much wonder how the small nucleus of historical fact which the story of
his adventures contains should have become entwined and overgrown with
such a disproportionate quantity of the most extravagant fiction,
oftentimes downright monstrous in its fancifulness. But the story is one
far older than that of any mere human hero and relates to one far
mightier: it is the story of the Sun in his progress through the year,
retracing his career of increasing splendor as the spring advances to
midsummer, the height of his power when he reaches the month represented
in the Zodiac by the sign of the Lion, then the decay of his strength as
he pales and sickens in the autumn, and at last his restoration to youth
and vigor after he has passed the Waters of Death--Winter, the death of
the year, the season of nature's deathlike torpor, out of which the sun
has not strength sufficient to rouse her, until spring comes back and
the circle begins again. An examination of the Accadian calendar,
adopted by the more scientifically inclined Semites, shows that the
names of most of the months and the signs by which they were represented
on the maps of the corresponding constellations of the Zodiac, directly
answer to various incidents of the poem, following, too, in the same
order, which is that of the respective seasons of the year,--which, be
it noted, began with the spring, in the middle of our month of March. If
we compare the calendar months with the tablets of the poem we will find
that they, in almost every case, correspond. As the first tablet is
unfortunately still missing, we cannot judge how far it may have
answered to the name of the first month--"the Altar of Bel." But the
second month, called that of "the Propitious Bull," or the "Friendly
Bull," very well corresponds to the second tablet which ends with
Izdubar's sending for the seer Êabâni, half bull half man, while the
name and sign of the third, "the Twins," clearly alludes to the bond of
friendship concluded between the two heroes, who became inseparable.
Their victory over the tyrant Khumbaba in the fifth tablet is symbolized
by the sign representing the victory of the Lion over the Bull, often
abbreviated into that of the Lion alone, a sign plainly enough
interpreted by the name "Month of Fire," so appropriate to the hottest
and driest of seasons even in moderate climes--July-August. What makes
this interpretation absolutely conclusive is the fact that in the
symbolical imagery of all the poetry of the East, the Lion represents
the principle of heat, of fire. The seventh tablet, containing the
wooing of the hero by the goddess Ishtar, is too plainly reproduced in
the name of the corresponding month, "the Month of the Message of
Ishtar," to need explanation. The sign, too, is that of a woman with a
bow, the usual mode of representing the goddess. The sign of the eighth
month, "the Scorpion," commemorates the gigantic Warders of the Sun,
half men half scorpions, whom Izdubar encounters when he starts on his
journey to the land of the dead. The ninth month is called "the Cloudy,"
surely a meet name for November-December, and in no way inconsistent
with the contents of the ninth tablet, which shows Izdubar navigating
the "Waters of Death." In the tenth month (December-January), the sun
reaches his very lowest point, that of the winter solstice with its
shortest days, whence the name "Month of the Cavern of the Setting Sun,"
and the tenth tablet tells how Izdubar reached the goal of his journey,
the land of the illustrious dead, to which his great ancestor has been
translated. To the eleventh month, "the Month of the Curse of Rain,"
with the sign of the Waterman,--(January-February being in the low lands
of the two rivers the time of the most violent and continuous
rains)--answers the eleventh tablet with the account of the Deluge. The
"Fishes of Êa" accompany the sun in the twelfth month, the last of the
dark season, as he emerges, purified and invigorated, to resume his
triumphant career with the beginning of the new year. From the context
and sequence of the myth, it would appear that the name of the first
month, "the Altar of Bel," must have had something to do with the
reconciliation of the god after the Deluge, from which humanity may be
said to take a new beginning, which would make the name a most
auspicious one for the new year, while the sign--a Ram--might allude to
the animal sacrificed on the altar. Each month being placed under the
protection of some particular deity it is worthy of notice that Anu and
Bel are the patrons of the first month, Êa of the second, (in connection
with the wisdom of Êabâni, who is called "the creature of Êa,") while
Ishtar presides over the sixth, ("Message of Ishtar,") and Ramân, the
god of the atmosphere, of rain and storm and thunder, over the eleventh,
("the Curse of Rain").
20. The solar nature of the adventurous career attributed to the
favorite national hero of Chaldea, now universally admitted, was first
pointed out by Sir Henry Rawlinson: but it was François Lenormant who
followed it out and established it in its details. His conclusions on
the subject are given in such clear and forcible language, that it is a
pleasure to reproduce them:[BH]--"1st. The Chaldeans and Babylonians
had, concerning the twelve months of the year, myths for the most part
belonging to the series of traditions anterior to the separation of the
great races of mankind which descended from the highlands of Pamir,
since we find analogous myths among the pure Semites and other nations.
As early as the time when they dwelt on the plains of the Tigris and
Euphrates, they connected these myths with the different epochs of the
year, not with a view to agricultural occupations, but in connection
with the great periodical phenomena of the atmosphere and the different
stations in the sun's yearly course, as they occurred in that particular
region; hence the signs characterizing the twelve solar mansions in the
Zodiac and the symbolical names given to the months by the Accads.--2d.
It was those myths, strung together in their successive order, which
served as foundation to the epic story of Izdubar, the fiery and solar
hero, and in the poem which was copied at Erech by Asshurbanipal's order
each of them formed the subject of one of the twelve tablets, making up
the number of twelve separate books or chapters answering the twelve
months of the year."--Even though the evidence is apparently so complete
as not to need further confirmation, it is curious to note that the
signs which compose the name of Izdubar convey the meaning "mass of
fire," while Hâsisadra's Accadian name means "the sun of life," "the
morning sun," and his father's name, Ubaratutu, is translated "the glow
of sunset."
21. George Smith indignantly repudiated this mythic interpretation of
the hero's exploits, and claimed for them a strictly historical
character. But we have seen that the two are by no means incompatible,
since history, when handed down through centuries by mere oral
tradition, is liable to many vicissitudes in the telling and retelling,
and people are sure to arrange their favorite and most familiar stories,
the mythical signification of which has long been forgotten, around the
central figure of the heroes they love best, around the most important
but vaguely recollected events in their national life. Hence it came to
pass that identically the same stories, with but slight local
variations, were told of heroes in different nations and countries; for
the stock of original, or, as one may say, primary myths is
comparatively small and the same for all, dating back to a time when
mankind was not yet divided. In the course of ages and migrations it
has been altered, like a rich hereditary robe, to fit and adorn many and
very different persons.
22. One of the prettiest, oldest, and most universally favorite solar
myths is the one which represents the Sun as a divine being, youthful
and of surpassing beauty, beloved by or wedded to an equally powerful
goddess, but meeting a premature death by accident and descending into
the dark land of shades, from which, however, after a time he returns as
glorious and beautiful as before. In this poetical fancy, the land of
shades symbolizes the numb and lifeless period of winter as aptly as the
Waters of Death in the Izdubar Epic, while the seeming death of the
young god answers to the sickening of the hero at that declining season
of the year when the sun's rays lose their vigor and are overcome by the
powers of darkness and cold. The goddess who loves the fair young god,
and mourns him with passionate grief, until her wailings and prayers
recall him from his deathlike trance, is Nature herself, loving,
bountiful, ever productive, but pale, and bare, and powerless in her
widowhood, while the sun-god, the spring of life whence she draws her
very being, lies captive in the bonds of their common foe, grim Winter,
which is but a form of Death itself. Their reunion at the god's
resurrection in spring is the great wedding-feast, the revel and
holiday-time of the world.
23. This simple and perfectly transparent myth has been worked out more
or less elaborately in all the countries of the East, and has found its
way in some form or other into all the nations of the three great white
races--of Japhet, Shem, and Ham--yet here again the precedence in point
of time seems due to the older and more primitive--the Yellow or
Turanian race; for the most ancient, and probably original form of it is
the one which was inherited by the Semitic settlers of Chaldea from
their Shumiro-Accadian predecessors, as shown by the Accadian name of
the young solar god, DUMUZI, "the unfortunate husband of the goddess
Ishtar," as he is called in the sixth tablet of the Izdubar epic. The
name has been translated "Divine Offspring," but in later times lost all
signification, being corrupted into TAMMUZ. In some Accadian hymns he is
invoked as "the Shepherd, the lord Dumuzi, the lover of Ishtar." Well
could a nomadic and pastoral people poetically liken the sun to a
shepherd, whose flocks were the fleecy clouds as they speed across the
vast plains of heaven or the bright, innumerable stars. This comparison,
as pretty as it is natural, kept its hold in all ages and nations on the
popular fancy, which played on it an infinite variety of ingenious
changes, but it is only cuneiform science which has proved that it could
be traced back to the very earliest race whose culture has left its mark
on the world.
24. Of Dumuzi's tragic death no text deciphered until now unfortunately
gives the details. Only the remarkable fragment about the black pine of
Eridhu, "marking the centre of the earth, in the dark forest, into the
heart whereof man hath not penetrated," (see p. 287) tantalizingly ends
with these suggestive words: "Within it Dumuzi...." Scholars have found
reason for conjecturing that this fragment was the beginning of a
mythical narrative recounting Dumuzi's death, which must have been
represented as taking place in that dark and sacred forest of
Eridhu,--probably through the agency of a wild beast sent against him by
a jealous and hostile power, just as the bull created by Anu was sent
against Izdubar.[BI] One thing, however, is sure, that both in the
earlier (Turanian) and in the later (Semitic) calendary of Chaldea,
there was a month set apart in honor and for the festival of Dumuzi. It
was the month of June-July, beginning at the summer solstice, when the
days begin to shorten, and the sun to decline towards its lower winter
point--a retrograde movement, ingeniously indicated by the Zodiacal sign
of that month, the Cancer or Crab. The festival of Dumuzi lasted during
the six first days of the month, with processions and ceremonies bearing
two distinct characters. The worshippers at first assembled in the guise
of mourners, with lamentations and loud wailings, tearing of clothes and
of hair, as though celebrating the young god's funeral, while on the
sixth day his resurrection and reunion to Ishtar was commemorated with
the noisiest, most extravagant demonstrations of rejoicing. This custom
is alluded to in Izdubar's scornful answer to Ishtar's love-message,
when he says to her: "Thou lovedst Dumuzi, _for whom they mourn year
after year_," and was witnessed by the Jews when they were carried
prisoners to Babylon as late as 600 B.C., as expressly mentioned by
Ezekiel, the prophet of the Captivity:--"Then he brought me to the door
of the Lord's house which was towards the north; _and behold, there sat
the women weeping for Tammuz_." (Ezekiel, iii. 14.)
25. A favorite version of Dumuzi's resurrection was that which told how
Ishtar herself followed him into the Lower World, to claim him from
their common foe, and thus yielded herself for a time into the power of
her rival, the dread Queen of the Dead, who held her captive, and would
not have released her but for the direct interference of the great gods.
This was a rich mine of epic material, from which songs and stories must
have flowed plentifully. We are lucky enough to possess a short epic on
the subject, in one tablet, one of the chief gems of the indefatigable
George Smith's discoveries,--a poem of great literary beauty, and nearly
complete to within a few lines of the end, which are badly injured and
scarcely legible. It is known under the name of "THE DESCENT OF ISHTAR,"
as it relates only this one incident of the myth. The opening lines are
unsurpassed for splendid poetry and sombre grandeur in any, even the
most advanced literature.
26. "Towards the land whence there is no return, towards the
house of corruption, Ishtar, the daughter of Sin, has turned
her mind ... towards the dwelling that has an entrance but no
exit, towards the road that may be travelled but not retraced,
towards the hall from which the light of day is shut out,
where hunger feeds on dust and mud, where light is never seen,
where the shades of the dead dwell in the dark, clothed with
wings like birds. On the lintel of the gate and in the lock
dust lies accumulated.--Ishtar, when she reached the land
whence there is no return, to the keeper of the gate signified
her command: 'Keeper, open thy gate that I may pass. If thou
openest not and I may not enter, I will smite the gate, and
break the lock, I will demolish the threshold and enter by
force; then will I let loose the dead to return to the earth,
that they may live and eat again; I will make the risen dead
more numerous than the living.' The gate-keeper opened his lips
and spoke:--'Be appeased, O Lady, and let me go and report thy
name to Allat the Queen.'"
Here follow a few much injured lines, the sense of which could not be
restored in its entirety. The substance is that the gate-keeper
announces to Allat that her sister Ishtar has come for the Water of
Life, which is kept concealed in a distant nook of her dominions, and
Allat is greatly disturbed at the news. But Ishtar announces that she
comes in sorrow, not enmity:--
"I wish to weep over the heroes who have left their wives. I
wish to weep over the wives who have been taken from their
husbands' arms. I wish to weep over the Only Son--(a name of
Dumuzi)--who has been taken away before his time."
Then Allat commands the keeper to open the gates and take Ishtar through
the sevenfold enclosure, dealing by her as by all who come to those
gates, that is, stripping her of her garments according to ancient
custom.
"The keeper went and opened the gate: 'Enter, O Lady, and may
the halls of the Land whence there is no return be gladdened by
thy presence.' At the first gate he bade her enter and laid his
hand on her; he took the high headdress from her head: 'Why, O
keeper, takest thou the high headdress from my head?'--'Enter,
O Lady; such is Allat's command.'"
The same scene is repeated at each of the seven gates; the keeper at
each strips Ishtar of some article of her attire--her earrings, her
necklace, her jewelled girdle, the bracelets on her arms and the bangles
at her ankles, and lastly her long flowing garment. On each occasion the
same words are repeated by both. When Ishtar entered the presence of
Allat, the queen looked at her and taunted her to her face: then Ishtar
could not control her anger and cursed her. Allat turned to her chief
minister Namtar, the god of Pestilence--meet servant of the queen of the
dead!--who is also the god of Fate, and ordered him to lead Ishtar away
and afflict her with sixty dire diseases,--to strike her head and her
heart, and her eyes, her hands and her feet, and all her limbs. So the
goddess was led away and kept in durance and in misery. Meanwhile her
absence was attended with most disastrous consequences to the upper
world. With her, life and love had gone out of it; there were no
marriages any more, no births, either among men or animals; nature was
at a standstill. Great was the commotion among the gods. They sent a
messenger to Êa to expose the state of affairs to him, and, as usual, to
invoke his advice and assistance. Êa, in his fathomless wisdom, revolved
a scheme. He created a phantom, Uddusunamir.
"'Go,' he said to him; 'towards the Land whence there is no
return direct thy face; the seven gates of the Arallu will open
before thee. Allat shall see thee and rejoice at thy coming,
her heart shall grow calm and her wrath shall vanish. Conjure
her with the name of the great gods, stiffen thy neck and keep
thy mind on the Spring of Life. Let the Lady (Ishtar) gain
access to the Spring of Life and drink of its waters.'--Allat,
when she heard these things, beat her breast and bit her
fingers with rage. Consenting, sore against her will, she
spoke:--'Go, Uddusunamir! May the great jailer place thee in
durance! May the foulness of the city ditches be thy food, the
waters of the city sewers thy drink! A dark dungeon be thy
dwelling, a sharp pole thy seat!'"
Then she ordered Namtar to let Ishtar drink of the Spring of Life and to
bear her from her sight. Namtar fulfilled her command and took the
goddess through the seven enclosures, at each gate restoring to her the
article of her attire that had been taken at her entrance. At the last
gate he said to her:
"Thou hast paid no ransom to Allat for thy deliverance; so now
return to Dumuzi, the lover of thy youth; sprinkle over him the
sacred waters, clothe him in splendid garments, adorn him with
gems."
26. The last lines are so badly mutilated that no efforts have as yet
availed to make their sense anything but obscure, and so it must remain,
unless new copies come to light. Yet so much is, at all events, evident,
that they bore on the reunion of Ishtar and her young lover. The poem is
thus complete in itself; but some think that it was introduced into the
Izdubar epic as an independent episode, after the fashion of the Deluge
narrative, and, if so, it is supposed to have been part of the seventh
tablet. Whether such were really the case or no, matters little in
comparison with the great importance these two poems possess as being
the most ancient presentations, in a finished literary form, of the two
most significant and universal nature-myths--the Solar and the Chthonic
(see p. 272), the poetical fancies in which primitive mankind clothed
the wonders of the heavens and the mystery of the earth, being content
to admire and imagine where it could not comprehend and explain. We
shall be led back continually to these, in very truth, _primary_ myths,
for they not only served as groundwork to much of the most beautiful
poetry of the world but suggested some of its loftiest and most
cherished religious conceptions.
[For a metrical version by Prof. Dyer of the story of
"Ishtar's Descent," see Appendix, p. 367.]
FOOTNOTES:
[BC] Paul Haupt, "Der Keilinschriftliche Sündfluthbericht," 1881.
[BD] There are difficulties in the way of reading this name, and
scholars are not sure that this is the right pronunciation of it; but
they retain it, until some new discovery helps to settle the question.
[BE] Translated from the German version of Paul Haupt, "Der
Keilinschriftliche Sündfluthbericht."
[BF] The ninth king in the fabulous list of ten.
[BG] The figures unfortunately obliterated.
[BH] "Les Premières Civilisations," Vol. II., pp. 78 ff.
[BI] A. H. Sayce, "Babylonian Literature," p. 39; Fr. Lenormant, "Il
Mito di Adone-Tammuz," pp. 12-13.
VIII.
RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY.--IDOLATRY AND ANTHROPOMORPHISM.--THE CHALDEAN
LEGENDS AND THE BOOK OF GENESIS.--RETROSPECT.
1. In speaking of ancient nations, the words "Religion" and "Mythology"
are generally used indiscriminately and convertibly. Yet the conceptions
they express are essentially and radically different. The broadest
difference, and the one from which all others flow, is that the
one--Religion--is a thing of the feelings, while the other--Mythology--is
a thing of the imagination. In other words, Religion comes from
WITHIN--from that consciousness of limited power, that inborn need of
superior help and guidance, forbearance and forgiveness, from that
longing for absolute goodness and perfection, which make up the
distinctively human attribute of "religiosity," that attribute which,
together with the faculty of articulate speech, sets Man apart from and
above all the rest of animated creation. (See p. 149.) Mythology, on the
other hand, comes wholly from WITHOUT. It embodies impressions received
by the senses from the outer world and transformed by the poetical
faculty into images and stories. (See definition of "Myth" on p. 294.)
Professor Max Müller of Oxford has been the first, in his standard work
"The Science of Language," clearly to define this radical difference
between the two conceptions, which he has never since ceased to sound as
a keynote through the long series of his works devoted to the study of
the religions and mythologies of various nations. A few illustrations
from the one nation with which we have as yet become familiar will help
once for all to establish a thorough understanding on this point, most
essential as it is to the comprehension of the workings of the human mind
and soul throughout the long roll of struggles, errors and triumphs,
achievements and failures which we call the history of mankind.
2. There is no need to repeat here instances of the Shumiro-Accadian and
Chaldean myths; the last three or four chapters have been filled with
them. But the instances of religious feeling, though scattered in the
same field, have to be carefully gleaned out and exhibited, for they
belong to that undercurrent of the soul which pursues its way
unobtrusively and is often apparently lost beneath the brilliant play of
poetical fancies. But it is there nevertheless, and every now and then
forces its way to the surface shining forth with a startling purity and
beauty. When the Accadian poet invokes the Lord "who knows lie from
truth," "who knows the truth that is in the soul of man," who "maketh
lies to vanish," who "turneth wicked plots to a happy issue"--this is
religion, not mythology, for this is not _a story_, it is the expression
of _a feeling_. That "the Lord" whose divine omniscience and goodness
is thus glorified is really the Sun, makes no difference; _that_ is an
error of judgment, a want of knowledge, but the religious feeling is
splendidly manifest in the invocation. But when, in the same hymn, the
Sun is described as "stepping forth from the background of the skies,
pushing back the bolts and opening the gate of the brilliant heaven, and
raising his head above the land," etc., (see p. 172) that is only a very
beautiful, imaginative description of a glorious natural
phenomenon--sunrise; it is magnificent poetry, religious in so far as
the sun is considered as a Being, a Divine Person, the object of an
intensely devout and grateful feeling; still this is not religion, it is
mythology, for it presents a material image to the mind, and one that
can be easily turned into narrative, into _a story_,--which, in fact,
_suggests_ a hero, a king, and a story. Take, again, the so-called
"Penitential Psalms." To the specimen given on p. 178, let us add, for
greater completeness, the following three remarkable fragments:
I. "God, my creator, take hold of my arms! Direct the breath of
my mouth, my hands direct, O lord of light."