to the house of gloom, the dwelling of Irkalla,
to the house from which those who enter depart not,
the road from whose path there is no return;
to the house where they who enter are deprived of light;
a place where dust is their nourishment, clay their food;
the light they behold not, in thick darkness they dwell;
they are clad like bats in a garb of wings;
on door and bolt the dust is laid.”
Through the seven gates of the infernal regions did Istar descend, leaving at each some one of her adornments, until at last, stripped and helpless, she stood before the goddess of the underworld. There no mercy was shown her; the plague-demon was bidden to smite her with manifold diseases, and she was kept imprisoned in Hades like the ordinary dead. But while the goddess of love thus lay bound and buried, things in this upper world fell into confusion. Neither men nor cattle produced offspring, and the gods in heaven took counsel what should be done. Ea accordingly created an androgyne, to whom the name was given “Bright is his light.” Before him the gates of Hades opened, and the darkness within them was lighted up. The infernal goddess was forced to obey [pg 428] the orders of heaven; and though she cursed the messenger with deadly imprecations, the spirits of the earth were seated on their golden throne while Istar was sprinkled with the water of life, and she then returned once more to the world of light.
Ereskigal, the goddess of Hades, forms the subject of yet another poem, fragments of which were found at Tel el-Amarna in Egypt, where the poem had been used as a text-book for the students of the Babylonian language and script. The poem recounts how she refused to come to a feast which the gods had prepared in heaven, and how Nergal invaded her dominions, broke through the gates that shut them in, and, seizing Ereskigal by the hair, dragged her from her throne. But she begged for mercy, and Nergal consented to be her husband, and to rule with her over the realm of the dead. The “tablet of wisdom” was transferred to him, and she became a Semitic Baalat, the mere reflection of her “lord.” The Sumerian “queen of Hades” gave place to a Semitic Bel.