Temple Hymn 26
The Zabalam Temple of Inanna
O
house wrapped in beams of light
Wearing shing stone jewels wakening great awe
Sanctuary of pure Inanna
(where)
divine powers the ture me spread wide
Zabalam
Shrine of the shining mountain
Shrine that welcomes the morning light
She makes resound with desire
The Holy Woman grounds your hallowed
chamber
With
desire
Your
queen Inanna of the sheepfold
That
singular woman
The
unique one
Who speaks hateful words to the wicked
Who
moves among the bright shining things
Who
goes against rebel lands
And at twilight makes the firmament
beautiful
All
on her own
Great
daughter of Suen
Pure
Inanna
O house of Zabalam
Has
built this house on your radiant site
And
placed her seat upon your dais
12 lines for Inanna in Zabalam
Three of the 42
Temple Hymns feature Inanna, Enheduanna’s personal deity, each highlighting one
of her salient characteristics: the sensual, astral, or warrior goddess.
Inanna, some say, was the most important
deity in the ancient world, her temple at Uruk dating from the fifth millennium
B.C.E. until the Common Era. All of Sumer’s initial deities were astral beings;
the first three were cosmic lights, the moon, the sun, and the radiant morning
and evening star — Inanna. Her jeweled mountain temple at Zabalam houses the axis
mundi, the opening through which the celestial rotation emerges. Inanna opens
the gate each morning at this nodal point of the cosmos. She is the epitome of
desire, the energizing force that animates creation and fuels the heavenly procession.
Suen/Nanna is her father of the moon.
The
me (a Sumerian word) were the many aspects of the known world, both the natural
world and that of civilization. Each deity was given dominion over a portion of
the me. In this hymn, Inanna’s sanctuary
guards her portion, her dominion.
＊ commentary and translation by Betty De Shong Medor
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