Most mighty one, lord of Kutha.
For the eleven such couplets one is inclined to surmise a choir chanting the refrains, and a priest announcing the titles of the deity. This seems more probable than that one choir repeated the first line and a second choir the second line. After two ordinary couplets, marked only by fairly close parallelism, there follows a triplet in praise of the incomparable god:
Lord who is like thee who rivals thee?
Most mighty one who is like thee who rivals thee?
Nergal who is like thee who rivals thee?
With the change of the invocation from “Lord” to “Most mighty one” to “Nergal” the lines undoubtedly grow in intensity until the name Nergal, which is held back until the third line, would be thundered forth in that third line with the greatest enthusiasm. Here again it seems highly probable that a choir chanted the refrain: “Who is like unto thee, who rivals thee?” The second part of this hymn consists of eighteen lines in couplets and triplets in praise of the word of Nergal. The ease with which the second half line follows from the first half line suggests that here the priest chanted the first half line, and a choir the second half line.
In this same class of Antiphonal hymns belong two hymns with a veritable din of repetitions. The first is Sin No. 3. It opens with the formal invocation:
Thou whose glory in the sacred boat of heaven is self created,
Father Nannar lord of Ur,
Father Nannar lord of Ekissirgal,