browngirl

25-odd years ago, the only way I could learn anything about Sumerian literature was to immerse myself in the basement stacks of the library at Washington University in St. Louis. There weren't a lot of English translations available at the time, and that area of research wasn't Teh Shiny for people, so it was mostly ignored. I used to sit there after work and read and read and read. I found a book of Sumerian and Babylonian proverbs and wisdom literature, and read it for hours on end. I remember a whole lot of funny stuff in there. I remember something in it like "You think that I am jolly because I wear the clothes of a fat woman and I laugh a lot. Think again!" That was embedded among the jokes. I've never forgotten it. I wonder if that book's still there or whether it got purged as obsolete. :(