Myths of Babylonia and Assyria Part 8

How long shall the putting forth of leaves be held back?

Whither went Tammuz? His destination has already been referred to as "the bosom of the earth", and in the a.s.syrian version of the "Descent of Ishtar" he dwells in "the house of darkness" among the dead, "where dust is their nourishment and their food mud", and "the light is never seen"--the gloomy Babylonian Hades. In one of the Sumerian hymns, however, it is stated that Tammuz "upon the flood was cast out". The reference may be to the submarine "house of Ea", or the Blessed Island to which the Babylonian Noah was carried. In this Hades bloomed the nether "garden of Adonis".

The following extract refers to the garden of Damu (Tammuz)[114]:--

Damu his youth therein slumbers ...

Among the garden flowers he slumbers; among the garden flowers he is cast away ...

Among the tamarisks he slumbers, with woe he causes us to be satiated.

Although Tammuz of the hymns was slain, he returned again from Hades.

Apparently he came back as a child. He is wailed for as "child, Lord Gishzida", as well as "my hero Damu". In his lunar character the Egyptian Osiris appeared each month as "the child surpa.s.singly beautiful"; the Osiris bull was also a child of the moon; "it was begotten", says Plutarch, "by a ray of generative light falling from the moon". When the bull of Attis was sacrificed his worshippers were drenched with its blood, and were afterwards ceremonially fed with milk, as they were supposed to have "renewed their youth" and become children. The ancient Greek G.o.d Eros (Cupid) was represented as a wanton boy or handsome youth. Another G.o.d of fertility, the Irish Angus, who resembles Eros, is called "the ever young"; he slumbers like Tammuz and awakes in the Spring.

Apparently it was believed that the child G.o.d, Tammuz, returned from the earlier Sumerian Paradise of the Deep, and grew into full manhood in a comparatively brief period, like Vyasa and other super-men of Indian mythology. A couplet from a Tammuz hymn says tersely:

In his infancy in a sunken boat he lay.

In his manhood in the submerged grain he lay.[115]

The "boat" may be the "chest" in which Adonis was concealed by Aphrodite when she confided him to the care of Persephone, queen of Hades, who desired to retain the young G.o.d, but was compelled by Zeus to send him back to the G.o.ddess of love and vegetation. The fact that Ishtar descended to Hades in quest of Tammuz may perhaps explain the symbolic references in hymns to mother G.o.ddesses being in sunken boats also when their powers were in abeyance, as were those of the G.o.d for part of each year. It is possible, too, that the boat had a lunar and a solar significance. Khonsu, the Egyptian moon G.o.d, for instance, was a.s.sociated with the Spring sun, being a deity of fertility and therefore a corn spirit; he was a form of Osiris, the Patriarch, who sojourned on earth to teach mankind how to grow corn and cultivate fruit trees. In the Egyptian legend Osiris received the corn seeds from Isis, which suggests that among Great-Mother-worshipping peoples, it was believed that agricultural civilization had a female origin.

The same myths may have been attached to corn G.o.ds and corn G.o.ddesses, a.s.sociated with water, sun, moon, and stars.

That there existed in Babylonia at an extremely remote period an agricultural myth regarding a Patriarch of divine origin who was rescued from a boat in his childhood, is suggested by the legend which was attached to the memory of the usurper King Sargon of Akkad. It runs as follows:

"I am Sargon, the mighty King of Akkad. My mother was a vestal (priestess), my father an alien, whose brother inhabited the mountain.... When my mother had conceived me, she bare me in a hidden place. She laid me in a vessel of rushes, stopped the door thereof with pitch, and cast me adrift on the river....

The river floated me to Akki, the water drawer, who, in drawing water, drew me forth. Akki, the water drawer, educated me as his son, and made me his gardener. As a gardener, I was beloved by the G.o.ddess Ishtar."

It is unlikely that this story was invented by Sargon. Like the many variants of it found in other countries, it was probably founded on a form of the Tammuz-Adonis myth. Indeed, a new myth would not have suited Sargon's purpose so well as the adaptation of an old one, which was more likely to make popular appeal when connected with his name.

The references to the G.o.ddess Ishtar, and Sargon's early life as a gardener, suggest that the king desired to be remembered as an agricultural Patriarch, if not of divine, at any rate of semi-divine origin.

What appears to be an early form of the widespread Tammuz myth is the Teutonic legend regarding the mysterious child who came over the sea to inaugurate a new era of civilization and instruct the people how to grow corn and become great warriors. The Northern peoples, as archaeological evidence suggests, derived their knowledge of agriculture, and therefore their agricultural myths, from the Neolithic representatives of the Mediterranean race with whom they came into contact. There can be no doubt but that the Teutonic legend refers to the introduction of agriculture. The child is called "Scef"

or "Sceaf", which signifies "Sheaf", or "Scyld, the son of Sceaf".

Scyld is the patriarch of the Scyldings, the Danes, a people of mixed origin. In the Anglo-Saxon _Beowulf_ poem, the reference is to "Scyld", but Ethelweard, William of Malmesbury, and others adhered to "Sceaf" as the name of the Patriarch of the Western Saxons.

The legend runs that one day a boat was seen approaching the sh.o.r.e; it was not propelled by oars or sail. In it lay a child fast asleep, his head pillowed upon a sheaf of grain. He was surrounded by armour, treasure, and various implements, including the fire-borer. The child was reared by the people who found him, and he became a great instructor and warrior and ruled over the tribe as king. In _Beowulf_ Scyld is the father of the elder Beowulf, whose grandson Hrothgar built the famous Hall. The poem opens with a reference to the patriarch "Scyld of the Sheaf". When he died, his body, according to the request he had made, was laid in a ship which was set adrift:

Upon his breast lay many treasures which were to travel with him into the power of the flood. Certainly they (the mourners) furnished him with no less of gifts, of tribal treasures, than those had done who, in his early days, started him over the sea alone, child as he was. Moreover, they set besides a gold-embroidered standard high above his head, and let the flood bear him--gave him to the sea. Their soul was sad, their spirit sorrowful. Who received that load, men, chiefs of council, heroes under heaven, cannot for certain tell.[116]

Sceaf or Scyld is identical with Yngve, the patriarch of the Ynglings; with Frey, the harvest and boar G.o.d, son of Njord,[117] the sea G.o.d; and with Hermod, referred to as follows in the Eddic "Lay of Hyndla":

To some grants he wealth, to his children war fame, Word skill to many and wisdom to men, Fair winds to sea-farers, song craft to skalds, And might of manhood to many a warrior.

Tammuz is similarly "the heroic lord of the land", the "wise one", the "lord of knowledge", and "the sovereign, lord of invocation".

Heimdal, watchman of the Teutonic G.o.ds, also dwelt for a time among men as "Rig", and had human offspring, his son Thrall being the ancestor of the Thralls, his son Churl of churls, and Jarl of n.o.blemen.

Tammuz, like Heimdal, is also a guardian. He watches the flocks and herds, whom he apparently guards against the Gallu demons as Heimdal guards the world and the heavens against attacks by giants and monsters. The flocks of Tammuz, Professor Pinches suggests, "recall the flocks of the Greek sun G.o.d Helios. These were the clouds illuminated by the sun, which were likened to sheep--indeed, one of the early Sumerian expressions for 'fleece' was 'sheep of the sky'.

The name of Tammuz in Sumerian is Dumu-zi, or in its rare fullest form, Dumuzida, meaning 'true or faithful son'. There is probably some legend attached to this which is at present unknown."[118]

So the Sumerian hymn-chanters lamented:

Like an herdsman the sentinel place of sheep and cattle he (Tammuz) has forsaken...

From his home, from his inhabited domain, the son, he of wisdom, pre-eminent steer of heaven, The hero unto the nether herding place has taken his way.[119]

Agni, the Aryo-Indian G.o.d, who, as the sky sentinel, has points of resemblance to Heimdal, also links with Tammuz, especially in his Mitra character:

Agni has been established among the tribes of men, the son of the waters, Mitra acting in the right way. _Rigveda_, iii, 5, 3.

Agni, who has been looked and longed for in Heaven, who has been looked for on earth--he who has been looked for has entered all herbs.

_Rigveda_, i, 98.[120]

Tammuz, like the Egyptian lunar and solar G.o.d Khonsu, is "the healer", and Agni "drives away all disease". Tammuz is the G.o.d "of sonorous voice"; Agni "roars like a bull"; and Heimdal blows a horn when the giants and demons threaten to attack the citadel of the G.o.ds. As the spring sun G.o.d, Tammuz is "a youthful warrior", says Jastrow, "triumphing over the storms of winter".[121] The storms, of course, were symbolized as demons. Tammuz, "the heroic lord", was therefore a demon slayer like Heimdal and Agni. Each of these G.o.ds appear to have been developed in isolation from an archaic spring G.o.d of fertility and corn whose attributes were symbolized. In Teutonic mythology, for instance, Heimdal was the warrior form of the patriarch Scef, while Frey was the deified agriculturist who came over the deep as a child.

In Saxo's mythical history of Denmark, Frey as Frode is taken prisoner by a storm giant, Beli, "the howler", and is loved by his hag sister in the Teutonic Hades, as Tammuz is loved by Eresh-ki-gal, spouse of the storm G.o.d Nergal, in the Babylonian Hades. Frode returns to earth, like Tammuz, in due season.

It is evident that there were various versions of the Tammuz myth in Ancient Babylonia. In one the G.o.ddess Ishtar visited Hades to search for the lover of her youth. A part of this form of the legend survives in the famous a.s.syrian hymn known as "The Descent of Ishtar ". It was first translated by the late Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum.

A box containing inscribed tablets had been sent from a.s.syria to London, and Mr. Smith, with characteristic patience and skill, arranged and deciphered them, giving to the world a fragment of ancient literature infused with much sublimity and imaginative power.

Ishtar is depicted descending to dismal Hades, where the souls of the dead exist in bird forms:

I spread like a bird my hands.

I descend, I descend to the house of darkness, the dwelling of the G.o.d Irkalla: To the house out of which there is no exit, To the road from which there is no return: To the house from whose entrance the light is taken, The place where dust is their nourishment and their food mud.

Its chiefs also are like birds covered with feathers; The light is never seen, in darkness they dwell....

Over the door and bolts is scattered dust.

When the G.o.ddess reaches the gate of Hades she cries to the porter:

Keeper of the waters, open thy gate, Open thy gate that I may enter.

If thou openest not the gate that I may enter I will strike the door, the bolts I will shatter, I will strike the threshold and will pa.s.s through the doors; I will raise up the dead to devour the living, Above the living the dead shall exceed in numbers.

The porter answers that he must first consult the Queen of Hades, here called Allatu, to whom he accordingly announces the arrival of the Queen of Heaven. Allatu's heart is filled with anger, and makes reference to those whom Ishtar caused to perish:

Let me weep over the strong who have left their wives, 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 ear-rings, 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,

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 Pap-sukal, messenger of the G.o.ds, hastened to Shamash, the sun deity, to relate what had occurred. The sun G.o.d immediately consulted his lunar father, Sin, and Ea, G.o.d of the deep. Ea then created a man lion, named Nadushu-namir, to rescue Ishtar, giving him power to pa.s.s 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.