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The bitch in her hurry (1)

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Topics (move over topic to see place in topic list) Dog 02 Religious and ideological symbols and iconographic motifs 02.05 Animal/theriomorphic symbols and iconographic motifs 02.05.01 Mammals 02.05.01.14 Dog Proverb collections 04 Religious and philosophical literature and poetry 04.03 Wisdom literature 04.03.06 Proverb collections	Keywords animals sayings
Period 7th century BCE Greek Archaic Age Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian Empires	Channel Arabic culture Greek poets Jewish philosophers and scholars Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian texts

Text
The proverb first attested in a letter of Šamši-Adad in the Mari archives is also well known from an ancient Greek source and is still in use among the Arabs and Jews in Iraq.

Mari Archives (Šamši-Adad’s letter):
The bitch in her haste gave birth to blind ones.

Archilochos:
The bitch in haste bears blind ones.

Proverbs of Baghdad 1.344 (Jalal al-Hanafi, Baghdad 1962):
The cat in her haste kittens blind kittens.

Judeo-Arabic Proverb from Iraq:
The bitch in her hurry whelps blind pups.

Sources (list of abbreviations)
Archilochos
Judeo-Arabic Proverb from Iraq
Mari Archives (Šamši-Adad’s letter)
Proverbs of Baghdad 1.344

Bibliography

Avishur 1981, 37-38	Avishur, Y. “Additional Parallels of an Akkadian Proverb Found in the Iraqi Vernacular Arabic.” Welt des Orients 12 (1981) 37-38.
Dalley and Reyes 1998, 102-103	Dalley, S. and A. T. Reyes. “Mesopotamian Contact and Influence in the Greek World.” In: S. Dalley (ed.). The Legacy of Mesopotamia. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998, 85-124.
Hanafi 1962-1964, I 344	Hanafi, Ǧalāl al-. al-Amṯāl al-Baġdādiyya. Baghdad oaths. 2 Vols. Baghdad: Dār al-Ǧumhūriyya 1962-1964.
Moran 1978	Moran, W. L. “An Assyriological Gloss on the New Archilochus Fragment.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 82 (1978) 17-19. [JSTOR (requires subscription)]

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Archilochos on the Web

Amar Annus

URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000606.php

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