Dialogue on the Threshold

Schwellendialog
Showing posts with label dust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dust. Show all posts

30 May 2012

The voices of the dust (2)

Me did he lead to the Dwelling of Darkness, the home of Irkalla,
Unto the Dwelling from which he who entereth cometh forth never!
(Aye), by the road on the passage whereof there can be no returning,
Unto the Dwelling whose tenants are (ever) bereft of the daylight,
Where for their food is the dust, and the mud is their sustenance:
                bird-like
Wear they a garment of feathers: and, sitting (there) in the darkness,
Never the light will they see.


R. Campbell Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamesh. A new translation from a collation of the cuneiform tablets in the British Museum rendered literally into English hexameters (1928).

25 April 2012

The voices of the dust (1)

And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy voice shall be low out of the dust and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper (Heb. peep, or chirp) out of the dust.

Isaiah, 29:4