Some Antiphrastic Euphemisms for a Blind Person in Akkadian and Other Semitic LanguagesAuthor(s): David MarcusSource: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 100, No. 3 (Jul. - Oct., 1980), pp. 307-310Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/601801 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 13:08

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

American Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal ofthe American Oriental Society.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.76 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:08:20 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS

Some Antiphrastic Euphemisms for a Blind Person in Akkadian and Other Semitic Languages

Four Akkadian terms with similar forms and meanings are held to be antiphrastic euphemisms for a blind person. Arguments are based on the synonymity of these terms and their associations with other terms for a blind person, on the fact that Akkadian is apparently deficient in terms for expressing a blind person, and on the fact that the forms have parallels in antiphrastic constructions and meanings in other Semitic languages.

Along with other ancient Near Eastern people in general,' the Mesopotamians were fond of using euphem- isms to avoid infelicitous or inelegant concepts. Thus one way of expressing the idea of 'dying' was euphemistically ana Simti alaku 'to go to one's fate'. Similarly, the 'grave' kimah4u was literally 'the big place'. Private parts of the body and indecorous bodily acts could, if necessary, be denoted euphemistically as, for example, birku lit. 'the knee' = 'the penis', Nuteguru lit. 'to put in order' = 'to have a bowel movement'.2 The type of euphemism which connotes the opposite of its literal meaning is called antiphrasis (< Gr. antiphrazein 'to speak the opposite').3

While antiphrastic euphemism is a literary device closely related to irony and sarcasm, the type of antiphrasis that we shall discuss differs from these in one very important respect in that with antiphrastic euphemism once the term has gained acceptance it is not used again in its literal sense. To illustrate this type of antiphrasis we point to the Hebrew phrase caqeret habbayit which originally meant 'barren woman', but was later used antiphrastically to denote a 'housewife (with children)'. Once this meaning was accepted, caqeret habbayit was not used any more in its

literal sense, instead the more common absolute form qara was employed.4 We shall now turn to discuss some

examples of this type of euphemism in Akkadian. The examples that we have selected all have similar form and meaning. They are damqa(m) Ini, b/palfa Ini(m), namra(t) Ini, and pati'a fnim, literally meaning 'keen-sighted'/'one who has good eyesight', 'staring-eyed'/'one whose eyes stare', 'bright-eyed', and 'open-eyed' respectively. Un- fortunately the textual evidence for these terms is rather sparse, most of the occurrences being in lexical lists. However, even from the limited evidence available it is possible to deduce that these terms all denote a person having some sort of eye or sight defect, if not complete blindness.

1 See the articles on 'Euphemism' in The Jewish Encyclopedia (1903), 267-68, and in the Encyclopedia Judaica (1971), 959-62 as well as the literature cited there, and in the following two notes.

2 Landsberger has assembled a number of such euphem- isms in MAOG 4 (1928/9), 319-21.

3 For examples of antiphrasis in the Semitic languages, see E. Landau, Die Gegensinnigen Worter im Alt und Neuhebrdischen (Berlin, 1896); W. Margais, "L'Euphem- isme et l'Antiphrase dans les dialectes arabes d'Algerie" in C. Bezold ed., Orientalische Studien Theodor Nold- eke... gewidmet (Giessen, 1906), 425-38; A. Fischer, "Arab. bapr 'scharfsichtig' per antiphrasin = 'blind'," ZDMG 61 (1907), 425-34: T. Noldeke, "Worter mit Gegensinn (Addad)," Neue Beitrage zur Semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (Strassburg, 1910), 67-108; R. Gordis, "Hebrew Roots of Contrasted Meanings," JQR 27 (1936/7), 33-58.

4 See the standard lexica. Apart from Ps. 113:9 the absolute form caqard is, of course, the regular term in the Hebrew Bible for 'barren woman', (Gen. 11:30; 25:21; 29:31 etc.). The phrase caqeret habbayit occurs once in Ps. 113:9: m6~ibi (aqeret habbayit Vem habbanim semthah "He sets the childless woman among her household as a happy mother of children" (Translation: The Book of Psalms, Jewish Publication Society [Philadelphia, 19721, 119). How does (aqeret habbayit 'barren woman' get to mean 'housewife'? The answer to this is not quite clear, but the derived meaning is adapted midrashically in the rabbinic comment on the phrase in Ps. 113:9 in which (aqeret habbayit is said to refer to Rachel who was likewise once barren and eventually became the mother of children. So in the midrash Numbers Rabbah 14:8, where an endeavour is made to connect every word of Numbers 7:61 with Benjamin or his mother Rachel, there is a play on the word qacarat: "Don't read qacarat but (aqeret, corresponding to Rachel who was caqeret habbayit; she was the chief (ciqqar) of Jacob's household." The implication here is that caqeret should be associated with ciqqar 'essence, chief, main thing'. Similarly, in the midrash to Gen. 29:31: "But Rachel was barren (Caqora)-R. Isaac said: Rachel was the chief of the houe ( iqqar6 sel bayit) as it says 'But Rachel was barren' meaning that she was the chief of the house ('iqqar habbayit)" (Genesis Rabbah 71:2).

307

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.76 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:08:20 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

308 Journal of the American Oriental Society 100.3 (1980)

Our arguments are based on internal Akkadian evidence as well as comparative Semitics, and center on the following four observations: (1) the synonymity of these terms and their associations with other terms for a blind person; (2) the fact that Akkadian is apparently deficient in terms for expressing a blind person; (3) the forms of these terms are of identical construction and have parallels in antiphrastic constructions in other Semitic languages; (4) most of these terms have semantic parallels in other Semitic languages.

I. The terms damqa(m) ini, b/pal~a lni(m), namra(t) fni, and pati'a inim appear to be quite synonymous, being used interchangeably in various lexical lists. Thus both paloa fnim and pati'a Fni share the same logogram i g i . i g i in one list,5 while in another balsa Ini is followed directly by namra mni.6 Likewise in a medical text namra Ini is paralleled by balsa fni: amur namra fni amur balsa fni "Look 0 'bright-eyed' one, look 0 'one whose eyes stare'.7 Similarly the term namrat eni is found in a list with

Mu44utu,8 while the commentary on Izbu equates the same

$u44utu (and a variant #i/j/jutu) with damqam-fnam.9 As far as meaning is concerned the main text which

provides us with some guidance is in tablet one of the omen series S~umma izbu where in a list of abnormal births, between a child 'with two faces' and one 'with half a human .form', is one who is a damqam-1nam: summa sinniftu dam-qd-mi-nam'0 alid bWttu ul innegger "If a woman gives birth to a 'keen-sighted' child-that house will not prosper." I The commentary on damqam-rnam is $uhhutWV #ih4utu, ulalu 'feeble',12 and 9a endgu lummupi 'whose eyes are torn out (?)'.13 Now $uhl4utu is known to be 'a person having a sight defect' since it opens a list of twenty people with such defects in the Old Babylonian Lu-series that includes a sinnurbfi (elsewhere listed with 1a nO(ilu 'a

blind person'),'4 a Na 7nacu nasha "one whose eyes have been torn out," and a huppudu 'a blind person'.15 Thus not only the context of the Izbu omen, but also its equation with $u/4utu, show that damqam fnam can not be taken literally as 'keen-sighted'. Hence, it is qute plausible, as CAD already tentatively noted, that it is an antiphrastic euphemism for 'blind'.16 This being so, then because of their synonymity, the three other terms must likewise be similar euphemisms for 'blind'.

II. Our suggestion is borne out-by the fact that Akkadian is apparently deficient in terms for expressing a blind person, and for rendering the verb 'to blind'. Apart from huppudu, which is only attested in a few lexical lists,17 Akkadian elsewhere employs the euphemism 1l natilu (= Sum. igi. nu. tuk or igi. nu. gal), lit. 'one who does not see' for a blind person,18 and 1l na(Olu for'blindness'. For example, the 1l n0tilu is frequently mentioned in the lists of physically and mentally handicapped people who are enjoined not to damage monuments or boundary stones, e.g., "Or, on account of these severe curses, they instruct a fool, a deaf person, an unstable one (samd),'9 a blind person (14 n0tilu), a stranger, a foreigner, or an idiot to remove the stela of the field-."20 Indeed the concept of blindness itself is euphemistically expressed as 10 na(0lu 'not being able to see', as in the following curse from the

5 JCS 7, 28 iii: 8-9. 6 JAOS 83, 426: 87-87a. 7 AMT 13.1, 12-13: rev. 6. 8 MSL 12, 216: 172-182. 9 Leichty, Izbu, 213:39 and variants. 10 For the writing, see section III infra. Citations for the

form damqa-Ini may be found in CAD D, 67b and von Soden, JNES 19 (1960), 163.

1 Leichty, Izbu, 38:75. 12 Ibid., 213:40. 13 Ibid., 213:41. The CAD (G, 151b, D, 67b, L, 247b)

takes lummuqu as an error for hummuqu which occurs in the list of people with sight defects in the OB Lu-series following Sa inasu nashla "one whose eyes have been torn out": Na InOsu hummusa "one whose eyes have been plucked out" (MSL 12, 183:48-49).

14 CT 19, 32 iii:40-41. 15 MSL 12, 183 iv:41-v:7. 16 CAD D, 67b. 17 See CAD and AHw. sub v. and add MSL 12, 183:2. 18 Note that the Targum at Lev. 19:14 renders Hebrew

qiwwer 'blind person' by deld' haze, lit. 'one who does not see'.

19 Since Meissner (MVAG 18/2 [19131, 59-60) the equation of Akk. samfi 'unstable one' with Aram. samoc 'blind' has been abandoned.

20 KB 4, 80 ii: 19-24. It might be thought that la nOtilu merely refers to metaphorical blindness as, for example, in the following Esarhaddon text: "With whom, great gods, creators of gods and goddesses, do you send me on this difficult mission, a mission of restoration in an inaccessible place, with men who are deaf and blind (la nOfilti d foolish men) who do not know their own minds, nor can they forsee their own future?" (Borger, Asarhaddon 82:17-15). It is well known that blindness and darkness often signify anarchy and social lawlessness (cf. Held, JCS 15 [1961], 15), and are frequently used in curses as, for example, in the Vassal Treatises of Esarhaddon: "May Shamash, the light of heaven and earth, not give you a reliable decision; may he blind you (lit. 'remove your sight' nitil inikunu liUi) so that

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.76 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:08:20 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

MARCUS: Euphemisms for a Blind Person in Akkadian and Other Semitic Languages 309

Melifibu kudurru: "May they (the great gods) allot for him as his fate blindness (la nafali), deafness, and dumbness forever."21 So, too the verb 'to blind', which is huppudu only in the Code of Hammurapi,22 is expressed either by 'removing the sight' nitil in! nasu,23 nitil iln maharu,24 or by 'plucking out the eyes' int napalu/nuppulu/nasahu/ nussu4u. 25

Since blindness was such a prevalent disease in the ancient Near East26 it is not surprising that there should be additional ways, like our suggested antiphrastic euphem- isms, by which a blind person could be described in Akkadian.

HII. It is also to be noted that all four of our terms, damqa MI, balsa !ni, namra(t) [ni, and pati'a !ni, are of identical construction of the type rapsa uzni. This type has been posited by von Soden as possibly being a construct-genitive with an a(m) construct ending.27 In support of this supposition are the following facts. First, the phrase damqa Ini is written in Izbu as one word damqaminum, a feature which is found with other construct-genitive phrases like ban-pani > buppanu 'face', mar-nisqim > marnisqum 'choice young foal', see GAG no. 59a, Erg. p. 1 1*.

Second, a use of the construct-genitive construction to express an antiphrasis has direct parallels in Hebrew and Aramaic-Syriac. Thus instead of the normal Ciwwer,28

(awira'29 and suma),30 samya),31 a blind person may be termed me'or Cenayim lit. 'light of the eyes' = 'eyesight' or saggi nah6r / saggi) neh/rd / saggi ntiherez) lit. 'much of light' = 'much eyesight'. Some examples: "They were told: there is a rabbinical scholar here and he is blind (me'6r 'enayim hUP)" (TB Hagiga 5b);32 "Rab Sheshet was a blind person (saggi nah6r hewa)" (TB Berachot 58a).33

It is most noteworthy that in both Akkadian and Hebrew these terms, once out of their construct-genitive framework, revert back to their literal meaning. Thus when the components of damqa ini or namra In are used in different constructions they have nothing to do with blindness, e.g., Inu namirtu 'bright eye' 'sharp eye'; thuzu ina namirtu "(the one who) has a sharp eye";34 end damqate 'friendly eyes': damqate enaki libsa el!ya "May your kindly eyes rest upon me." 35 Indeed from an analysis of Hebrew me'or Ynayim it can be demonstrated that even when suffixes are attached to the construct-genitive phrase it reverts back to its original meaning. So in this passage from tractate Yoma me'or cenayim simply means 'eyesight': "Because honey and very sweet food enlighten the eyes of man (me'irin met6r Gnadw sel )tdam)" (TB Yoma 83b). Some further examples are: " Since they day that the Book of Genealogies was hidden the strength of the sages has been impaired and their eyesight (me'6r cenehem) has been dimmed" (TB Pesahim 62b); "Big strides rob a man of one five-hundreth part of his eyesight (me'or cenaw)" (TB Taanit lOb).36

they (the people) will continually wander around in darkness" (VTE 422-24). For comparisons with Deut. 28:28-29 and Zech. 12:4, see Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, 118f. However, in a text like the following protasis to a Summa alu omen it is obvious that physical blindness is meant: "If a blind snake (geru la naoilu) [is seen]" (Orientalia 39-42 [1929], 138:4). Hence there is no doubt that la natilu can denote physical as well as metaphorical blindess.

21 MDP 2, 110. 22 CH xvii:47, 49, 55, 61; xviii:82, 92. 23 VTE423;ABL 1105 rev. 10. 24 Iraq 19, 136:29, see Borger, ZA 20 (1961), 187, and

Deller, Orientalia NS 34 (1963), 271. 25 Ahw., sub vv. 26 See most conveniently, R. K. Harrison's article

'blindness' in IDB, 1:448-49. 27 JNES 19 (1960), 170-71. 28 The root Cwr was thought by Holma (Quttulu, 57) to be

found in the Akkadian word tartu on the basis of its occurrence in the phrase tarti eni which occurs in parallelism with sakak uzni 'deafness' and ubbur megreti 'paralysis' in KB 3/1, 192:38-39. Holma parsed this word as a taqtaltu form (*ta 'wartu) of an otherwise non-existing root in Akkadian, an interpretation which has been accepted

by Brockelmann, Lexicon, 518a and by Koehler-Baum- gartner, Lexicon, 690b. Borger has now shown that on the basis of other occurrences tartu is best translated 'curse' (//mamntu). He thus renders tarti inT as 'curse of the eyes', a type of magical blinding like Heb. sanwerim (ZA 20 [19611, 185-86). It should be observed at this point that the equation of Heb. Ciwwer with Akk. hummuru 'lame, crippled' has now been generally abandoned (though it is still found in Koehler-Baumgartner, Lexicon, 690b!), see van Dijk, La Sagesse, 15-16, n. 37.

29 Targum and Peshitta rendering Heb. Ciwwer at Exod. 4:11; Lev. 21:18, etc.

30 See the lexica. 31 Targum for Heb. Ciwwer at Isa. 29:18; 35:5; 42:7 etc. 32 For other references, se Ben Yehuda, Dictionary,

2758a. 33 In his commentary to Pesachim 11 6b Rashi terms Rab

Sheshet a me'or Cenayim, while in TJ Kiddushin I, 61 a he is called by yet another euphemism mepatha), see sec. IV, infra.

34 AOAT2, 98, 319:4. 35 AGH 132:53. 36 More examples may be found in C. J. Kasowski,

Thesaurus Talmudis (Jerusalem, 1954), 1:299-300.

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.76 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:08:20 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

310 Journal of the American Oriental Society 100.3 (1980)

How the terms me)or (Cnayim and saggi nah6r developed antiphrastic meanings is unknown. Only the former term occurs in the Hebrew Bible in Prov. 15:30 where it has often been emended (e.g., to mar'eh Cenayim "appearance of the eyes"37). N6ldeke may be correct in his suggestion that me)6r tnayim is a euphemisitc emendation of meCuwwar qnayim 'blind of eyes' since a similar Pa cal form mecawwar 'blind' is found in Aramaic-Syriac.38

The phrase saggi nahOr becomes in Hebrew and Aramaic a technical term for'euphemism' in general. It is interesting to note the satirical use of this phrase as a double entendre in some of the manuscripts to Genesis Rabbah 30:9 where, in commenting on why is it said that Noah was righteous in his generation (Gen. 6:9), R. Judah says: "Only among his contemporaries was Noah righteous, had he lived in the time of Moses or Samuel he would not be so accounted." To illustrate this observation the following proverb is quoted: "In the market place the blind (samayya') call the one-eyed man (Cawira)) 'full of light' (saggi nehora))." However, most of the manuscripts of this midrash have the version: "In the market place the blind call the one-eyed man (their) leader (berabb!)."39 There can be little doubt that this is the same widespread proverb which appears in English as "In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king,"40 and has classical and modern equivalents. An Arabic parallel is al)acwarf? bilad alcumyan furfa "A one-eyed man in the

country of the blind is a precious thing,"41 while in Sumerian the same type of proverb, with legs instead of eyes, is found: "In the city of the lame, the halt is courier."42

In any event both forms of the proverb are satirical in intent and full of parody. The choice of words of the first variant adds to the satire since saggi neh6ra) is used euphemistically for a blind person.

IV. The fourth argument that these Akkadian phrases denote blindness is that most of them have semantic parallels in other Semitic languages. First, the phrasepati'a inim lit. 'open-eyed' is to be equated with Aram. mepathad topen-(eyed)', another of the epithets euphemistically applied to a blind person, e.g., "We do not pay attention to Rab Sheshet's opinion because he is a blind man

(mepatha')" (TJ Kiddushin I, 61 a.43 We recall that the same Rab Sheshet was also termed a saggi nah6r (TB Berachot 58a), and we note that Rashi, in his commentary to Pesachim 116b, calls him a me)'r Cenayim.

Perhaps another example of our type of antiphrastic euphemism may be found in the Heb. antonym of 'open- eyed', namely Netam ha Jayin 'one with closed eye', which comes to mean 'perspicacious one', said of the prophet Balaam in Numbers 24:3, 15. This is corroborated by the Targum's translation desappir haze "whose vision is good" and by Saadya's rendering alhadid albasari "sharp of vision." Thus there is no need to re-arrange the text (so Wellhausen, Albright, etc.) to se tamdh (ayin "whose eye is true" or se tam ha (ayin "who is perfect of eye" to obtain the required contextual meaning.44 Second, the phrase damqa in! 'keen sighted' is to be

equated with Arab. basir'keen-sighted' which is also used antiphrastically, instead of the regular )amma, to denote a blind person.45

Finally, with respect to the phrase namra ini 'bright- eyed', we should observe that in many Semitic languages words for brightness or dazzling light often euphemistically denote blindness. This is in no doubt because of ophthalmic afflictions caused by the sun's glare. We recall that Shamash is the god invoked to bring the curse of blindness in the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon mentioned above. Thus there are Heb. sanwerim, Aram. Nabrirayyd ),46 hiwwarwerayya 47 neh6rita, 48 and Syr. Neragragitd .49

All are words indicating brightness and illumination which are used euphemistically for blindness.

To sum up: the lexical evidence, the absence of other terms, the construct-genitive construction as well as the comparative equations all serve to corroborate the premise that the Akkadian terms damqa ini, balfa mi, namra Ini, and pati'a ini are antiphrastic euphemisms denoting 'a blind person'.

DAVID MARCUS

JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

37 So Winton Thomas, VTS 3 (1955), 287. 38 Op. cit. (n. 3 supra), 88. 39 Theodor-Albeck, Midrash Bereshit Rabbah, 275. 40 Burton Stevenson, The Home Book of Proverbs,

Maxims and Familiar Phrases (N.Y., 1948), 197-98. 41 J. L. Burckhardt, Arabische Spruchworter (Weimer,

1834), no. 129. 42 W. W. Hallo, "The Lame and the Halt," EI 9 (1969),

66-70.

43 For other references, see Lewy, Worterbuch, 111:205. 44 For the literature, see Allegro, VT 3 (1950), 78-79. 45 A. Fischer, op. cit. (note 3 supra); Lane, Arabic-

English Lexicon, 1:21 lb, 46 Targum Onkelos for sanwerim of Gen. 19:11 and 2

Kings 6:18. 47 Targum Yerushalmi for sanwerim of Gen. 19:1 1. 48 See the lexica. 49 Peshitta for sanwerim of Gen. 19:11 and 2 Kings

6:18.

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.76 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:08:20 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions