* Published by. Bezold, Tell el-Amarna Tablets in the British Museum (London, 1892), p. 141 (No. 82), and Winckler-Abel, Thontafelfund von El-Amarna (Berlin, 1889), pp. 164, 165. See Jensen, Keilinschriftl. Bibl. vi. 1, pp. 74-79.
RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
575
demons, Nergal comes to the gates of the nether world. His presence is announced to his ‘sister’ Eresh-kigal. Placing his fourteen attendants at the various gates, he advances to Eresh-kigal, who is seated on her throne, seizes her, and pulls her to the ground. She appeals for merey—
*Do not kill me, my brother. Let me speak to thee.’
Nergal, on hearing her, releases her. She weeps and cries— ui Thou shalt be my husband, and I will be thy wife M -Kingship over the wide earth I will bestow on thee ;
The tablet of wisdom I will place in thy hand. Thou shalt be lord; I will be lady.’
When Nergal heard these words, he took hold of her, kissed her, and wiped away her tears. The tablet, badly preserved at various points, breaks off with the beginning of Nergal’s conciliatory reply. Whatever else the story may be intended to illustrate, it aims to account for the fact that at the head of the pantheon of the lower world stand two deities, Nergal and Eresh-kigal. The character of Nergal as the fierce and destruc- tive power of the summer and the midday sun * made him the appropriate personage for this position, and, in accordance with the general Ae pervading the theological Pies of
abylonia, it was proper that a male deity and not a goddess should be the supreme ruler. On the other hand, the story points to the existence of an earlier view—perhaps of popular origin— according to which a goddess occupies this posi- tion. The suggestion has already been thrown out, that Eresh-kigal, ‘the lady of the nether world,’ is the counterpart of Ishtar, ‘the lady of the earth’ as she is frequently termed. An element in the myth embodied in the story is therefore the view found among many nations, that the earth-goddess, during the period when vegetation ceases, has descended into the bowels of the earth—either voluntarily or carried off by force. At the time, however, that the myth re- ceived a definite literary form, the differentiation between the two Ishtars or the two aspects of the great goddess had taken place, and Eresh-kigal has become an independent figure, whose place is permanently fixed in the region below the surface of the earth.
(iii.) A more definite view of this region is fur- nished in another tale—likewise based on a myth symbolical of the change from the summer to the winter season, which incidentally strengthens the view here proposed that there were originally two forms of Ishtar, corresponding to the different aspects presented by the earth during the period of vegetation and during the equally long period of the year when nature seems to have perished. At the same time, the story, like that of Nergal and Eresh-kigal, already assumes the existence of an independent goddess ruling in the nether world, while antedating the association of a male deity at herside. Although the closing lines of the story, which probably indicated some occasion for which the composition was written, are very obscure, one of the purposes of the tale appears to have been to suggest the possibility of an escape from the region of the dead under certain conditions not easy of fulfilment. ‘The more direct value of the stor for us, however, lies in the picture it draws of the conditions prevailing in the place where the dead were supposed to be gathered together—a picture embodying in part popular conceptions, and in
art the further elaboration of these conceptions
by the theologians of Babylonia, The story opens as follows : t— * See above, p. 543)
a, . . } The latest edition of the text is to be found in Cuneiform Texts from Tablets in the British Museum, etc., xv. pl. 45-47,
‘To the land without return, the earth... Ishtar, the daughter of Sin directed her mind.* The daughter of Sin directed her mind,* To the dark house, the dwelling of Irkalla, To the house whence those who enter do not return, To the road from which there is no path leading back, ue é vig house in which those who enter are deprived of ight, Where dust is their nourishment, clay their food. They do not see light, they dwell in darkness, Clothed like a bird, with wings as a covering ; On door and lock dust: has settled.’
Ishtar arrives at the gate of the land without return, and demands admission of the watchman, threatening to break the threshold and the doors and lock, and to bring up the dead and_restore them to life unless her request is granted. Ishtar’s hostile spirit indicates that she has in mind an attack upon Eresh-kigal, very much of the same order which prompts Nergal to seek admission to the lady of the lower world. Both stories accord- ingly illustrate the hostility existing between the upper and the lower pantheon; but it may be questioned whether in an earlier form of the story this hostility was introduced. From sub- sequent references it would rather appear that Ishtar is forced to descend into the nether world, to dwell there for a certain time; but with the introduction of Eresh-kigal as an independent figure permanently in control of the lower world the old myth underwent a transformation, and Ishtar is now represented as planning an invasion of the region presided over by Eresh-kigal. The latter regards the visit in this light, for, when the presence of Ishtar at the gate is announced, she is both enraged and grieved. The departure of Ishtar from the upper world inaugurates a season of lamentation for the dead, and Eresh-kigal re- sents the presence in her realm of Ishtar, who will arouse the dead to a realization of their sad fate—