Persian Literature, Ancient and Modern - Elizabeth A. Reed

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OF ISHTAR AND IZDŪBAR.

COLUMN I.
“1.He had thrown off his tattered garments,
2.his pack of goods he had lain down from his back.
3.(he had flung off) his rags of poverty and clothed himself in dress of honor.
4.(With a royal robe) he covered himself,
5.and he bound a diadem on his brow.
6.Then Ishtar the queen lifted up her eyes to the throne of Izdūbar—
7.Kiss me, Izdūbar! she said, for I will marry thee!
8.Let us live together, I and thou, in one place;
9.thou shalt be my husband, and I will be thy wife.
10.Thou shalt ride in a chariot of lapis-lazuli,[100]
11.whose wheels are golden and its pole resplendent.
12.Shining bracelets shalt thou wear every day.
13.By our house the cedar trees in green vigor shall grow,
14.and when thou shall enter it
15.(suppliant) crowds shall kiss thy feet!
16.Kings, Lords, and Princes shall bow down before thee!
17.The tribute of hills and plains they shall bring to thee as offerings,
18.thy flocks and thy herds shall all bear twins,
19.thy race of mules shall be magnificent,
20.thy triumphs in the chariot race shall be proclaimed without ceasing,
21.and among the chiefs thou shalt never have an equal.
22.(Then Izdūbar) opened his mouth and spake,
23.(and said) to Ishtar the queen:
24.(Lady! full well) I know thee by experience.
25.Sad and funereal (is thy dwelling place),
26.sickness and famine surround thy path,
27.(false and) treacherous is thy crown of divinity.
28.Poor and worthless is thy crown of royalty
29.(Yes! I have said it) I know thee by experience.
COLUMN II.
1.Wailings thou didst make
2.for Tarzi thy husband,
3.(and yet) year after year with thy cups thou didst poison him.
4.Thou hadst a favorite and beautiful eagle,
5.thou didst strike him (with thy wand) and didst break his wings;
6.then he stood fast in the forest (only) fluttering his wings.
7.Thou hadst a favorite lion full of vigor,
8.thou didst pull out his teeth, seven at a time.
9.Thou hadst a favorite horse, renowned in war,
10.he drank a draught and with fever thou didst poison him!
11.Twice seven hours without ceasing
12.with burning fever and thirst thou didst poison him.
13.His mother, the goddess Silili, with thy cups thou didst poison.
14.Thou didst love the king of the land
15.whom continually thou didst render ill with thy drugs,
16.though every day he offered libations and sacrifices.
17.Thou didst strike him (with thy wand) and didst change him into a leopard.
18.The people of his own city drove him from it,
19.and his own dogs bit him to pieces!
20.Thou didst love a workman,[101] a rude man of no instruction,
21.who constantly received his daily wages from thee,
22.and every day made bright thy vessels.
23.In thy pot a savory mess thou didst boil for him,
24.saying, Come, my servant and eat with us on the feast day
25.and give thy judgment on the goodness of our pot-herbs.
26.The workman replied to thee,
27.Why dost thou desire to destroy me?
28.Thou art not cooking! I will not eat!
29.For I should eat food bad and accursed,
30.and the thousand unclean things thou hast poisoned it with.
31.Thou didst hear that answer (and wert enraged),
32.Thou didst strike him (with thy wand) and didst change him into a pillar,
33.and didst place him in the midst of the desert!
34.I have not yet said a crowd of things! many more I have not added.
35.Lady! thou wouldst love me as thou hast done the others.
36.Ishtar this speech listened to,
37.and Ishtar was enraged and flew up to heaven.
38.Ishtar came into the presence of Anū her father,
39.and into the presence of Annatu, her mother, she came.
40.Oh, my father, Izdūbar has cast insults upon me.”[102]

      The student of comparative mythology will recognize in the above legend the original idea of much of the classic lore of Greece. Izdūbar’s return, and the throwing off of his disguise, suggest the adventures of Ulysses as related by Homer, and his return to Ithaca as a beggar.

      “Next came Ulysses lowly at the door,

      A figure despicable, old and poor;

      In squalid vests with many a gaping rent,

      Propped on a staff and trembling as he went.”

      Odyssey, Book xvii.

      The character of Ishtar as presented in this tablet is apparently a prototype not only of Hecate, but also of Medea, whose chariot was drawn by winged serpents, and the cauldron or pot, which Ishtar filled with her magic herbs, suggests the statement of Ovid that Medea on one occasion spent no less than nine days and nights in collecting herbs for her cauldron.[103] The character of Ishtar may also have suggested that of Circe, who

      “Mixed the potion, fraudulent of soul,

      The poison mantled in a golden bowl,”

      and she loved Ulysses as Ishtar loved Izdūbar, even though she had transformed all of his companions into swine.

      In column II of the tablet under consideration, we find the story of the king whom Ishtar changed into a leopard, “and his own dogs bit him to pieces.” No one can doubt that we see here the original of the Greek fable of Actæon, the hero who offended the goddess Diana, when she revenged herself by changing him into a deer, and his dogs no longer knowing their master, fell upon him and tore him to pieces.[104] The classic authors of Greece and Rome, however, attribute the fate of Actæon to the vengeance of the strong and graceful Diana, whom he offended by allowing his eyes to rest upon her rich beauty, while the tablet ascribes the fate of the king to the wanton cruelty of Ishtar.

      Diana is sometimes identified with Hecate, the daughter of Asteria or Ishtar, and she retains the characteristics of her mother by appearing as the goddess of the moon. Her temple at Ephesus, with its hundred and twenty-seven columns of Parian marble, was one of the “Seven Wonders of the World,” but the hideous idol within it was roughly carved of wood, not as a beautiful huntress, but as an Egyptian monster, whose deformity was hidden by a curtain.[105]

      The same Diana, however, in the hands of Grecian poets, becomes the strong and beautiful goddess of the chase, followed by her train of nymphs in pursuit of flying deer with golden horns.

      Assyrian literature has evidently furnished the basis of several stories which are found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, besides that of Pyramus and Thisbe, which, as he expressly states, is a tale of Babylon.

      ISHTAR, THE QUEEN OF LOVE AND BEAUTY.

      Ishtar of Nineveh, who is identified with Beltis, the wife of Baal, became the goddess of love, “the divine queen” or “divine lady” of Kidmūri, which was the name of her temple at Nineveh. She was the daughter of Sin, the moon-god; indeed, she is sometimes represented as the full moon, for which reason she is called the goddess Fifteen in Assyria, because the month consisting of thirty days, the moon was full on the fifteenth. She is the prototype of Freyja, the weeping goddess of love among the Northmen, and the Aphrodite of the Greeks—the beautiful nymph who sprang from the soft foam of the sea, and was received in a land of flowers, by the gold-filleted Seasons, who clothed her in garments immortal. Her chariot was drawn by milk-white swans, and

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