Poor Man of Nippur: What Does One Deserve?
The Poor Man of Nippur (circa 701 BCE) is a Babylonian poem on the themes of the obligations of hospitality and revenge for an undeserved injury. A poor man of the city of Nippur feels mistreated when he visits the mayor and then goes to great lengths to avenge the insult; but is he abused or the abuser?
The poem relies upon the Mesopotamian understanding of hospitality in which one was obligated to treat a guest well, no matter their station in life, and provide for them as they deserved. The Poor Man of Nippur asks the audience to decide what, exactly, that means. What does one deserve? Why should one treat a nobleman differently than a poor man? Should one be punished for making such a distinction?
The poem seems to have been part of the curriculum of the scribal school at Nippur and was most likely composed there. Although the most complete text dates to circa 701 BCE, the story is understood as considerably older and is almost certainly Sumerian in origin as it refers to Sumerian deities (Ea and Ellil, the gods Enki and Enlil) and “the black-headed people”, a term used for the Sumerians in their own texts.
The nearly complete poem was discovered at Sultantepe (in modern-day Turkey) in 1952 but fragments of the work were found earlier in the ruins of Nippur and, at Nineveh, among the tablets of the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal’s famous library.
The Sultantepe copy concludes with the name of the scribal apprentice who copied it and a curse on anyone who removes it from the library, somewhat echoing the themes of the work itself.
The identification of the poem as Babylonian rests on the location (ancient Babylonia) where the tablet was discovered, though it is sometimes referenced as Akkadian, due to the script, or, earlier, as Neo-Assyrian because of the fragment found at Nineveh. Recent interest in the poem was generated in 2018 by a short film dramatizing it by the students of St. John’s College, University of Cambridge, under the direction of Assyriologist Dr. Martin Worthington.
The poem begins with a poor man, Gimil-Ninurta, hoping to improve his luck in the city of Nippur. His name is a clue to one of the themes of the poem as it means “revenge of Ninurta”, the god of war and friend of humanity, who was also one of the patron deities of Nippur and sometimes associated with retribution.
Gimil-Ninurta decides to sell his clothes and buy a goat for a feast, but once he brings it home, he realizes he has no money for beer to make a proper meal. If he serves only a paltry goat and nothing else, his neighbors and family would consider it an insult (lines 1-19).
He decides, instead, to bring the goat to the mayor of the city and present it as a gift, asking for nothing in return but relying on the established rules of hospitality in hopes the mayor will reciprocate with a better gift. Gimil-Ninurta, in going to the mayor’s house, would be considered a guest who, according to the Mesopotamian laws of hospitality, must be treated well and, having brought a gift, should be given one in return.
Instead, the mayor gives him only a bone, sinew, and diluted beer and has him thrown out of the gate. Gimil-Ninurta tells the gatekeeper he will have his revenge three-fold for the insult and puts his plan into action.
He goes to the king and asks to rent a chariot for a day, promising a certain amount of gold in return. The king dresses him in noble finery, lends him a chariot, and Gimil-Ninurta returns to the mayor’s house disguised as a royal courier carrying gold. Prior to his arrival back in Nippur, he captures two live birds, which he puts into the box that allegedly holds the gold in order to give it weight (lines 58-84).
Upon arriving at the mayor’s house, he is welcomed as a noble guest and feasted, and then, after the mayor has gone to sleep, Gimil-Ninurta opens the box and frees the birds, who fly away. The next morning, the mayor is shocked to see the open box and alerts the house to the robbery. Gimil-Ninurta, who as ‘courier’ would have been responsible for the loss of the gold, pretends to lose control and beats the mayor severely for allowing this theft under his own roof.
The mayor pleads for his life and gives Gimil-Ninurta two minas of gold (one of which, it is assumed, he pays to the king for the rental) and new clothes. Gimil-Ninurta leaves after telling the gatekeeper to tell the mayor to expect two more burdens visited upon him (lines 90-111)
He then disguises himself as a doctor (shaving the left side of his head as a form of identification, as doctors would do), returns to the mayor’s house, and pretends to have the uncanny ability to detect injuries to the body, pointing out exactly where the major has been beaten and promising to relieve his pain.
He claims his cures can only work in the dark, however, and, once he has the mayor alone in a room, ties him to the floor, beats him again, and departs.
He next hires a young man who looks like him to go to the mayor’s house and yell “I am the one with the goat!’ When the mayor’s people run out to capture the youth and prevent any further beatings, the mayor is again left alone, and Gimil-Ninurta beats him a third time and then walks away into the country, leaving the mayor to crawl back to his home (lines 113-end).
⇒ Poor Man of Nippur: What Does One Deserve?
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