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The Use of the Egyptian Word ht 'House' in the Sense of 'Stanza'

Author(s): A. M. Blackman
Source: Orientalia, NOVA SERIES, Vol. 7 (1938), pp. 64-66
Published by: GBPress- Gregorian Biblical Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43581191
Accessed: 04-12-2015 15:26 UTC

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64

The Use of the Egyptian Word ht * House ' in the Sense

of ' Stanza '
A. M. Blackman - Liverpool

Dr. A. H. Gardiner in Chester Beatty Papyri, No. I, p. 27,

discusses the use of the word ht ' house written
, and
Q
stanza ',
pointingout at the same time that though a more
meaning
literaltranslationof the headingsof the poems withwhichhe is dealing
would be ' House the second ', ' House the third', &c., nevertheless
9
'
" the
rendering sta?iza is the moreacceptable,since its own etymological meaning,as the present-dayItalian use and the Spanish estancia
both bear witness,was none otherthan ' house*or ' abode*". However,
in note 1 on the same page he expresses some doubt as to whether
'
the parallel is a fair one. " In the Egyptian the word for ' stanza
or ' chapter9 ", he says, " is definitelya metaphor froma dwellingplace which the words inhabit and by which they are cut offfrom
other stanzas or chapters. Is this the case with the Italian word
'
' stanza ' ? The
etymologicalmeaningis stopping-place and it might
well be that'the.termwas used in referenceto poetrysolely on account
of the pause at the end ". Dr. Gardinerconcludes the note by stating
'
that I had remarkedto him that bet ' house is used in Arabic in
in the sense of ' stanza ' exactly like the Egyptian equivalent.
It will be of interestto ascertainhow far back this use of t can
'
be traced in Egyptian,and whethera word for ' house is employed
'
*
with the meaning stanza by any Mediterraneanand Near Eastern
peoples other than the ancient Egyptians and the Arabs.
'
Dr. Gardinernotesthat t withthe meaning1stanza occurs not
but
only in the group o love-songsupon which he is commentating,
he
which
a
Leiden
in the Hymns to Amonfrom
published
PaPyrus
in A. Z., 42, 12ff. Furtherinstancesknown to me are to be found
in the Songs of Isis and Nephthysand the Book of Overthrowing
eApep= Pap . BremnerRhind : Brit. Mus. Pap . No. 10188, 1,1;
1, 5; 24, 21 ; ChesterBeattyPapyri, No. IX, rt. 14, 4; and Teaching
Son of Kanakht- Brit. Mus . Pap. No. 1047 , 3, 8 ; 4, 3.
of Amenemdpe

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The Use oftheEgyptian

Wordht' House' in theSenseof ' Stanza' 65
*
'
Though I have come across no instanceof t meaning stanza
in any Old- or Middle-Egyptiantexts,yet this use of the word must
actually go back to at least the beginningof the Sixth Dynasty.
The basis for this statementis the fact that a very large numberof
the ' Utterances' inscribedon the walls of the undergroundchambers
and passages of the pyramidsof Teti, Pepi I, Merner6,and Pepi II
(but not of Unis) are enclosed in elongated Q -signs (see, <?.g ., Sethe,
, I, Ii, p. xii and passim; III, Plate
AUaegyptischePyramidentexte
betweenpp. 155 and 156, lines 765 and 766). Though this use of
the sign
and therefore
of the word t in the sense of ' stanza
Q,
cannotbe tracedback to the periodbeforethe Sixth Dynasty,t may,
of course,have acquired that meaningat a muchearlier date. Here
be it notedthatfromthisemployment
is evidently
of the elongated
Q
derived the use of - ^ to denote the end of a section or stanza in
literarymanuscriptsof the New Kingdom(J),
simply representthe
of
lines dividingthe
the
when
which
remains
ing
g,
part
jj
columnsof textfromone anotherhave been omitted,as theyhabitually
are, in a hieraticmanuscriptwrittenin horizontallines (2).
Referencehas already been made to the use of the Arabic bet
i house ' in the sense of *stanza' The
question now arises, Is the
occurrencein both Egypt and Arabia of the idea that a chapter or
verse of poetryformsa 4house ' or 1chamber' or is shut up in one,
merelya coincidence,or did the Arabs borrowan idea that is ultimatelyEgyptianin origin? In a letterwrittento me some timeago
the late ProfessorLangdon informedme that the Sumerianscertainly
used the word *house ' in the sense of ' stanza ', strophe this
word standing at the end of the section to which it refersand
always being followedby a numeral,i. e.t - 1 ' stanza 1 ', - 2
' stanza 2 ' &c.
(3).
(*) E. g.y Mller,Liebespoesie
, Pis.Il if.; ChesterBeattyPapyri,No. I,
rt.16-17; No. V' rt.1-6; Pap. Sail. /, 3, 11; 4,5 ; 5, 4 ; 5,11; cf. also Sethe,
op. cit I, p. XII.
thisarticleI findthata diferent
of .b ^
(8) Since writing
explanation
is put forward
undsehtiftliehePorbyGrapowin his admirable
Sprachliche
Texte, p. 53. Thoughperhapscorrect(I am notabsolutely
niunggyptischer
thisexplanation
does not affectthe mainline of myargument.
convinced),
(3) See S. H. Langdon,OxfordEditionsof CuneiformTexts, I, 51,
line 21; RevuedyAssyriologie,
16,209,col. Ill, line 22.
Orienialia- 5

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66

- The Use oftheEgyptianWordht' House ' etc.

A. M. Blackman

Langdon also stated that the Sumerians had another word for
stanza ',
ki-sub-g, oftenwrittenmerelygii, which is more common
than , and which the Babyloniansborrowed,translatingit by m.
" So faras I can see
he wenton to say, " btu is not used in this
sense,although,iftheSumeriansso used theword for' house ', naturally
the Accadians, Babyloniansand Assyriansmust also have so used it.
That is all the more probable as the word for house ', bait, is used
in Syriac as is bt in Arabic. It is curious,however,that this usage
is unknownin Hebrew and Rabbinical literature".
According to Langdon the versions of the Sumerian texts in
which 1house ' occurswiththe meaning ' stanza ', all date fromthe
in
second centuryB. C. Consequently,since the use of
twentyQ
the Pyramid Texts, even if Scharff'schronologyis adopted, cannot
be later than 2400 B. C., one feels tempted to suggest, either that
the Sumerian use of the word ' house ' in the sense of ' stanza ' is
or thatboth the Egyptians
due to director indirectEgyptianinfluence,
and Sumerians owe the use to some common culturalsource (*).
,
However thatmay be, the fact that the word for ' house means
'strophe', 'verse', or 'chapter' in Egyptian, Sumerian, Syriac and
to believe that the similaruse of the Italian
Arabic,makes it difficult
'
'
word stanza arose independently. On the contrary,in view of the
close relationsof theArabs in mediaevaltimeswithSicily and southern
'
'
Italy, it is onlynaturalto suppose that stanza is simplya translation
of bt, the two words having, as a matterof fact,identicallythe same
'
'
'
meaning, abode ', chamber (2).
If this use of the word 4house ' originatedin Egypt, it could
have foundits way into Babylonia by way of Byblos, a port which
was in contact withEgypt and subjectto Egyptianinfluencesas early,
possibly,as the reignof Sneferu(3), but certainlyso during the Fifth
and Sixth Dynasties(4). Though, as Langdon has observed,the use
is not known in Hebrew and Rabbinical literature,it may have been
currentamong the Phoeniciansand Syriansand have been eventually
transmittedby the latter to the Arabs, who, in their turn,passed it
on to the Sicilians and Italians.
, 10,47: see also
Journ.ofEgypt.Archaeology
f1)Cf. A. M. Blackman,
des Altertums
Eduard Meyer,Geschichte
(Berlin,1913), 229.
Dictionary(Beyrut,1899),502,
(2) See Ha va, Arabic-English
(3) See J. H. Breasted,A Historyof Egypt(London,1906),115.
(4) Eduard Meyer,op. cit., 356f.

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