Expressions for ‘dream’ (1)

Text
The Sumero-Akkadian expression for dreaming is tabrīt mūši ‘vision of the night’ which occurs only in literary and late texts and is mostly written with the Sumerogram máš.ge₆, a poetic synonym for ‘dream’. The connection with divinatory practices is indicated by the term máš which is the Sumerogram used in liver omen texts for barû ‘examine’ and for the cognate noun bīru ‘inspection of omens’; tabrītu ‘viewing, sight’ is from the same root. A comparable expression occurs in Aeschylus’ play Persians 518, where the Persian Queen refers to her ominous dream as nyktos opsis enypniōn, ‘the night-vision of dreams’, and the author of the play Prometheus uses the expression opseis ennychoi, ‘nocturnal visions’ (645). The Aeschylean phrase that appears on the surface as a casual poetic periphrasis turns out to reflect a language of divination derived from Mesopotamia.

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Aeschylus, Persians 518
Aeschylus, Prometheus 645

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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