that the Mesopotamians had a significant literary genre concerning scribes as part of their advanced training. Enmerkar was one of these and was offered exemplary and analogical lessons related to the generative art of common persuasion. Assuming such, it would seem a more straightforward explanation of the appearance of the Enmerkar cycle in curricular catalogs than literary readings (p. 13).

Vanstiphout expressed further scholarly puzzlement about the uses of Enmerkar in the Sumerian curriculum, as it was listed in texts in use and “represented the final and highest step in their scribal education” (p. 13). Vanstiphout concluded, at least implicitly, that Enmerkar’s purpose was “literary”—instead of theoretical or prescriptive—likening the Enmerkar cycle to classical texts and suggesting the “high flying rhetoric” at use in the cycle lent itself to performance (p. 14). Predictably, this work dissents from that conclusion. Enmerkar’s pedagogical purpose is revealed if it is read as an analogical lesson offered to students on the nature of Sumerian rhetoric. It is, in a sense, the first hypodeictic rhetorical exercise that exists, as one could well imagine scribal students “using it to learn from the teacher how to set out narratives of the past as comparisons to present and future situations” or, in sum, create “analogical persuasive narratives of their own” (Papillon, 1995, p. 158). However, Enmerkar also considers the nature and first principles of the persuasive uses of language.

Far from a mere literary exercise, Enmerkar appears to be a rhetorical treatise of a mythological type that operates through analogy and paradigmae for students of writing. Enmerkar’s position in the long continuum of classical rhetoric can be deciphered by applying the categories of tropic expressions—especially extended analogical metaphors—advanced by classical theorists. Enmerkar is better understood in its cultural context by applying the analogical function of Mesopotamian myth. Additionally, Sumerian rhetoric must be approached with relational ontology as a central premise of its essential definition. Page 56 →The Sumerians perceived rhetorical theory as a practice embedded in interpersonal and hierarchical relations; the technical practice of rhetoric related to Sumeria’s institutions, concepts, and practices. Their rhetorical theory also integrally involved governance, citizens, goddesses, magic, and monsters. More specifically, it involved monstrous birds.

Enmerkar is significant evidence of the work of rhetoric within and among those ontological categories. Enmerkar is also evidence of how participants in systems and institutions conceived and practiced the rhetorical arts. Enmerkar’s central lesson, as mythic rhetoric, thus bears a likeness to Cicero’s (1939, 1942) De Oratore, though I offer this likeness by illustration, not true comparison. The majority of De Oratore, rather than confining itself to technical prescriptions, describes rhetoric as what the ideal orator is and does. By distinction, the rhetoric of the Sumerians was categorical and systemic, not personal, constituting a descriptive relational ontology of rhetoric in the form of myth.

Rhetoric is a principal subject of Enmerkar because the Sumerian verb inim drives the primary subjects of the narrative. The categorical nature of the verb’s usage conveys rhetoric as a relational ontology of major actors, hierarchies, and concepts within the narrative. Inim almost always reflects a symbolic interaction between the characters, whether spoken or written, and these interactions drive the major events that constitute a narrative about rhetoric. A second clue is the appearance of Nisaba, the goddess-as-knowledge-of-means. 𒅗 is the cuneiform symbol of the transliteration inim, as used in Enmerkar. This symbol is called “KA” in the Sumerian sign list. Inim is traditionally translated as “to speak,” but the relational uses of this word are far more complex. It is used, at least once in Enmerkar, as the verbs “to write” and “to speak.” In Akkadian, the word was “šat.āru” or “šapāru” to indicate writing as an art. The symbol is also used to denote “sign” or “word” (dug).

The cuneiform symbol for inim can have multiple meanings and be expressed in multiple phonemes, making the astonishing work of Vanstiphout as translator all the more remarkable for his ability to recognize inim through contextual clues. Vanstiphout demonstrated in the heavy lifting of his translation that the Sumerian inim has the most potent expression related to rhetoric; inim is employed contextually to describe an enormous range of complex and persuasive speech acts in the Sumerian mythic corpus. Inim bears closer Page 57 →examination, as it illustrates the relational ontology of the verbal or written act in Sumerian rhetorical expression. Inim is the most probable of Sumerian written signs relating to rhetorical action, and it derives its meaning from the contextual relationship of one speaker or writer to another throughout Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, as well as other epics in which Enmerkar and his son, Lugalbanda, figure prominently.

Inim occurs with the greatest frequency in two of the Enmerkar epics: Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana (sixteen times), a story about a contest between the Lord of Aratta and Enmerkar, and the most revealing Sumerian rhetorical myth Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta (thirty-nine times). Inim is used in En-suhgir-ana in equally revealing ways to its more famous accompanying epic. En-suhgir-ana’s plot revolves around a conflict between Ensuhkeshdanna of Aratta and Enmerkar, king of Uruk. Ensuhkeshdanna demands that Enmerkar submit to Aratta, and he boasts about his (presumably metaphorical) sexual connection with the goddess Inanna. Enmerkar responds with creative sexual taunts, and his refusal to submit causes Ensuhkeshdanna to feel defeat and humiliation.² The sorcerer Urgirinuna comes to Aratta and promises to make Enmerkar submit to them. Urgirinuna sabotages Enmerkar’s dairy livestock, but a sorceress, the Wise Woman Sagburu, defeats Urgirinuna in a series of contests with her superior magic. She refuses to spare his life and casts him into the Euphrates. Because En-suhgir-ana and Enmerkar involve verbal interactions between the many participants, inim appears with a great deal more frequency than in other Sumerian literature, including related epics such as Lugalbanda in the Wilderness (Vanstiphout, 2003b) and The Return of Lugalbanda (Vanstiphout, 2003c). The Enmerkar epics centrally describe communicative acts, all of which involve a speaker and another entia.

Inim is used in Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana in several revealing ways that are fundamental to understanding the Sumerian concept of relational rhetoric. It should be noted that the entire poem concludes, “Praise be to Nisaba!” (nisaba zag-mi; p. 44). Enmerkar’s eventual victory over his foe is wholly attributed to Nisaba. Nisaba’s concluding appearance as the object of praise is much more than a scribal flourish or a customary convention. Her appearance is a central cue to a Sumerian reader that the dialogue concerns human persuasion, verbal interaction, and the magical nature of speech. Her appearance is also the first structural signal that, when inim is used, it signifies the presence of an argument, agreement, message, or symbolic interaction between several entities. Inim, in En-suhgir-ana, is a concluding invocation that acts as a magical catalyst. Inim is a medium of exchange between gods, humans, and Page 58 →animals. Inim, therefore, describes a rhetorical concept that derives its meaning from sets of relations between participants.

By way of example, Ensuhkeshdanna initially “speaks” (inim) to Enmerkar through a messenger (I.24) and finally concedes defeat through a messenger, for which the word inim is also used (p. 274). The use of the word “inim,” therefore, describes the symbolic exchange between Ensuhkeshdanna and Enmerkar through a messenger; this itself creates an ontological relationship between these characters and their modes of communication. That inim could be used to describe a mediated exchange just as readily as direct speech suggests that either Sumerians assumed no inherent distinction between the two, or inim has far greater cultural implications than a translation of “to speak.” The relational nature of mediated exchange is reinforced when Ensuhkeshdanna concedes defeat through a messenger, again using the word inim. The repetition of the same term to describe two different instances of communication through a messenger highlights the significance of this mode of communication within the story. It reinforces the relationship of rhetorical interaction because the act of inim can be mediated and systemic. The eventual victory of Enmerkar is predicated on a contest largely composed of words, or words deployed magically. However, the presence of Nisaba, as a prime mover of Enmerkar’s technical knowledge of argument and persuasion, indicates that inim might signify a communicative relationship between humans, supernatural powers, or abstract concepts.

Ensuhkeshdanna first uses the word inim when he boasts that he will eventually achieve sexual victory with Enmerkar’s mate and seems to relate inim to a sexual union with the goddess Inanna: “I shall converse with Inanna between her gleaming legs!” (p. 63). The statement implies a connection between Ensuhkeshdanna as a contestant with Enmerkar and the goddess Inanna through sexual activity. It also creates an implicit commonality between speaking and communion with the gods. It suggests that Ensuhkeshdanna sees himself as sexually desirable and powerful enough to engage in such relationships and that he considers them significant enough to boast about. But inim also implies a hierarchical relationship, as Ensuhkeshdanna elevates his status through sexual braggadocio with powerful figures: he boasts of his prowess in hierarchical contrast to Enmerkar. In these relationships, inim takes on ontological significance in the verbal interaction among the connections—hierarchical, religious, adversarial, and sexual—and implicitly creates these relationships. Enmerkar invokes the term inim by boasting in return, “The great saintly mistress of the Eana consulted (inim) with me; I know her decision: she will not go to Aratta!” (pp. 106–107). This statement thereby implies a certain level of familiarity and Page 59 →communication between Enmerkar and Inanna and suggests that Enmerkar holds a position of importance or authority only by virtue of inim that allows the consultation. The use of the term inim in this context implies a relational aspect, because it is a term used to describe a consultation or communication between two parties. But inim is contrastive in this context, too: it reflects a hierarchy of intimacy and difference between Enmerkar, Inanna, and Ensuhkeshdanna. As in the case of the word gu in Sumerian, it does not reply to a mere speech act or “crying out.” It seems that in the context of speech, gu suggests gestural or phatic speech, while in a written context, gu denotes an orthographic act of marking (see Vanstiphout, 1988).

After receiving Enmerkar’s reply, Ensuhkeshdanna summoned and “consulted” (inim) his advisors (p. 117), attempting to determine what to reply (gu) to Enmerkar (p. 119). En-suhgir-ana, a sorcerer, persuades Ensuhkeshdanna to engage in black magic. Thus, a chain of relational exchanges is the beginning of the narrative. From Inanna, to Enmerkar, to Ensuhkeshdanna, to his counselors, and back, the process of relational meaning continues even to nonhuman entities. En-suhgir-ana, in his turn, persuades Aratta to engage in magical warfare, which involves teaching animals speech (inim) and cursing their ability to make milk. Having convinced his king, the sorcerer En-suhgir-ana “wended his way to Eres, the city of Nisaba” (p. 171). That the black magic takes place in the city of Eres—Nisaba’s city—is an important detail, as it illustrates the perceptual nature of Sumerian rhetoric: rhetorical power can be used to serve diabolical ends and is considered a perversion of a true art. The fact that the sorcerer commits his crime in the city of Nisaba herself conveys the magnitude of his crime against the technical art of rhetoric. At line 174, the sorcerer in the employ of Enmerkar’s rival causes a cow to speak (inim); it converses (inim) “as if it were a human.” Further, in line 187, the sorcerer is described as speaking to a goat and causing it to speak (inim). The passage describes how the sorcerer causes a cow and a goat to speak (inim), thereby blurring the natural boundary between humans and animals, constituting an unnatural rhetorical act. By enabling the animals to converse (inim) “as if they were human,” the sorcerer creates a relationship between the two species that amounts to a crime against the order of the Sumerian cosmos. The act is ontological only through the relationships it reifies, and this relational nature of Sumerian rhetoric is implicitly social: rhetoric, to the Sumerians, consisted of proper and sometimes hierarchical relations between participants in a system ordained by Nisaba.

The sorcerer is described as both speaking and causing the animals to speak (inim) in the same manner, which suggests that the crime of sorcery is disrupting Page 60 →a system of difference and similarity between living things. By implication, to the Sumerians, the persuasion of animals to speak through sorcery represented a potential perversion of rhetoric that constituted a criminal misdeed. The characterization of the persuasive power of the sorcerer to pervert the natural order only assumes its character through relational ontological assumptions. The similarity and dissimilarity of animals and humans was not based on physical attributes or biological characteristics, but rather on their ability to interact with others. This short episode expresses a relational ontology by emphasizing the interconnectedness of all beings and the importance of communication and understanding in creating meaningful relationships between them. This interspecies communication, cast as a perversion of natural relational order and rhetoric, will recur in Egyptian rhetorical theory.

Because the goddess Nisaba is the personified knowledge of the means of rhetoric as technical art, and the major events in Enmerkar centrally involve writing and speaking, Nisaba’s role as a rhetorical goddess in conceptual action develops even further through the events of the narrative. Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta further illuminates the use of inim as an expression of ontological and rhetorical relations in the theory of Sumerian rhetoric and the relationship of rhetoric to the gods. At the outset of the epic, Inanna advises Enmerkar on the means to obtain ornaments for her sacred temple, and the means she proposes to accomplish this task are rhetorical in nature. The epic explains: “Inanna, mistress of all the lands, Thus spoke [gu] to Enmerkar, son of the Sun: Come Enmerkar, I shall advise [inim] you—let my advice be heeded!—I shall speak a word—let it be heard [gsizzal]” (Vanstiphout, 2003a, pp. 67–68). Thus, the idea of merely summoning Enmerkar is designated by the descriptor gu, while inim is reserved for Inanna’s advice: “Having chosen among the troops a messenger, clever of speech [inim] and hardy, Where and to whom shall he carry the grave word [inim] of word [inim]-wise Inanna” (pp. 67–72).

In terms of frequency of use, inim is used more often than in any passage of Enmerkar or in any other texts in the Enmerkar cycle. There may be several reasons for this. First, while Nisaba’s role seems to be to offer signs of the knowledge of the technical means of rhetorical action, Inanna advises Enmerkar on how to put those means into practice. This may be a fine distinction. However, Nisaba’s rhetorical counsel represents the first node in a network of Page 61 →relations to Enmerkar. This causational act is the first in a long chain of persuasive acts, which permits Enmerkar to engage in the process of systemic persuasion to convey his demands to Aratta. Therefore, the passage is rhetorically relational because it describes a conversation between two individuals, Inanna and Enmerkar, and their communication concerns the selection of a mediator to deliver a persuasive message. It establishes an ontology of relationships to frame a rhetorical situation, and the recipient, Aratta, who is also implicitly in this network. The command of Inanna also highlights the relational ontology that exists between Inanna and Enmerkar, as well as humans and gods more generally. Inanna is referred to as the mistress of all the lands, while Enmerkar is referred to as the son of the Sun. Additionally, the passage establishes a relationship between the messenger and the message, as the messenger must be “clever of speech” and “hardy” to deliver the “grave word” of Inanna.

Ultimately, it is unclear whether the true agency of the message is Enmerkar’s or ultimately belongs to a divine authority. Still, this passage clearly attributes the content of the message at some level to Inanna, while conveying a form of choice or agency upon Enmerkar. It would be a mistake to characterize Inanna as a goddess of rhetorical nature, being more strongly associated with sex and political relations. As we have seen in other Enmerkar poems, however, these concepts and practices seem to take on a relationally ontological dynamic in disputation and rhetorical practice, and Inanna may be representative of the systemic nature of rhetoric. The passage thus illustrates a web of relationships between various individuals and concepts, emphasizing the importance of the defining roles inherent in the persuasive act. In Sumeria, rhetoric had a presence that was systemic, hierarchical, and mediated by divine communiqués. A whole host of gods, kings, agents, and audiences, as well as their relations, make up the fundamental precepts of rhetorical practice in Sumerian culture.

In the case of Enmerkar, rhetorical relations might involve a contest of wits or an enterprise to obtain material gain. Enmerkar’s rhetorical context takes its being from the interrelationship of men, women, gods, servants, and even animals, as well as the cultures and social strata they occupy. It exists in an exemplary situation that is offered as an analogical lesson. In so doing, it represents the purpose and nature of rhetoric in the human world. The hierarchical positions of the participants, their geographical and social place, and their role may change, as might the technological means with which they mediate their communication. But amid all of these changes, inim is a central conceptual activity. Even the aims of each speaker may change and are not confined to set piece orations but functional everyday scenarios. Indeed, things as seemingly Page 62 →pedestrian as sexual rivalry or trade arrangements can be implicated. Sumerian rhetoric, as inim, takes its significance contextually and must be conveyed in the form of a narrative of many actors in variable circumstances, constantly in interrelation. I turn to another illustrative example from the text to illustrate this point.

When Enmerkar follows the instructions of Inanna, he gives a directive to his messenger that is nearly identical to the first directive of the goddess. Upon hearing Inanna, Enmerkar reacts thus: “chose [among the troops] a messenger, clever of speech and hardy; [Enmerkar spoke] to his messenger […]: ‘Where and to whom shall you carry the grave word of word-wise Inanna?’ ” (pp. 105–107). Inim is used procedurally in this context in an almost formulaic way, invoked to adjectivally modify Inanna herself for her “word-wise” quality, adjectivally to describe the words of Inanna, the cleverness of the speech of the messenger, and the nature of what Enmerkar speaks to the messenger. What differs is only the relational qualities of inim in each context. The elements that change are only the nouns representing the recipients of inim of Inanna, suggesting that inim presumes an audience as part of its semantic form. That inim as a rhetorical act remains the central occupation of the passage, but it underscores that its relational qualities have changed. As the speaker changes relative to the original utterance, the audience changes; the formula is, in a sense, an illustration that rhetorical action is sensitive to new relational contexts and must change according to relational, hierarchical, and geographic considerations. Just as significantly, in the person of the messenger, the selection of the speaker suggests degrees of qualitative rhetorical skill and knowledge in his capacity for inim. In both this passage and a similar passage at line 67, Inanna possesses a class of knowledge specifically concerning speech that lends her words primacy. Inanna’s inim-wisdom confers power and causative priority through her precise words, shaping the role of Enmerkar and the messenger in a context relational to transmitting the message. Inim, as an expression of rhetorical action, derives its qualities from the comparative relational circumstances but has no being that can be separated from its place in a causative chain of events and speakers.

These passages highlight the relational nature of rhetoric and the importance of the context of rhetorical action in Sumerian rhetoric. While inim is used formulaically in both instances, inim’s grammatical disposition takes on different relational qualities in different contexts. The speaker, audience, time, and place all play a role in shaping the rhetorical action, and the selection of the messenger for his ability with inim is crucial; the need for precision and artful Page 63 →delivery seems paramount because Inanna’s inim confers power and causative priority on her original utterance. These, in turn, functionally alter the role of Enmerkar, the messenger, and thereby the relational context of the message. These permutations demonstrate that a degree of qualitative knowledge is possible in rhetoric, and speakers exist with differing abilities in different contexts. Sumerian rhetoric is not a static entity but shaped and influenced by its context and the speakers involved. As a practical matter, this is an example of a form of persuasion in form to fit the function of rhetorical theory in ancient Sumer: only in the dynamic context of narrative could Sumerian rhetoric find a sufficiently descriptive genre. Like the changing relationship and facts at work within a mythic narrative, rhetoric’s relational and plastic nature can be placed in the context of a host of mutable variables in a dynamic narrative. Therefore, the nature of inim is illustrated relative to the audience, time, origin, place, natural talent, and speakers’ knowledge.

The ontological relationships that implicate rhetoric in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta pose even more complexities to this inquiry. Perhaps the most famous episode in Enmerkar is that of the invention of writing in response to one of the challenges posed by Aratta to Enmerkar. The relational ontology of word, sign, speech, and writing are all posed by the various uses of inim, which suggests that inim was a word more complex than dug, another Sumerian term that describes acts of speech. Yet inim seems used most frequently to describe acts of writing, persuasion, or at least meaningful speech as opposed to some other form of utterance. Both gu and inim seem to imply “speech” and use a related cuneiform sign in the Sumerian alphabet (KA, 𒅗). But in the usage of inim, there is a minimum degree of complexity that appears relational and suggests this term carried with it the idea of rhetorical action. An example of the contextual use of dug occurs when Enmerkar’s messenger seems incapable of repeating his inim: “His speech (dug) was very grand, its meaning (sag) very deep; The messenger’s mouth (dugud) was too heavy; he could not repeat it. Because the messenger’s mouth (dugud) was too heavy, and he could not repeat it” (lines 81–82). Thus, Enmerkar verbally directs the messenger to tell usethe word dug; the word dugud is a slightly different sign, but related, meaning “mouth.” The word inim, however, is distinct because it is used to describe a variety of meaningful speech acts, such as to reply, give a rejoinder, or speak. In conjunction with other words signifying verbal acts, inim can be Page 64 →characterized as possessing greater rhetorical latency. If there is a distinction in each usage, inim suggests speech that conveys syntactical, semantic, or rhetorical intent that is markedly more complex than the related term dug. Dug’s meaning seems but also to suggest speech laden with other distinct semiotic significance and possibly technologically distinct implications: “The lord of Kulab patted some clay and put the words (inim) on it as on a tablet. Before that day, there had been no putting words (inim) on clay; But now, when the sun rose on that day—so it was: The lord of Kulab had put words (inim) as on a tablet—so it was!” (Enmerkar, lines 84–85).

In this context, the implication in the use of inim as “words” is a debatable translation for Enmerkar’s act of communicating in graphic form for the first time. Rather, inim suggests that this is the first time that words with meaning, context, and rhetorical intent have been arranged in graphic form. The relational ontology of writing can also be illustrated in the speech of the messenger to Aratta when he offers him the first written tablet: “Enmerkar, son of the Sun, gave me this tablet. ‘O lord of Aratta, when you have read this tablet, learned the gist of the message (inim-ma), When you will have replied (dug) to me whatever you want’ ” (Enmerkar, line 75). This is well-known as the first recorded episode where an actor creates writing to transmit meaning between disputants. The word for this recorded transmission is inim. The use of inim thereby implies a semiotic relationship between Enmerkar, Aratta, and the messenger. Enmerkar’s messenger does not need to use his memory or speech because he delivers concretized and intentional meaning instead of a verbal repetition of statements between the parties. His rhetorical role has thus changed from one who is “clever of speech” to one who conveys meaning from place to place. Likewise, the nature of inim has changed the role of both Enmerkar and Aratta: in the place of dug, inim can be provided with more direct clarity, independent of the “mouth” (dugud) of the messenger. Inim is relationally altered as a rhetorical act based on the disputants’ roles, technology, and hierarchies.

The Sumerian myth of the invention of writing seems to address the proposition that inim, in writing, is somehow more perfect than its verbal counterpart. Its message is quite the contrary: speech is contextualized in the myth as a more transparent medium of rhetorical communication. Upon receiving the first written message, Aratta is not suddenly enlightened concerning Enmerkar’s rhetorical or semantic intent: “The spoken (dug-ga) words (inim) were mere wedges—his brow darkened. The lord of Aratta kept looking at the tablet (in the light of) the brazier” (Enmerkar, line 87). Aratta attempts to illuminate the text of Enmerkar with a brazier but to no avail: he both literally and Page 65 →metaphorically attempts to “shed light on” both the image and the meaning but finds that he sees only signs, not the rhetorical intent behind them. The Sumerian understanding of the nature of writing through this analogical narrative is thus revealed in its full complexity: the Sumerians seemed acutely aware that the sign for the word is not the signified. Without an understanding of contextual signs that lie outside the text itself—a relational comprehension of rhetorical intent—the signs appear to be merely wedge-shaped marks.

The technology of writing, therefore, cannot alter the ontological nature of the rhetorical act. The rhetorical act can only take its distinct being as an outgrowth of the relation of the intelligence, status, and intellectual position of the receiver. Furthermore, it relies on the circumstances surrounding the reception of the message. The Sumerians, therefore, understood the nature of writing as a complex and relational process that involves both the sign and the signified. The passage implies that the technology of writing did not fundamentally alter the nature of communication. While writing may provide a permanent and tangible record of communication, it does not necessarily enhance or improve the communication itself. The effectiveness of communication still depends on the ability of the sender and receiver to understand and interpret the message within its relational parameters. Inim, as rhetoric, essentially has no being outside the complex relationship of the persons, systems, and societies of which they are a part. Inim does not exist as an embedded concept within a specific culture but in the systemic and linguistic relationships between persons in dynamic situational contexts.

Thus, the Sumerians used the word inim to describe meaningful speech acts, writing, and rhetorical actions alike. Inim carried with it the idea of rhetorical action and speech that conveys syntactical or rhetorical meaning or implication. But inim derived its independent and discrete definition in a dynamic disposition to concrete relationships between beings. Inim therefore implied an interplay of word, sign, speech, and writing that is fundamentally rhetorical and technological in character. Based on inim’s pattern of use, the mythic invention of writing, Enmerkar was not merely the impression of characters on clay tablets, but the purposeful arrangement of those characters in a way that conveyed meaning, context, and relational significance. The creation of writing on clay implies a fresh set of relationships between word, sign, speech, and grapheme that was fundamentally rhetorical in nature. While the use of inim creates a semiotic relationship between Enmerkar, Aratta, and the messenger, the myth of Enmerkar’s invention of writing also illustrates that inim, in a graphic medium, is not necessarily more perfect than its verbal counterpart. Page 66 →Recall that Aratta tries to interpret the written text of Enmerkar but fails; without a contextual comprehension of Enmerkar’s rhetorical artifact, his meaning is merely a series of impressions. The technology of writing did not alter the fundamental nature of the rhetorical act. The rhetorical act could only take its existence in relation to the status, motives, and intellectual position of the parties involved.

One further critical consideration remains to fully illustrate the rhetorical nature of Enmerkar and other narratives associated with its epic cycle. The preceding analysis begs the question: If Enmerkar is a Sumerian rhetoric that describes rhetoric as relational, how does it do so, given its mythic and narrative nature? This question goes to the rhetoric of the rhetoric or the means it uses to make known to the reader its message and intent. First, myths themselves have a rhetorical function that conveys their central conceptual message; this is worthy of examination for its own sake. But more relevant to this inquiry, Enmerkar is a representation of Sumerian rhetorical theory through mythic narrative, and the actual rhetorical means it uses should be examined to better grasp its content and mythic rhetoric more generally.

The Enmerkar cycle of myths are the best evidence we have of how Sumerians understood rhetoric at its most advanced curricular level, and these myths were offered as the culminating texts in scribal education. They accomplish their pedagogical “task” with analogical lessons about the nature and significance of writing to Sumerian culture. Moreover, they accomplish these ends by using analogical narratives concerning rhetorical “heroes” and their relational existence to others through language. We see, in particular, an epistemic and practical relationship with two rhetorical goddesses, Inanna and Nisaba. Nisaba has a critical structural role in the narrative consistent with her role described in Chapter 1. Recall that Nisaba is a personification of rhetoric as the knowledge of the means of speaking and writing. The relationships between the goddesses, kings, heroes, animals, and messengers in the Enmerkar narratives can properly be labeled rhetorical, because rhetoric was taught through these relational expressions. The narratives are also rhetorical because they use two active tropic principles: analogical reasoning and anthropomorphized rhetorical exempla.

Analogical expressions are found either in the attributes of the exemplars they contain, or in the narrative details of myths. Through these analogies, the Page 67 →audience is invited to create relations between themselves and the narrative actors, a similarity that illustrates the nature of rhetoric in the life of Sumerian culture. These narratives—the myths—were nominally designated in curricular lists of didactic texts for scribal students. Enmerkar is an example in an analogical narrative who acts as a mediating figure between divine and political power. He is also an exemplar of the uses, ends, and means of rhetorical skill in his relations with others. Analogy is a class of metaphorical expression, and ancient Near Eastern literature was riddled with more specific species of metaphor, like metonymy and synecdoche (see Kramer 1968, 1969; Thavapalan, 2019); Claus Wilcke (1987) has noted that the familiarity with these metaphors is “nearly internalized” (p. 69) by Assyriologists in their training. He wrote: “We find metonymy in expressions like ‘to hear someone’s lips’, ‘to see words’ meaning ‘to look into affairs’ or ‘to hear a tablet’, furthermore in phrases like ‘to enter someone (or something) on a tablet and similarly ‘to pull out (i.e., to remove) a list of names from a tablet.’ Of course, in both cases (written) names or words are entered or removed, not the persons or things. ‘to remove from a given stock’ and ‘to debit to a certain account’ ” (p. 75, citations omitted). But Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta as mythic narrative likewise uses what Aristotle (1995) describes as fourth type metaphors in Poetics. Features of the holistic composition of Enmerkar’s narrative are an extended metaphorical analogy that operates on multiple levels. While Enmerkar is commonly regarded as a narrative about the invention of writing, the text is the earliest recorded narrative in which a human employs writing for a rhetorical purpose.

In Enmerkar, the hero issues challenges and accepts counterchallenges from his rival disputant, first using a personal messenger and finally in writing. Propositions concerning the nature of writing are a secondary purpose of the narrative: Enmerkar is the story of a rhetorical contest over the disposition and exchange of resources, but the purpose of the enterprise is to fulfill the Spell of Nudimmud, calculated to bring harmony to humankind through common language. It is arguable that this “language” is not the Sumerian language, but rather a divine and pure language transcending the system of speech or writing used in Sumeria, as it is likened to when the gods place the words in the mouths of the participants. The entire disputation central to the narrative begins at the prompting of the goddess Inanna, who directs Enmerkar to send a messenger to Aratta (Vanstiphout, 2003a). However, Nisaba opens the house of wisdom to Enmerkar: in this interaction, she provides him with access to archival knowledge and the technical means of persuasion. The means to this Page 68 →knowledge precipitates all other narrative developments of Enmerkar’s victory; again, Nisaba fulfills her role as goddess-as-rhetoric and causal node. At a terminal point of the narrative, Enmerkar seems to confirm that Nisaba, conveying the technical knowledge of the means of persuasion to him, is owed thanks for setting his victory in motion, as he states, “My kingship the starry Lady gave me” (p. 632). The narrative begins as Enmerkar dispatches one “clever of speech,” which strongly indicates its topic concerns rhetorical action.

The contest between Enmerkar and Aratta notably begins with threats of warfare before the ultimate culmination of the creation of writing. Enmerkar threatens to destroy Aratta (lines 191–195) at the beginning of the contest, but he resolves the conflict with the invention of writing as his eventual victory over Aratta. Enmerkar praises both Inanna and his rival because they have instituted written persuasion as an institutional norm between the two kingdoms. Enmerkar praises the cultural preeminence of Sumeria because of their relationship not just to writing as a technology, but of Sumeria’s central veneration of inim: “They are a nation Dumuzid selected among the other nations, one that firmly establishes the holy word (inim) of Inanna!” (I.A.566–568). At the end, both disputants are victorious: Enmerkar fulfills his desire to unite the languages of humankind with both technological power and rhetorical power, and a terrible famine visited upon Aratta’s kingdom is lifted seemingly as a result of the invention of writing. Inanna’s presence is also an analogical lesson; in the epic’s conclusion, Enmerkar sits in a kind of union with Inanna, who speaks in his ear: “She perfects it, singing the song and teaching the words (inim)” (Enmerkar, lines 586–587). The rhetorical role of Inanna is fundamentally unclear, except as a goddess who first precipitates the subsequent rhetorical interactions throughout the rest of the narrative. This line of the text suggests that Inanna represented a perfection of the means of persuasion in execution. Inanna’s role is arguably akin to the “builder” god Ninduba, who complements Nisaba’s revelatory knowledge to build Gudea’s temple in a rhetorical sense. Thus, if Nisaba offers a way to the means of persuasion, Inanna offers the technical means to effect that persuasion. The single line (568) offers a clue to Inanna’s rhetorical role in the conceptual hierarchy of persuasive action in Sumeria; the nature of Inanna is a topic on which there is no agreement among Sumerologists and is well beyond the purview of this rhetorical inquiry. If Nisaba represents comprehensive knowledge of what rhetoric “is,” Inanna may have represented the anthropomorphized goddess that ensures those means are put into proper action.

Page 69 →To illustrate the operation of rhetorical myth as analogical and exemplary, I offer a final example from the Enmerkar cycle, entitled The Return of Lugalbanda. It further illustrates the Sumerian concept of inim as a relational concept in their teaching tradition. “Lugalbanda” is a mythic apologetic for rhetoric as a teaching tradition in Sumerian culture. The myth begins with Enmerkar’s son, Lugalbanda, who is stranded in some remote wilderness alone but for a gigantic bird: the Anzud bird. The magical Anzud bird is of such size and strength that it can lift entire buffaloes in its talons; it is supernaturally powerful, sentient, and capable of speech. In an attempt to determine how to be reunited with his people in Uruk, Lugalbanda begins by overtly framing its topic as inim. Lugalbanda reflects that “No mother is with him to give him advice; no father is with him to speak (inim) to him; no valued acquaintance is with him, no trusted person he can consult (inim)” (lines 3–6). Lugalbanda therefore deliberates so as to “speak” (inim) to himself (line 7). At the outset of the narrative, inim is characterized as a relational concept that requires a social context that is rhetorical and consular. Inim, as a central rhetorical concept in ancient Sumeria, implicates familial relation, friendship, trust, and counsel and precedes deliberation and decisive action. Inim need not always derive from relational interaction, which is not always necessary because it can also take place with oneself through the medium of speech, suggesting the Sumerians possessed deliberative theory in their formulation of rhetoric. The passage shows that inim is not merely a term associated with offering counsel; it derives from the relationship of two parties in consular exchange. In some manner, likewise, inim permits humans to deliberate internally by virtue of our innate rhetorical capacity. Lugalbanda, as a scribal curricular myth, suggests by analogy that the student might be imagined as existing in an analogical position to the exemplar of Lugalbanda. In other myths, inim is a relational concept that requires a social context; but in the absence of social relationships, language conveys an innate capacity to create a rhetorical context for personal deliberative decision-making.

Conceptual propositions through analogical expression were a pervasive tradition in antiquity. Ames and Hall (1987) have identified analogical reasoning in ancient Chinese Confucian discourse by Volkov (1992) and Graham (1989) in Daoist literature and by Averbeck (2003) in Sumerian myth. Egyptian sources show hallmarks of analogical thinking even in their medical texts Page 70 →(Wee, 2017). Sumerian myth analogically conveys that rhetoric is a culturally relational practice, similar to its conception as a “civilizing force” in Isocrates and Cicero. Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is primary evidence of rhetoric as a civilizing force in the Sumerian corpus. In Enmerkar’s narrative, a contest of persuasion and communicative exchange emerges from a dispute that begins with threats of violence. Enmerkar’s resolution, however, is a peaceful one that coincides with an explosion of material abundance for both disputants. Enmerkar implements writing as rhetorical technology, a famine lifts from Aratta, and the fields explode in an abundant harvest. The lessons conveyed by the myth concern the mediation of rhetoric with writing through personification: narrative actors in dynamic situations illustrate the nature of inim to teach by analogy. Inim assumes an ontological character only through the relational interactions in the narrative. Suppose there is an analogical purpose for the narrative of Enmerkar. In that case, writing deployed for rhetorical action will bring peace and prosperity, but more significantly, such a socially beneficial state can be affected by communal persuasion and relational commonality among all people.

A major recurring theme of the Enmerkar cycle, as models and teaching tools for rhetorical students, is that the art of speech and writing is anathema to violence and may well function as its opposite in ontological relations between beings. Lugalbanda certainly offers a counterpoint to the narrative paradigm of Greek myths, where one might expect a hero figure to smite or otherwise attempt to subdue a monstrous creature such as the Anzud bird. However, as a wholly Sumerian rhetorical myth, it should be construed against the backdrop of a Sumerian cultural and mythical context. The rhetorical myth of Lugalbanda’s encounter with the Anzud bird is offered in contrast to a more broadly received myth of the relations of Akkadian gods in a battle with (presumably) the same bird. Anzu Bird. Anzû, an Akkadian epic, narrates the tale of a monstrous bird by the same name, who acts as the guardian of Enlil, the chief deity. Anzû commits the theft of the Tablets of Destiny, gaining dominance over the gods and causing chaos in the divine realm. The Anzû’s reign of terror is ultimately halted by the warrior god Ninurta. Ninurta defeats Anzû in combat, restores order, and receives a reward of a higher rank in the pantheon of the gods (see, e.g., Hallo & Moran, 1979). This narrative paradigm and its mythemes is a familiar one, where a heroic figure slays a monster with martial prowess and is victorious (in some manner). Lugalbanda, by contrast, tells a story wherein the hero uses only rhetorical skill to overcome his obstacles and receives a reward of a wholly non-hierarchical sort. Neo-Babylonian school tablets show Page 71 →that, at least in Nippur, Anzû played a role in elementary scribal education (see, e.g., Wisnom, 2020). Copies of Anzû appear far later in the textual record than Lugalbanda, but battles with this bird seem to have been a theme of subsequent school texts and serve, at least, as a contrast to the class of narrative to which Lugalbanda belongs, and underscores its centrally rhetorical message.

The Sumerian rhetorical myth of The Return of Lugalbanda, by contrast, illustrates a wholly different perspective regarding conflict when taught in the context of the Sumerian edubba (a scribal school). Lugalbanda operates analogically to didactically create an analogical rhetorical situation whose lesson suggests the proper course of action, in the spirit of inim, is quite the opposite. Lugalbanda almost immediately determines to treat the Anzud bird with respect, demonstrating his rhetorical prowess by creating communal values with the bird. He begins to give the Anzud bird’s chick good food and otherwise demonstrates care for it. Lugalbanda creates a basic relational situation that precedes an attempt at inim with the Anzud bird. The narrative of Lugalbanda was thereby an analogical lesson for the Sumerian rhetor: persuasion exists, or takes on its “presence,” only as it derives from relational contexts. When the Anzud bird returns to his nest, he finds that Lugalbanda has adorned it and fed his chick with delicacies, and states: “A decree uttered (inim) by me—who can change that? Whoever you are who has done this to my nest, If you are a god, I want to talk (inim) to you” (lines 104–106). The interaction suggests that Lugalbanda demonstrates his rhetorical prowess by creating communal values with the Anzud bird. As an analogical lesson concerning rhetoric, Lugalbanda was arguably calculated as exempla for the Sumerian student not only about rhetoric, but also about the nature of education. Rather than simply trying to dominate or control the bird, Lugalbanda creates a relational situation in which persuasion becomes possible. This episode demonstrates the idea that persuasion exists only within relational contexts and that the creation of those relational contexts is an essential part of effective rhetoric. If rhetoric is a consideration of first principles before the act of speaking or writing, the narrative thereby conveys the importance of establishing a relation with the “other” as a prerequisite to inim. It functioned as a mythic exemplum to engage the imagination of the student and fix it in their memory as a principal conceptual lesson about the nature of inim.

After Lugalbanda enters into a relational rhetorical stasis of mutual respect with the bird, he then uses persuasive language to make his case. He first praises the many qualities of the bird, describing his power and various features, and states that he would take the Anzud bird as his father, the Anzud’s Page 72 →wife as his mother, and the Anzud’s child as his sibling (lines 125–127). The Anzud bird is so pleased that he begins to offer Lugalbanda a variety of boons, such as making him more powerful in battle or enormously wealthy. But Lugalbanda asks something else: to be granted inhuman swiftness. If he is able to rejoin his father’s army, he can end the war by seeking Inanna’s counsel. Based on the structural details of the text, the story of Lugalbanda and the Anzud bird represents an analogical metaphor for the power of rhetorical education. The story highlights the importance of creating relational contexts to effectively persuade and communicate with others. Such a pedagogical relationship creates a system of identification among beings that is rhetorical in nature between the parties: instead of merely giving Lugalbanda a gift, the Anzud bird teaches him a skill to eventually affect his goals. Lugalbanda asks for, and the bird grants, knowledge of the means to affect his motives and desires and to increase his inherent capacities. The bird grants him the capacity, ultimately, to be free, as Lugalbanda states: “I want to be able to go wherever I choose, set my feet wherever I cast my eyes, arrive wherever my heart prompts me, and loosen my sandals only where my heart tells me!” (lines 174–177). The rhetorical education of Lugalbanda ultimately makes him free, fast enough to travel immense distances and take counsel with gods. Lugalbanda gains extraordinary powers by persuading the Anzud bird, which is an extension of the analogical metaphor for rhetorical education. In contrast to more Old Babylonian narratives about the slaying of the Anzu bird, Lugalbanda’s victory is not the product of violence. Lugalbanda’s victory is relational and rhetorical, a product of the mutual respect and the establishment of common values he establishes through a persuasive act. Lugalbanda only learns to run at great speed as the result of a new form of being, rhetorically created between himself and the Anzud.

Through the analogical lesson in Lugalbanda, Sumerian students were taught the importance of creating meaningful relationships with their audience to effectively communicate their ideas. Lugalbanda, as an exemplar, was able to establish a relational “presence” of meaning with the Anzud bird through persuasion and praise. Sumerian scribal students were intended to construct an inference about the nature and purpose of the scribal educational agenda by reading and interpreting the narrative. The myth of the Anzud bird was a comment on the power of language and the significance of their previous curriculum; the myth shows that Sumer’s rhetorical education included lessons concerning the necessity of establishing a relationship with the audience to better convey their ideas. Sumerian rhetorical education, by analogy, could free them, as it did in the exemplar of Lugalbanda. Lugalbanda was freed from his Page 73 →isolation and had a world of opportunities open to him through the success of his rhetorical action. Like Lugalbanda, rhetoric could confer upon them superhuman capacities and personal freedom in their life. The myth ultimately conveys the conceptual and practical possibility of freedom and mobility through analogical similarity: the student is akin to Lugalbanda, and the Anzud bird is akin to the first principles intended by the teacher. At the center of those first principles is an understanding of relations between speaker and listener that prefigures an act of persuasion. Lugalbanda’s success in persuasion is predicated on his ability to create a relational point of stasis with the Anzud bird through his rhetorical prowess alone. Like Lugalbanda, the students are meant to analogize that their studies are intended, through this knowledge, to make them likewise free.

When one considers complex narrative at work in Enmerkar, it becomes requisitely more complex to understand the analogical reasoning of the exempla therein. In this chapter, I have explored the way that the Enmerkar cycle deals with the narrow concept of inim as the noun suggesting rhetorical action. In the following chapters, I turn to parallel rhetorical mythology at work in ancient Egypt, where mythic figures of surprising similarity show a continuity of expression across the ancient world. These chapters illustrate that a confluence of polyphonic voices were actively involved, through mythic traditions, of conceptualizing rhetoric, with similarities and differences, both strikingly overt and incredibly subtle. They demonstrate that ancient Egypt likewise possessed conceptually anthropomorphized expressions of rhetoric and myths and inscriptive evidence. Egyptian evidence reflects an understanding of rhetorical ontology, beginning in the representation of the goddess Seshat and the anthropomorphized conception of Thoth, whose continuity within Egyptian culture itself extends to the time of Plato.

As we leave the Sumerian conception of rhetoric as expressed in their mythic and curricular documents, some historical context is necessary regarding the worship of the various gods in these mythic narratives. Sumerologists have noted that the worship of Nisaba eventually ended, though her various powers and attributes seemed to have manifested in a new god: Nabu. Nabu is not treated here, owing in part to the relative dearth of textual records attendant to the cultural inheritors of ancient Sumer. However, considering the domains of influence and patronage associated with Nabu, his character seems hauntingly similar to that of Thoth; like Thoth, his worship was wildly popular in the centuries after his eventual preeminence. Nabu was the divine scribe; he, like Nisaba, controlled the Heavenly Tablets, and kings often dedicated prayers to him (see Page 74 →Frechette, 2011). For example, one prayer of Nebuchadnezzar reads, “On your [Nabu’s] unchangeable tablet, which established the boundaries of heaven and earth, proclaim length of days for me, inscribe long life” (Paul, 1973, p. 346).³

By contrast, in Egypt, the goddess Seshat remained a viable figure in ancient Egyptian rhetorical culture without interruption, whose attributes have haunting parallels to the depiction of the goddess Nisaba. Nisaba’s worship declined (beginning perhaps in 1650 bce) and was eventually displaced by the cult of the scribal god Nabu (concomitant with the Babylonian Empire, ca. 656 bce). Quite possibly, her displacement by Nabu was precipitated by the late Bronze Age collapse (ca. 1250 bce). Meier (1991) has suggested the patron gods of writing “underwent a transformation in the course of Mesopotamian history” that “may be directly related to a shift in orientation from female to male priority in institutionalized learning” (p. 544). But rather famously, Egypt did not suffer the Late Bronze Age collapse as did many Near Eastern civilizations.