The Dispute of the Months in Sureth and Its East-Syriac Vorlage

In 1896 Lidzbarski published a Sureth (Christian North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic) version of the Dispute of the Months, as preserved in the ms. Berlin 134 (Sachau 336). The text is here republished with an English translation and compared with its Classical Syriac Vorlage. For the purpose of comparison, a provisional critical edition of the East-Syriac text in the classical language has been prepared on the basis of five manuscripts. The East-Syriac (and Sureth) version contains fewer references to Biblical and Christian culture than the West-Syriac text, as published by Brock in 1985, and appears to be a folk ballad with a few Christian motifs rather than a liturgical hymn. The text was attributed to the late 13th-century poet Khamis bar Qardaḥe and has been preserved in a couple of manuscript witnesses of the second part of his Diwān.