Descent of Ishtar

The Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld (Late Bronze Age)

From the Introduction

• This text seems to be an abbreviated Akkadian version of an older Sumerian text entitled, The Descent of Inanna.
• This text is associated with the funeral rites associated with the god Dumuzi, known as the taklimtu.
• It may be referring to a ritual carrying of a cult statue of Ishtar from Uruk, where she was patron, to Kutha, home of the gods associated with the Underworld.

Main characters

• Ishtar: daughter of Sin, goddess of love and war (interesting combo, recalling the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite).
• Ereshkigal: wife of Nergal, sister of Ishtar, queen of the Underworld (aka "Mistress of Earth").
• Namtar: Ereshkigal's vizier, a god of fate, and thus a bringer of disease.
• Dumuzi: Ishtar's lover, a god who spends half the year in the underworld.
• Belili: Dumuzi's sister, who weeps for him (aka Geshtin-anna)

Synopsis

Ishtar decides to visit the underworld, known as Kurnugi, and approaches the gate with threats if she is not let in. Her sister is not pleased at this news, but Ishtar is granted entrance, but only as she passes through the gates and all her clothes and jewelry are removed. While Ishtar is there, Namtar afflicts her with various diseases forcing her to remain, and in Ishtar's absence, fertility among both beast and man halts. In response, Ea creates a really handsome guy to go down and trick Ereshkigal into letting Ishtar go. He succeeds, but is cursed by the goddess. After anointing her with the waters of life, Ereshkigal lets Ishtar depart, receiving back her clothes and jewelry. Dumuzi is her ransom, and he is prepared with funerary rites, while his sister weeps for him and makes it possible for him to return one day.

Commentary

If the synopsis seems a bit confusing, that's because the text itself is a bit confusing. And yet, there are some beautiful lines of poetry here, too. The main problem is that there seems to be no particular reason for Ishtar to descend into Kurnugi, besides her own hell-bent (literally) desire to do so. Lacking is the kind of motive found in the various Greek stories of visiting the underworld (Persephone, Orpheus, Hercules, Odysseus, etc.). This problem is compounded by a very confusing shift in focus from Ishtar to Dumuzi in the last few lines. The narrator does not make it clear why Dumuzi is to be Ishtar's ransom, or how the need for a ransom fits in with the trickery of the handsome guy to get Ishtar back.

This poem introduces us to Mesopotamian views of death, or perhaps rather the world of the dead, and the natural passing from life to death. Death is described as "traveling one-way" or entering a house from which you cannot leave. I think people who have experienced the loss of loved ones could relate to such sentiments about death. (Compare 2 Nephi 1:14) Belili's highly emotional reaction to her brother's funeral at the end of the poem perhaps demonstrates typical distress at the situation. The dead are not described in very positive terms, and in fact, there seems to be a real fear that the dead might come back to haunt people - in other words, the dead are meant to stay dead and gone, which of course is the problem with Ishtar's descent to the underworld. The powerful emotions connected with death, particularly untimely death, are put into Ereshkigal's mouth:

'I have to weep for young men forced to abandon their sweethearts.
I have to weep for girls wrenched from their lovers' laps.
For the infant child I have to weep, expelled before its times.'

There also seems to be a close association of disease with death, as Namtar is commanded to strike Ishtar down with 60 diseases.

Another important aspect of the Mesopotamian world is fertility. In a world so reliant upon agriculture and husbandry, and one in which people probably lived on the brink of starvation and death regularly, we can easily imagine that a goddess of fertility would be an important deity. While she is gone, there is no procreation. The solution is to entice Ereshkigal with an object of sexual desire (the translator calls him 'Good-looks the playboy'), and the ransom payment required is Ishtar's former lover. I think we should imagine that Ishtar is dressed like a prostitute, bedecked with alluring clothes and lots of jewelry up and down her body. Her priestesses, who perform the funeral rites for Dumuzi, are called 'party-girls'. So again we see a close connection between the sources of life (water and sex) and the effects of death (weeping, funeral rites, and the stripping away of the signs of living (i.e. jewelry)).

The figures of Ishtar and Dumuzi seem to recall, in particular, the descents of Persephone and Orpheus to the underworld, although the details are dramatically different. Orpheus is the handsome young man come to win his dead lover back through song and poetry, but in the end he learns that people were not meant to come back from the dead, and he is forced to lament his lost lover. Persephone is more fortunate, but the necessity of returning to Hades for half of the year creates the cycle of fertility and death. The mythopoeic connections should be obvious.

Reflection

I was definitely struck by the powerful descriptions of death, the dead, and the underworld in this text. Clearly death meant loss, accompanied by suffering. Of course, death is the thing that makes us humans mortal, and as such it is a vital part of our temporal experience - both to experience the death of those we love, and the to succumb to it ourselves one day. Perhaps the most poignant image from the text, though, was Ishtar's passing through the seven gates into the underworld. With each gate she was stripped of her most precious possessions: crown, earrings, bangles, beads, rings, and clothes. It represents a clear reminder that we will not be able to take any of our earthly possessions with us into the afterlife. It is also a very visual image of the stripping away of our temporal existence, one emphatic step at a time, for a more eternal existence.