Let me weep over the handmaidens who have lost the embraces of their husbands, Over the only son let me mourn, who ere his days are come is taken away.
Then she issues abruptly the stern decree:
Go, keeper, open the gate to her,
Bewitch her according to the ancient rules;
that is, "Deal with her as you deal with others who come here".
As Ishtar enters through the various gates she is stripped of her ornaments and clothing. At the first gate her crown was taken off, at the second her earrings, at the third her necklace of precious stones, at the fourth the ornaments of her breast, at the fifth her gemmed waist-girdle,[122] at the sixth the bracelets of her hands and feet, and at the seventh the covering robe of her body. Ishtar asks at each gate why she is thus dealt with, and the porter answers, "Such is the command of Allatu."
After descending for a prolonged period the Queen of Heaven at length stands naked before the Queen of Hades. Ishtar is proud and arrogant, and Allatu, desiring to punish her rival whom she cannot humble,
Figure V.1. ISHTAR IN HADES From the Painting by E. Wallcousins
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commands the plague demon, Namtar, to strike her with disease in all parts of her body. The effect of Ishtar's fate was disastrous upon earth: growth and fertility came to an end.
Meanwhile Papsukal, messenger of the gods, hastened to Shamash, the sun deity, to relate what had occurred. The sun god immediately consulted his lunar father, Sin, and Ea, god of the deep. Ea then created a man lion, named Nadushu-namir, to rescue Ishtar, giving him power to pass through the seven gates of Hades. When this being delivered his message
Allatu ... struck her breast; she bit her thumb, She turned again: a request she asked not.
In her anger she cursed the rescuer of the Queen of Heaven.
May I imprison thee in the great prison,
May the garbage of the foundations of the city be thy food, May the drains of the city be thy drink,
May the darkness of the dungeon be thy dwelling, May the stake be thy seat,
May hunger and thirst strike thy offspring.
She was compelled, however, to obey the high gods, and addressed Namtar, saying:
Unto Ishtar give the waters of life and bring her before me.
Thereafter the Queen of Heaven was conducted through the various gates, and at each she received her robe and the ornaments which were taken from her on entering. Namtar says:
Since thou hast not paid a ransom for thy deliverance to her
(Allatu), so to her again turn back,
For Tammuz the husband of thy youth.
The glistening waters (of life) pour over him...
In splendid clothing dress him, with a ring of crystal adorn him.
Ishtar mourns for "the wound of Tammuz", smiting her breast, and she did not ask for "the precious eye-stones, her amulets", which were apparently to ransom Tammuz. The poem concludes with Ishtar's wail:
O my only brother (Tammuz) thou dost not lament for me. In the day that Tammuz adorned me, with a ring of crystal,
With a bracelet of emeralds, together with himself, he adorned me,[123] With himself he adorned me; may men mourners and women
mourners
On a bier place him, and assemble the wake.[124]
A Sumerian hymn to Tammuz throws light on this narrative. It sets forth that Ishtar descended to Hades to entreat him to be glad
and to resume care of his flocks, but Tammuz refused or was unable to return.
His spouse unto her abode he sent back. She then instituted the wailing ceremony:
The amorous Queen of Heaven sits as one in darkness.[125]
Mr. Langdon also translates a hymn (Tammuz III) which appears to contain the narrative on which the Assyrian version was founded. The goddess who descends to Hades, however, is not Ishtar, but the "sister", Belitsheri. She is accompanied by various demons-- the "gallu-demon", the "slayer", &c.--and holds a conversation with Tammuz which, however, is "unintelligible and badly broken". Apparently, however, he promises to return to earth.
... I will go up, as for me I will depart with thee ...
... I will return, unto my mother let us go back.
Probably two goddesses originally lamented for Tammuz, as the Egyptian sisters, Isis and Nepthys, lamented for Osiris, their brother. Ishtar is referred to as "my mother". Isis figures alternately in the Egyptian chants as mother, wife, sister, and daughter of Osiris. She cries, "Come thou to thy wife in peace; her heart fluttereth for thy love", ... "I am thy wife, made as thou art, the elder sister, soul of her brother".... "Come thou to us as a babe".... "Lo, thou art as the Bull of the two goddesses--come thou, child growing in peace,
our lord!"... "Lo! the Bull, begotten of the two cows, Isis and Nepthys".... "Come thou to the two widowed goddesses".... "Oh child,
lord, first maker of the body".... "Father Osiris."[126]
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As Ishtar and Belitsheri weep for Tammuz, so do Isis and Nepthys weep for Osiris.
Calling upon thee with weeping--yet thou art prostrate upon thy bed!
Gods and men ... are weeping for thee at the same time, when they behold me (Isis).
Lo! I invoke thee with wailing that reacheth high as heaven.
Isis is also identified with Hathor (Ishtar) the Cow.... "The cow weepeth for thee with her voice."[127]
There is another phase, however, to the character of the mother goddess which explains the references to the desertion and slaying of Tammuz by Ishtar. "She is", says Jastrow, "the goddess of the human instinct, or passion which accompanies human love. Gilgamesh ... reproaches her with abandoning the objects of her passion after a brief period of union." At Ishtar's temple "public maidens accepted temporary partners, assigned to them by Ishtar".[128] The worship of all mother goddesses in ancient times was accompanied by revolting unmoral rites which are referred to in condemnatory terms in various passages in the Old Testament, especially in connection with the worship of Ashtoreth, who was identical with Ishtar and the Egyptian Hathor.
Ishtar in the process of time overshadowed all the other female deities of Babylonia, as did Isis in Egypt. Her name, indeed, which is Semitic, became in the plural, Ishtarate, a designation for goddesses in general. But although she was referred to as the daughter of the sky, Anu, or the daughter of the moon, Sin or Nannar, she still retained traces of her ancient character. Originally she was
a great mother goddess, who was worshipped by those who believed that life and the universe had a female origin in contrast to those who believed in the theory of male origin. Ishtar is identical with Nina, the fish goddess, a creature who gave her name to the Sumerian city of Nina and the Assyrian city of Nineveh. Other forms of the Creatrix included Mama, or Mami, or Ama, "mother", Aruru, Bau, Gula, and Zerpanitum. These were all "Preservers" and healers. At the same time they were "Destroyers", like Nin-sun and the Queen of Hades, Eresh-ki-gal or Allatu. They were accompanied by shadowy male forms ere they became wives of strongly individualized gods, or by child gods, their sons, who might be regarded as "brothers" or "husbands of their mothers", to use the paradoxical Egyptian term. Similarly Great Father deities had vaguely defined wives. The "Semitic" Baal, "the lord", was accompanied by a female reflection of himself--Beltu, "the lady". Shamash, the sun god, had for wife the shadowy Aa.
As has been shown, Ishtar is referred to in a Tammuz hymn as the mother of the child god of fertility. In an Egyptian hymn the sky goddess Nut, "the mother" of Osiris, is stated to have "built up life from her own body".[129] Sri or Lakshmi, the Indian goddess, who became the wife of Vishnu, as the mother goddess Saraswati, a tribal deity, became the wife of Brahma, was, according to a Purana commentator, "the mother of the world ... eternal and undecaying".[130]