Recently, I introduced my family to a text that I have been studying for years, the Tale of Kirta. (Has anyone else ever discussed this around their dinner table?). This is a (now fragmentary) epic written in ancient Ugarit, probably in the 14th century BC. It tells about Kirta, the king of Ḫubur, who loses his wife and then all of his children in a series of disasters. (This is reminiscent of Job, of course). Mourning over the disappearance of his dynastic line, he cries himself to sleep. Il, the father of gods and men, comes to him in a dream with detailed instructions. Kirta is to assemble a huge army and march on Udum (perhaps a cognate to biblical Edom). When he gets there, he is to threaten Pabuli, the king of Udum, into providing his daughter Ḥuraya as a new wife for Kirta. Then he will be able to rebuild his family and provide an heir to his throne.
Today, over Sunday brunch, we read and discussed the first column of the second tablet in the tale. It tells how the people of Udum bewail the departure of their beloved Princess Ḥuraya. They especially remember all of her kind deeds to vulnerable citizens among them.
Here is my translation of these lines:
She reaches out her hand to the hungry.
She reaches out her hand to the thirsty.
…
As a cow lows for her calf,
as soldiers for their mothers,
so do the Udumites mourn.
CAT 1.15 1.1-2, 5-7
As we were discussing this, my wife, Robin, made a magnificent connection. Ḥuraya is praised for precisely the same activities practiced by the woman of virtue in Proverbs:
She opens her hand to the poor,
and reaches out her hands to the needy.
Proverbs 31:20
Kudos to my own wife of virtue for helping me read the Tale of Kirta in a new light after so many years.