54 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[Mabch 1, 1895. 



give .... I will have it made I 



will have it made firm . . . . " 



ttl>H-y ^— <^ is the ideograph for Istar as Delebat or 

 Dilibat (the planet- Venus), transcribed Delephat or 

 Belebatos by the Greeks. 



Such is the legend of the Lamentation of the Daughter 

 of the god Sin, when her beloved was taken away from 

 her, and she herself was stricken, driven forth, stripped 

 naked, and reproached in her trouble — she, the honoured 

 one of the gods, the beloved of her father Sin. 



These two legends, or versions of a legend, present to 

 U3 at first hand what the Babylonians of the oldest times 

 beheved concerning the myth of Adonis and Aphrodite. 

 Many will probably remember the Greek story — how the 

 young husband of that goddess went hunting, and was 

 killed by the tusk of a wild boar, the type of winter. 

 Aphrodite or Venus could not, however, give up her 

 beloved, with whom the goddess of the infernal regions, 

 Persephone, had also fallen in love, and would not let him 

 go forth again from her realms. It was, therefore, decided 

 that he should spend six months in the lower regions, and 

 six on earth* with his beloved Aphrodite. Adonis typified, 



to the hero Gilgames. It was apparently recognized, even 

 in those remote ages, that the goddess of love had much 

 to answer for. 



The lamentations for Tammuz were one of the principal 

 features of his worship. At Byblos, or Gebal, m Syria, 

 and elsewhere, a yearly festival, which was held by the 

 women, took place, when the river ran red with the soil 

 washed down from Lebanon by the autumn rains. This 

 red colour of the water was said to be caused by the blood 

 of the slain Adonis, whom the women then sot out to seek, 

 and a figure having been found which they regarded as 

 his body, funeral rites were performed as wild, it is said, 

 in their nature as the rejoicings at his resurrection were 

 licentious. The following translations will give an idea of 

 the lamentations for Tammuz used in Babylonia and 

 Assyria : — 



" GUBBA, EN, DUMUZI. 



"Sheplierd, lord, Tammuz, husband of Istar, 

 Lord of Hades, lord of the shepherd's abode ; 

 Seed which in the furrow has not drunk the water. 

 Its stalk in the desert has not brought forth flower; 

 Braneh which in its bed has not been planted. 

 Branch whose root has been removed ; 



Grrain which in the furrow has 

 not drunk the water." . . . 



4^ 





T 

 4.> ■ 



4- rr-.iti^ 



/ 



•r/ 



'l^l 



\!n:j,AJ^jtratil 



.'4*4.- 



(The remainder wanting.) 



"Al-DI, GtADAN-GIX, GrUErSAMEN. 



" Arise, and go, O hero, the road 



of uo-retnrn. 





Go, go, to the bosom of the eartli ! 

 lie IS revealed, revealed, to the 



land of the dead — 

 To those tilled with grief— on the 



day he fell and was in distress. 

 In an unlucky mouth of his year! 

 To rhe road of the end of man — 

 Tot,herising-(place ?) of tlielord — 

 O Hero (thou wentest) to the 



remote land which is not seen." 



Fragment of a Tablet, Nineveh. (Reverse.) 



therefore, the vegetation of the ground, which for half of 

 the year is jractically dead, and for the other half grows 

 and bears fruit. 



ty?y is one of the usual monograms for Istar or Venus. 

 '' As has been already mentioned, Istar is the same as 

 Venus or Aphrodite, and Tammuz, her beloved, is Adonis, 

 " the fair son." The enemy, who carried him ofi', who 

 spoiled the land, and who did not even spare the goddess 

 herself, is death personified. The voyage of the goddess 

 in a ship seemmgly typifies the crossing of the river of 

 death. The enemy, who, like the " porter of the waters " 

 in the " Descent of Istar," took away all her garments and 

 the jewel which she prized, is a type of " the king of 

 terrors," for when we accompany him we must leave all 

 behind, even that which we prize the most. 



The reproaches which seem to be addressed to the 

 goddess in column III. of the bilingual version, where it 

 is said that it is she who has destroyed her home and 

 sanctuary, and ruined herself, are hard to understand, 

 unless we suppose that the ancient world regarded the 

 misfortunes of the goddess as the well-merited punishment 

 for her many sins, as told in the story of her love-making 



V 



The first quotation, which 

 is incomplete, seems to be a 

 poetical description of Tam- 

 muz, who was a shepherd, and 

 the husband of Istar. Having 

 been stricken down in the 

 bloom of his youth, he is 

 >-^ likened to plants and seeds 



which have failed to come to maturity from some accident 

 of their existence. This simile was probably suggested by 

 the fact that he was god of vegetation. The second quota- 

 tion is a lament that he has gone down to Hades, and is 

 rather difficult to translate here and there, as even the 

 Semitic Babylonian scribe has foimd. \ 



The following incantation for purification speaks also of 

 Dumuzi, or Tammuz, as " the shepherd," and mentions 

 his "pure fold." It is interesting as showing another 

 phase of the veneration of this god : — 



"EN: Ga-UZ-SI&SIGOA. 

 " Incantation ; The milk of a yellow goat which has been brought 



forth in the pure fold of the shepherd Tammuz — 

 Let him give thee the milk of the shepherd's goat with his pure hands 

 Mix it within the skin of a suckling shegoat undefiled — 

 Let Azaga-su give (him) to drink the sublime goat-milk of Bel witli 



his pure hands. 

 Merodach, the child of the city Eridu, has given the incantation — 

 Nin-akha-kuddu, the mistress of the sparkliog water, will purify him 



and make him clean. 



* Another account divides the year of Adonis into three periods of 

 four months, one to be spent with Aphrodite, one with Persephone, 

 and the third to be at his own disposal. 



(The above is) the charm of the milk of the yellow goat, and the 

 food in the un[defiled] suckling's skin. 



t These old Akkadian (or Sumerian) inscriptions wcreapparently trans- 

 lated into Semitic Babylonian (Assyrian) at a comparatively late date. 



