His father and his mother hold his head
And his wife kneels at his side.
He whose corpse lies in the field—thou hast seen it, I have seen it—
His soul has no rest in the world.
He whose soul has no one to care for it—thou hast seen it, I have seen it.
The dregs of the cup, the remnants of the feast—what is thrown on the street, that is his food.”[h]
This is the end of the epic. It has been suggested that the whole forms a solar myth and is divided into twelve parts to correspond to the twelve months. According to this theory the sixth tablet, relating to Ishtar, and her treatment of Tammuz and her other lovers, corresponds to the sixth month. It is the month when everything seems dry and dead after the hot summer sun, and in this month the festival of Tammuz was celebrated, as a characteristic of which was the weeping for Tammuz related in Ezekiel viii. 14. The seventh tablet speaking of Gilgamish’s illness would thus correspond to the seventh month, the one following the summer solstice, when the power of nature seems to grow less, and this was attributed to a disease of the sun.
ISHTAR’S DESCENT INTO HADES
This idea is brought out more fully in the legend of Ishtar’s descent into the under world. It is possible that the story used to be recited in connection with the festival of Tammuz just mentioned. Ishtar is pictured as descending into the lower realms, probably in search of her young husband. The picture it gives us of the conception the Babylonians had of life after death is very valuable. The poem begins:
To the land of no return, to the land …