Reverse

In the house of wine, in the house of fruit, the son, the shining one of wisdom, who has a great sacrifice!

[25.] ur-sag ^giš ku-a sag-mal-mal-ge(KIT)

The hero of great weapons!

[26.] dimmer mutin (GEŠTIN) An-na-qe(KIT) ú-sun-na saq-mal-mal-ge(KIT)

The wine-god of Anu, the great plant-germinator!

[27.] ú-sun gurun(KIL)-gurun(KIL) ú-sun gurun(KIL)-gurun(KIL) šes-mu ú-sun gurun(KIL)-gurun(KIL)

The germinator of many fruits, the germinator of many fruits, my brother, the germinator of many fruits!

[28.] ú-sun a-ra-li ú-sun gurun(KIL)-gurun(KIL) šes-mu ú-sun gurun(KIL)-gurun(KIL)

The germinator of the lower world, the germinator of many fruits, my brother, the germinator of may fruits!

[29.] in-nu gíš(UŠ) ^giš gu-ga-ge(KIT) tàl(ÁŠ)-ta-al-ta-al mu-ib-rá (DU)-rá(DU)

The vegetable-germinator, the only plant-begetter, who goeth forth!

[30.] dumu(TUR) zi-ga-na ga-ni šà(LIB)-zi-zi mu-ib-rá(DU)

The son of life; in his fulness, in the midst of life goeth.

[31.] eš diš êr(A.ŠI)-lim(LIB)-ma ^dimmer Dumu-zi-da-kam

Thirty lines. Hymn to Tammuz.

The salient phases of the rounded out Tammuz story are touched upon in this hymn; viz., his local dwelling in a city where he had a temple; the memorial weeping; his relation to Anu; his lordly power; his specification as “a brother”; his relation to the goddess Ištar; his characteristic and supreme function of plant-germination. Note also that he was the agricultural god of spring vegetation. Offerings of wine were poured out over his bier, he having been humbled to sorrow by banishment to the lower world, where he became a lord over the occult and internal forces inherent beneath the soil of the earth. So he became a god of a new life. The hymn does not seem altogether to confine the germinating work of Tammuz to the vegetation of spring growth, but appears, especially in the Reverse, to include fruit growing which might come later in the season. Possibly this hymn was sung as a dirge at Babylonian anniversaries for the departed Tammuz. The Babylonians at the time of the summer solstice annually commemorated with lamentation the departure of Tammuz to the lower world. He had instructed them that they should gather at his bier and that hired musicians should sing and play and that the people should sacrifice and drink wine.