Bilbea has stuck in my mind since I first discovered it a few weeks back. Supposedly Carl Sandburg paraphrased it from a Babylonian tablet (so the inscription says); I'm not sure about that, because I haven't found any evidence that he ever discussed the origin of the poem.
But it sticks -- the idea that, though our means of communication have changed radically over the years, we're still driven to communicate the same sorts of things. The lives of those who went before us were very different than ours in some ways, but in other ways were very much the same. Four thousand years ago, there was a guy who headed to Babylon in hopes of meeting Bilbea on a Saturday night, who felt bereft, who worried and wondered, when he didn't run into her. And who carved into a piece of stone, in hopes that they'd be seen by the one he was looking for, those most human of wishes: "Tell me how it goes." And, "Take care of yourself."
Bilbea
(From tablet writing, Babylonian excavations of 4th millennium B.C.)
Bilbea, I was in Babylon on Saturday night.
I saw nothing of you anywhere. I was at the old place and the other girls were there,
but no Bilbea.
Have you gone to another house? or city?
Why don’t you write?
I was sorry. I walked home half-sick.
Tell me how it goes.
Send me some kind of a letter.
And take care of yourself.
- Carl Sandburg
