Lines 140-141 are to be taken as an expression
of amazement at Enkidu's appearance. The first word appears to be
an imperative in the sense of "Be off," "Away," from _d?lu_, "move,
roam." The second word _e-es_, "why," occurs with the same verb _d?lu_
in the Meissner fragment: _e-es ta-da-al_ (column 3, 1), "why dost thou
roam about?" The verb at the end of the line may perhaps be completed
to _ta-hi-il-la-am_. The last sign appears to be _am_, but may be _ma_,
in which case we should have to complete simply _ta-hi-il-ma_. _Tah?l_
would be the second person present of _h?lu_. Cf. _i-hi-il_, frequently
in astrological texts, e.g., Virolleaud, _Adad_ No. 3, lines 21 and 33.
Line 141. The reading _lim-nu_ at the beginning, instead of Langdon's
_mi-nu_, is quite certain, as is also _ma-na-ah-ti-ka_ instead of
what Langdon proposes, which gives no sense whatever. _Manahtu_ in
the sense of the "toil" and "activity of life" (like `OMOL throughout
the Book of Ecclesiastes) occurs in the introductory lines to the
Assyrian version of the Epic I, 1, 8, _ka-lu ma-na-ah-ti-[su]_,
"all of his toil," i.e., all of his career.
Line 142. The subject of the verb cannot be the woman, as Langdon
supposes, for the text in that case, e.
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