Chapter XIV.
THE ADVENTURES OF ISTAR.

Triumph of Izdubar.—Istar’s love.—Her offer of marriage.—Her promises.—Izdubar’s answer.—Tammuz.—Amours of Istar.—His refusal.—Istar’s anger.—Ascends to Heaven.—The bull.—Slain by Izdubar.—Istar’s curse.—Izdubar’s triumph.—The feast.—Istar’s despair.—Her descent to Hades.—Description.—The seven gates.—The curses.—Atsu-sunamir the Sphinx.—Release of Istar.—The dog of the dawn.—Lament for Tammuz.

In this chapter are included the sixth and seventh tablets, which both primarily refer to the doings of Istar.

Tablet VI.

The sixth tablet is in better condition than any of the former ones, and allows of something like a connected translation.

Column I.

Column II.

Column III.

(Some lines lost here.)

Column IV.

(Some lines lost.)

Column V.

Column VI.

Tablet VII.

The seventh tablet opens with the words, “My friend, what is this counsel the great gods are taking?” It is uncertain if any other portion of this tablet has been found, but part of a remarkable fragment, with a continuation of the story of Istar, has been placed here. It appears that the goddess, failing in her attempt in heaven to avenge herself on Izdubar for his slight, resolved to descend to hell, to search out, if possible, new modes of attacking him.

Columns I. and II. are lost, the fragments recommencing on Column III.

Column III.

After many lines destroyed, the story recommences in the fourth column.

Column IV.

Here the story is again lost, Columns V. and VI. being absent. It would seem that Hea-bani is here telling his friend how he must die and descend into the house of Hades. Mr. Smith, however, thought that in the third column some one is speaking to Istar, trying to persuade her not to descend to Hades, while in the fourth column the goddess, who is suffering all the pangs of jealousy and hate, revels in the dark details of the description of the lower regions, and declares her determination to go there.

If this view is correct, this part of the legend would be connected with the beautiful story of the Descent of Istar into Hades which describes how the goddess descended into the lower world in search of her husband Tammuz, the Sun-god, who had been slain by the boar’s tusk of winter. Tammuz became Adonis, the Phœnician adonai “lord,” among the Greeks, to whom the story of Aphroditê and Adonis had been carried by the Phœnicians. The story is one which meets us in the mythologies of many races and nations throughout the world, and has grown in each case out of the winter-sleep of the sun and his resurrection in the spring. Its last echo in our own European folklore may be heard in the tale of the Sleeping Beauty. A calendar found among the banking records of the Egibi firm in Babylonia notes on the 15th day of the month Tammuz or June “an eclipse of the Moon,” apparently in reference to the descent of the Moon-goddess Istar into Hades. The legend survives in a changed form in the Talmud (Yoma 69b, Sanhedrim 60a). Here it is said that after the Captivity the elders of the nation, headed by Ezra and Nehemiah, besought God that the demon of lust might be delivered into their hands. In spite of a prophetic voice which warned them of the consequences of their request, it was persisted in, and the demon was given up to them and imprisoned. But before three days were over, the whole course of the world was thrown into disorder. No eggs even were to be had, and the Jewish elders were obliged to confess their mistake and release the demon from his fetters.

The descent of Istar into Hades from K 162.

Column II.

This remarkable text shows Istar fulfilling her threat and descending to Hades, but it does not appear that she had as yet accomplished her vengeance against Izdubar.

At the opening of the sixth tablet we have the final scene of the contest with Khumbaba. Izdubar, after slaying Khumbaba, takes the crown from the head of the monarch and places it on his own head, thus signifying that he assumed the empire. There were, as we are informed in several places, kings, lords, and princes, merely local rulers, but these generally submitted to the greatest power; and just as they had bowed to Khumbaba, so they were ready now to submit to Izdubar. The kingdom promised to Izdubar when he started to encounter Khumbaba now became his by right of superior force, and he entered the halls of the palace of Erech and feasted with his heroes.

We are thus brought to a curious part of the story, the romance of Izdubar and Istar. One of the strange and dark features of the Babylonian religion was the Istar or Venus worship, which was an adoration of the reproductive power of nature, accompanied by ceremonies which were a reproach to the country. The city of Erech, originally a seat of the worship of Anu, was now one of the foremost cities in this Istar worship. Tammuz, the young and beautiful Sun-god, the dead bridegroom of Istar, seems to be also spoken of as the brother of her handmaid Kharimat. This explains, as M. Lenormant has pointed out, the passage in Jeremiah xxii. 18, which preserves a portion of the wailing cry uttered by the worshippers of Tammuz or Adonis when celebrating his untimely death. This should be rendered: “Ah me, my brother, and ah me, my sister! Ah me, Adonis, and ah me, his lady!” Reference is made to the worship of Tammuz, which was carried on within the Temple itself at Jerusalem, in Ezek. viii. 14, Amos viii. 10, (where we should translate “as at the mourning for the only son” Tammuz), and Zech. xii. 10, 11. Tammuz is the Semitic form of the Accadian Dumuzi which signified in that language “the only son.”

Bowareyeh Mound at Warka (Erech), site of the Temple of Istar.

The struggle with a bull on the part of Izdubar and Hea-bani, represented on the Babylonian cylinder figured on the next page, and numerous similar representations, refer to the struggle with the bull created by Anu to avenge the slight offered to Istar.

It would appear from the broken fragments of Column IV. that Hea-bani laid hold of the bull by the head and tail while Izdubar killed it, and Hea-bani in the engraving is represented holding the bull by its head and tail.

At the close of the sixth tablet the story is again lost, only portions of the third and fourth columns of the next tablet being preserved, but light is thrown on this portion of the narrative by the remarkable tablet describing the descent of Istar into Hades. It is possible that this tablet formed an episode in the sixth tablet of the Izdubar legends.

Izdubar and Hea-bani in Conflict with the Lion and Bull.

This tablet containing the descent of Istar into Hades was first noticed by Mr. Fox Talbot in the “Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature,” but his attempt at a translation was a failure. Mr. Smith subsequently published a short notice of it in the “North British Review,” and afterwards a translation of it in the “Daily Telegraph.” Prof. Schrader brought out a monograph upon it in 1874, and both M. Lenormant and Dr. Oppert have worked at it. The most recent translation is one made into Italian by M. Lenormant in a publication entitled “Il mito di Adone-Tammuz,” 1879, upon the basis of the one made by Dr. Oppert.

The story of the descent of Istar into Hades is one of the most beautiful myths in the Assyrian inscriptions; it has, however, received so much attention, and been so fully commented upon by various scholars, that little need be said on the subject here.

It is evident that we are dealing with the same goddess as the Istar, daughter of Anu, in the Izdubar legends, although she is here called daughter of Sin (the moon-god).

The description of the region of Hades is most graphic, and vividly portrays the sufferings of the prisoners there. Atsu-sunamir, created by Hea to deliver Istar, is described as a composite animal, half bitch and half man, with more than one head, and corresponds with the two dogs of the Hindu Rig-Veda, which have four eyes and broad snouts, and guard the road to the abode of Yama the king of the departed. They are also said to move among men, feasting on their lives, as the messengers of Yama; and as the offspring of Saramâ, the dawn, they are called Sârameyas, which Prof. Max Müller compares with the Greek Hermês. At any rate, the same conception of a dog of the dawn which guards the approach to the realm of Hades is found in the Greek Kerberos with his fifty heads (or three heads, according to later writers), as well as in the dog of Geryon named Orthros or “the dawn,” who seems to be identical with the Vedic Vritra the demon of night. It would appear, therefore, that in the primitive mythology both of the Hindus and of the Accadians the “fleet” dawn was likened to a dog, sometimes regarded as carrying men away to the dark under-world, sometimes as bringing light to the under-world itself.

The latter part of the tablet is somewhat obscure, but refers to the custom of lamenting for Dumuzi or Tammuz.