Dissonance and disaster in the legend of Kirta.

• Author: Knoppers, Gary N.

INTRODUCTION

Since its publication in 1936, the legend of Kirta has occasioned a remarkable number of conflicting interpretations.(1) Some scholars contend that the Kirta legend contains a historical core; others believe that the Kirta legend defends a certain dynasty. Some see the work as legitimizing, others as opposing, sacral kingship. Some commentators describe the work as a myth corresponding to a set ritual. Finally, some interpret the work as serving a decidedly cultic purpose. In my judgment, each of the major hypotheses responds to particular features within the legend but neglects others.(2) None seems adequate or wholly convincing.

In arguing that the Kirta legend contains a historical kernel, Virolleaud, Dussaud, Albright, Schaeffer, Driver, and Gibson stress the relevance of non-Ugaritic place names and other details in Kirta's expedition to Udm.(3) The possibility of a historical substratum to the long description of Kirta's campaign is intriguing. But scholars pursuing this line of investigation do not agree among themselves about the origin, nature, and extent of the older tradition. Moreover, one must ask how Kirta's campaign to Udm functions within the larger narrative. Those commentators who argue that this legend functions as an etiology of a particular dynasty or as propaganda for hereditary monarchy aptly call attention to the name and family of Kirta.(4) But this approach, by resorting to speculation about the precise fate of Kirta, Yassub, and Thitmanat, sidesteps a major issue: why does this major work in the library of Ugarit focus upon the life of a non-Ugaritic king?(5)

Those scholars who see the Kirta legend as undergirding divine kingship point to episodes, such as Kirta's wedding celebration, which associate Kirta with immortals.(6) But if the point is royal immortality, why does the Kirta legend contain so many speeches and episodes underscoring Kirta's mortality? Consistent with his myth and ritual approach, Gray calls attention to the importance of setting.(7) One wonders, however, whether an accession or royal wedding would be the most appropriate setting for a story of how a king loses his wife and family, experiences a lengthy and debilitating disease, sees his land stricken by famine, and confronts a call for his abdication by his heir apparent.(8)

Most commentators, including Gray, see the Kirta legend as reinforcing the mythology of kingship, but Parker and De Moor see the story as demythologizing kingship. For Parker, the Kirta epic evinces "a society in which total faith in the king as an extension of the divine sphere is lost."(9) Similarly, De Moor sees in Kirta "a tragic sufferer and victim of divine whims,"(10) one should ask, along with these commentators, why the Kirta legend spends so much time describing Kirta's losses and human frailties. Yet if the Kirta legend amounts to a complete loss of faith in kingship, as De Moor suggests, why does the author depict deities, such as B[a.sup.[subset]]l, Athirat, and especially El, devoting individual attention to King Kirta? Kirta enjoys a unique relationship to El, who responds positively not once but twice to Kirta's troubles. Moreover, the epithets applied to Kirta - "the Servant of El," "the Noble One," "the Gracious One, the Lad of El," and "the Offspring of the Kind One" - are quite complimentary.(11) This flattery would be surprising if the legend were intended to depict Kirta merely as a victim. Consistent with his claim that the Kirta legend attacks the tradition of sacral kingship, Parker proposes that the work serves a more narrowly construed cultic function: to support the priesthood of El by showing Kirta's dependence upon El.(12) If this were the case, however, would not one expect to see cultic references in the legend or at least one reference to a priesthood of El?

The emergence of such fundamentally different views points to qualities inherent in the Kirta legend itself. I argue that the author, both complicates and affirms the mythology of kingship. Traditional royal ideology emphasizes the ideals of kingship: health, long life, prosperity, vitality, salubrity, and justice.(13) A monarch's duties encompassed many dimensions: to protect his state against external and internal threats, to establish justice, and to secure cultic order.(14) A king's longevity, indeed a dynasty's longevity, offers society continuity and stability. The author exposes, however, the ambiguities inherent within this ideology and plays on its problems. The work discloses the intersecting, overlapping, and contradictory strands of thought which converge in royal ideology by probing two sources of monarchical prestige: the king's relations to the gods and the king's relations to his dynastic successor. In the Kirta legend the king's dependence upon the gods and upon his heir evinces both royal power and royal vulnerability. Kirta is the recipient and medium of both blessing and curse. Failure and disease are, ironically, as much facets of Kirta's rule as triumph and health. An heir is initially treasured and diligently pursued by Kirta. Yet the prospect of succession is later feared by an ailing Kirta and his wife Hurriya, since Yassub's accession inevitably involves Kirta's death. Nevertheless, the very tensions the author discerns in the contrast between ideology and experience ultimately reaffirm the pivotal role of the king in divine-human relations. The crises caused by the loss of the king's kin, the appearance of a grave illness, and the insurrection of the heir apparent collectively underscore the importance of the king to human society.

Whatever the origins of the narrative describing Kirta's campaign to Udm, the author's incorporation of this material allows him to address complex questions about the nature and practice of human kingship from the perspective of both chronological and geographical distance.(15) The pantheon of deities that Kirta engages is clearly no different from that in any other Ugaritic myth. Moreover, Kirta's vow, ablutions, and sacrifice to El bear a striking resemblance to those prescribed for a Ugaritic king in KTU 1.119.(16) Nevertheless, focusing attention upon the reign of a non-Ugaritic king enables the author to treat sensitive issues with a degree of freedom and independence not possible otherwise.

Significant portions of the Kirta legend are missing from tablets II and III, but the general outline of the work seems clear.(17) The legend contains two major cycles, both of which engage themes of loss and recovery. The first depicts the destruction of Kirta's kin and his long and arduous but ultimately successful attempt to replace them. The second depicts the similar loss and recovery of Kirta's health. In each case El intervenes personally to deliver his "servant." This summary of the work's organization is in some respects misleading, however, because it suggests too positive an outcome for Kirta. Each loss leads to recovery, but each recovery, in turn, leads to further tragedy. Significantly, the surviving part of the story does not resolve this oscillation between misfortune and blessing.(18)

1. LOSS AND RECOVERY, PART I

   As the story begins, Kirta has done what an effective king should - he has acquired numerous wives and progeny.(19) Kirta's rule represents vitality and continuity. Neither his success nor his status frees him, however, from the vicissitudes of human life.

   The clan [of Kirta] is stripped, the [ro]yal house is (destroyed), which had seven brothers, eight sons of a mother. (KTU 1.14.I.6-9)

   If a dynasty is the ideal, the reality can be something less. Inasmuch as heirs attest to royal vitality and success, their absence suggests weakness and failure. The loss of all of Kirta's family due to war and the activities of Reshep and Yamm ruins Kirta's life and imperils his future (KTU 1.14.I.16-25). The sense of tragedy is not lost on Kirta.

   He entered his chamber and wept, When he repeated (his) [cr]ies, he shed tears.(20) His tears streamed down, like shekels to the ground, like fifth-pieces onto the bed. (KTU 1.14.I.26-30)

   Kirta's tears evince his vulnerability. But subsequent events alleviate his plight. The aftermath of Kirta's ruin reveals that he has (or acquires) a close relationship to El, who becomes intimately involved in Kirta's quest for a new family, the gods deprived King Kirta of wives and children, but he paradoxically relies upon one of their number to find a new wife and children (KTU 1.14.I.51-II.5).(21) Hence, the Kirta legend makes explicit what is implicit in royal propaganda. kings have unique access to gods and are a channel of divine communication to people and land, but, as such, they have only subordinate and dependent status.(22)

   El's extensive and unusually detailed dream theophany reaffirms Kirta's exalted royal position.(23) Kirta, like Gudea(24) and Solomon (1 Kings 3:4-14), is privileged to receive a communication from the high god, who calls Kirta "the Gracious One, the Lad of El."(25) Even El, however, pointedly observes the distance between human and divine kingship.

   What is the matter with you, Kirta, that he weeps,(26) the Gracious One, (that) the Lad of El cries? Is it the kingship of [Bu]ll, his father, that he desires, or dominion, like the Father of Humanity? (KTU 1.14.I.38-43)(27)

   Kirta's kingship is limited in its prerogatives. The kingship of El is primary, that of Kirta secondary. They are related, but only in a hierarchy, and the gap between them cannot be bridged.

   Kirta's loss of wife and progeny occurs rapidly, but his recovery does not. The narrative devotes extensive coverage to El's detailed instructions and Kirta's efforts to implement them (KTU 1.14.III.50-15.I.20). Receiving a divine revelation is not tantamount to either understanding it or correctly implementing its instructions.(28) Kirta follows all of El's directives zealously. Kirta also vows a huge sum of silver and gold to the goddess Athirat...