Fr. Stephen De Young: All right. Welcome to the FOMO episode of The Lord of Spirits. I don’t know what intro may or may not have been inserted before I began, but welcome nonetheless.

So this is a very special episode, which is being recorded for all those folks who aren’t going to be at the Lord of Spirits Conference this week, at which we’re recording this week’s actual episode, but which you won’t get to hear live, because the internet at the Antiochian Village is lame, so you’ll have to hear it recorded after the fact, but those of you who are not in attendance will get to hear this first, so this is sort of the consolation prize, the turtle-wax, as it were of Lord of Spirits episodes.

Since unfortunately those of you who are listening to this when it first airs on Thursday evening are going to be missing out on whatever sort of party is happening at the Village, I thought I would talk a little bit about ways in which one might miss out on a party in the second millennium BC in Mesopotamia. There are several ways you could do this. So one way is you could not have proper clothing for the party, or just your clothing isn’t clean. This could especially happen to you if you’re kind of a Karen and so when you take your clothing to the cleaners you do something like is recorded on this ancient Akkadian tablet.

Come now, cleaner. Let me give you a commission: clean my clothes. Don’t neglect the commission I am giving you. Don’t do what you usually would. You should lay flat the fringe and the border. You should stitch the front to the inside. You should pick out the thread of the border. You should soak the thin part in a stew. You should strain that with a strainer. You should open out the fringes. You should wash it with clean water. You should treat it as if it were imported cloth. Will this be ready overnight? Will this be in a closed container? You should use soap and mix in gypsum. You should beat it on a stone. You should stir it in a crock and rinse it. You may want to stretch it out and comb it. You should tap it with a cornel tree branch. You should fluff out the flattened nap. You should work the woven work with a pin. You should split the seam and cool it. You should dry it in the cool of the evening. If the south wind has not dried it, you should put it on a rack in the east wind. Make sure it’s cool. Carry this out, I’ll make you very happy fast. You should deliver it to my home. A measure of barley will be poured into your lap.

The cleaner answers him:

By Ea, lord of the washtub, who keeps me alive, lay off! Nobody but a creditor or a tax collector would have the gall to talk the way you do, nor could anyone’s hands do the job. What you order me, I could not narrate, declaim, speak, or repeat. Come now, upstream of town at the city’s edge. Let me show you a place to launder. This big job on your hands you can set to yourself. Don’t miss your chance; seize the day! Do ease, if you please, the countless tangles of a cleaner. If you can’t give yourself more breathing-room, the cleaner is not yet born who will pay you any mind. They’ll think you a ninny so as they say, you’ll get all heated up and then you’ll have a stroke.

So, see, you’re liable to get told off, made to do your own laundry, miss the party.

Another thing that could happen, could leave you out of the party in the second millennium BC has to do with having a kid. Everybody loves their kids. People who adopted love their adopted kids as much as a biological kid. Even if that kid’s a little weird, you love that kid. You want to protect that kid. There’s just such a story written in cuneiform on the bottom of a monkey’s foot found in Mesopotamia.

Ms. Anhuti-remeni, slave woman of Ms. Krusibtu, the palace-woman of Assuriddin, who lifted Neru-eriba, the monkey man, out of the river, has raised him. He is her son. Whoever shall bring a law suit or complaint concerning him, he shall give up six sons and let him go free. In accordance with the command of the gods, they must not monkey with this monkey!

So, see, if you have a monkey child whom you’ve adopted and raised as your own, you’ve got to be careful about bringing him to parties: you might get thrown out. Even in a party where kids are allowed, bringing your adopted monkey child might be a problem.

Finally, everybody wants to be the life of the party. Everybody wants to have that little crowd gather around them and be waiting on their every word. One way to do that is to be funny, to be humorous at a party. But telling jokes can go wrong. Very easy to cross lines and offend. Let me suggest, we have—this is actually from the early first millennium BC in Mesopotamia— We have a very early stand-up set from a professional jester, and I don’t know how these jokes would go over.

The lion can terrify; I can let out air, too! The lion can swish his tail; I can wag my tail, too! I’m as trustworthy as a sieve; I hold onto my followers like a net. I sing like a she-ass. Theft is abhorrent to me. Whatever I see doesn’t stay where it was. I’ve gotten large from starvation, enormous from eating. I make myself throw up ten quarts; I feast on 30 more. I don’t leave off till I’ve filled the bushel to the brim. Among the shortest of them, the tallest of them! There’s none like me among women. My limbs are elephantine, my face a hyena’s. I tower like a tortoise; I cannot be equaled. Even if I weren’t alive, how much would my lover be loving me? He would keep turning around, forward and backward, like a trained crab. He can herd a ewe in the 20-acre field. By the city gate on account of me and my rats, I used up all my plans.

Jester, what can you do? Rope-weaving and singing laments, squeezing out fruit juice and brewing beer. Jester, what can you do? Snatching on the run pod-weeds and turnips, groats and stinkwort, or anything else. Jester, what can you do? Of the whole exorcist craft, nothing’s beyond me. Jester, how do you exorcise? Here’s how: I take over the haunted house. I set up the holy water. I tie up the goat. I skin a donkey and stuff it with straw. I tie a bundle of reeds, set it on fire, and toss it inside. I spirit the boundaries of the house and its surroundings, but the haunt of the house, the serpent, the scorpion, are not spared.

In October, what is your diet? Thou shalt dine on spoiled oil and onions and goose pluckings in porridge. In November, what is your diet? Thou shalt dine on pod-weed and turnips, and cleanser-plant and crow-foot. In December, what is your diet? Thou shalt dine on wild donkey-dung and bitter garlic, and emmer chaff and sour milk. In January, what is your diet? Thou shalt dine on goose eggs and dung embedded in sand, and cumin infused with Euphrates water and ghee. In February, what is your diet? Thou shalt dine on hot bread and donkey’s… rear end, stuffed with dog turds and fly dirt.

So I don’t know if any of those classic bits from 3,000 years ago had you rolling in the aisles, or if any of those comedy stylings of the Ancient Near East made up for not being able to go to the Lord of Spirits Conference, but, hey, it’s better than nothing!