There stands a house

 

There stands a house under the mountain of the world,

a road runs down, the mountain covers it

and no man knows the way. It is a house

that binds bad men with ropes

and clamps them into a narrow space.

It is a house the separates the wicked

and the good; this is a house from out of which

no one escapes, but just men need not fear before its judge,

for in this river of spent souls the good

shall never die although the wicked perish.

This is my house, on its foundations stand

the mountains of the sunrise, but who shall see

into the pit? It is a house that separates

the wicked and the just; it is a house

that smothers in clay the souls that come to it.

It is the house of the setting sun,

the pallid god in livid splendour; the sill 

is a monster with jaws that gape

and the jambs of the doors are a sharp knife

to slash down wicked men. The two rims

of the river of hell are the rapier thrust

of terror, a raging lion guards it

and who can face his fury? Here also lie

the rainbow gardens of the Lady.

("The Sumerian Underworld" in Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia, translated and introduced by N K Sandars, Penguin Classics, 1971.)

*

N[ancy] K[atharine] Sandars (1915 - 2015) was an independent scholar and archaeologist. This was her companion volume to The Epic of Gilgamesh, which introduced a wide readership to Mesopotamian literature. She didn't actually know Sumerian or Akkadian; in these popular books she turned other scholars' translations into something readable. In Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia this poem appeared among longer and better-known texts like The Babylonian Creation and Inanna's Journey to Hell. Her source for this one was the German translation of Erich Ebeling in Orientalia 18 (1949) No 3, pp. 285-87, titled "Eine Beschreibung der Unterwelt in sumerischer Sprache". 

The poem (if poem is the right word) is a fragment: we are missing at least the first three lines and the last eight lines. Perhaps more, if it was not complete on this single tablet, which is thought to date from the peak production period 1400-1100 BCE.

*

I was curious to know more. The referenced article by Ebeling is on JStor (https://www.jstor.org/stable/43078986) but is not available for online reading, so I could only see the first page, containing his headnote and the first part of his transcription.

St. Langdon hat in den Publications of the Babylonian Section, University of Pennsylvania, Vol XII, 1, unter Nr. 40, pl. XLV, .einen sumerischen Text veröffentlicht, von dem anscheinend nur die eine Seite beschrieben oder erhalten ist. Auch die vorhandene ist, wie Langdon S. 41 sagt, damaged at top and bottom, weather-worn. Trotzdem verdienen die noch übrig gebliebenen Zeilen Beachtung ; denn sie lassen erkennen, dass der Text eine Beschreibung der Unterwelt enthält. Bei näherem Hinsehen ergibt sich, dass der Langdonsche Text mit dem von Lutz UP I 2, Nr. 104 (=TuL. S. 22f.) dargebotenen stilistisch und sachlich sehr nahe verwand ist. Wie dieser ist er ein "Selbstlobgedicht" der Unterweltsgottheid (des Unterweltsflusses) (vgl. Z. 8) und gehört vielleicht zu einer und derselben Serie. Es ist mir nicht bekannt, dass die Tafel Langdons irgendwo behandelt worden ist. Es sei mir daher gestattet, sie in Ubersetzung hier vorzulegen. Das Sumerische darauf ist teils phonetisch (syllabisch), teils in Wortzeichen geschrieben, bietet daher dem Verständnis manche Schwierigkeiten. 

[Translation of headnote: St[ephen] Langdon has published a Sumerian text in Publications of the Babylonian Section, University of Pennsylvania, Vol XII, 1 [1917] under No. 40, pl. XLV,  of which apparently only one side has been written or preserved. Even the existing one is, as Langdon says on page 41, "damaged at top and bottom" and "weather-worn". Nevertheless, the surviving lines deserve attention; for they reveal that the text contains a description of the underworld. A closer look reveals that Langdon's text is very closely related, both stylistically and factually, to that presented by Lutz UP I 2, Nr. 104 (=TuL. S. 22f.). Like the latter, it is a "self-praise poem" of the underworld deity (the underworld river) (cf. l. 8) and perhaps belongs to one and the same series. I am not aware that Langdon's tablet has been studied anywhere. Therefore, please allow me to present it here in translation. The Sumerian on it is written partly phonetically (syllabically), partly in word characters, and therefore presents some difficulties for understanding.]

Umschrift: 1-3 Zusammenhang nicht erkennbar

[Transcription: 1-3 Context not discernible]

(4) èš(?) sag-zi-ga  kur-ba-ila(la) a-rá-bi lú [n]u-zu

(5) é giš-eš-ad erím-gen šu-dim4-ma(!) š[à] si-gál-la [gub-bu

(6) é sa-ku-ši-te-en-bi lil-sa6(?) [

(7) é zi-gen erím-gen igi-gál hul šu-bi nu-é [

(8) é-íd-lú-šub-gú si-sá nu-úš-e erím-gen gul(!)

(9) é-mu gab-bi(!)-še10 kur (d)utu-è(!)šà-bi lú-nu-zu

(10) é zi-gen erím-gen bar-im-ag . . . . . .

(11) é uš-ki gar-ra-bi IM ŠU [

(12) é-bi ú-šu dingir-sig7-ga su-zi [i]la [

Langdon's 1917 PBS volume was subtitled Sumerian Grammatical Texts and I suppose he included this tablet because he thought it had a mainly pedagogical function, though he described it (not very accurately) as a Thammuz Liturgy. 

You can see a confusing digitisation of this volume here (not the plates of course), but approach with caution because I'm not sure sure what kind of site it is: 

https://en.readanybook.com/ebook/publications-of-the-babylonian-section-volumes-12-13-213568

What Sandars' rendering rather disguises is that every line begins with the same word é, which I think means "house".

Our poem seems to contradict the Wikipedia entry for Ancient Mesopotamian underworld when it says "In the Sumerian underworld, it was initially believed that there was no final judgement of the deceased and the dead were neither punished nor rewarded for their deeds in life" .... in truth Mesopotamia must have contained the usual diversity of belief and change of belief over time (thousands of years in this case), so any sketch is bound to be a bit unhistorical.

The Lady in the striking last line has been supposed to be Inanna (Ishtar)... but who knows? It could also be Ereshkigal or indeed Geshtinanna or someone else entirely.