Amarna letters of the king, my lord.""-('before', then line 8, line 11). Both sentences are identical, and repetitive, with only the subject statement changing. The entire corpus of Amarna letters has many standard phrases. It also has some phrases, and quotations used only once. Some are parables: (EA 252: ""...when an ant is pinched (struck), does it not fight back and bite the hand of the man that struck it?""...) Amarna letter EA 15, from Ashur-uballit I; see also Amarna letter EA 153. Amarna letters The Amarna letters (; sometimes referred to as the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets, and cited with
How It Is crawls through endless mud, recalling his life separated into three distinct periods. The title is Beckett's literal translation of the French phrase, "comment c'est" (how it is), a pun on the French verb "commencer" or 'to begin'. The text is divided into three parts: "before Pim" - the solitary narrator journeys in the mud-dark until he encounters another creature like himself thereby forming a "couple". His journey is abundant with recollections from his life above, including reminiscences of a woman and of his parents. "with Pim" - the narrator is motionless in the mud-dark until he is abandoned by Pim.