Musings on This Week's Blog Conversations

Well, the Week 1 posts made for a promising start for our blog. Good seed posts and pretty vigorous discussion, too. I’m looking forward to Week 2’s conversations…

Naturally, I discerned a few main themes among this week’s various posts and comments, which I would like to address, so here goes…

GODS & HUMANS
It’s an all-too-human tendency to judge the behavior of the gods by our own contemporary sense of morality. We can’t help from doing this (and actually should do this as readers, because it helps us clarify our own principles), but it can also lead us to misdiagnose sometimes.

Gods and goddesses are not mortal, nor are they shaped by the psychological burdens that mortality confers. They may be human-like (we are typically made in their image, after all), but they are not human. And they have responsibilities. Each god and goddess typically has a charge or suite of charges (rivers, the heavens, crops, war, fertility, the Sun and the passage of time, death, knowledge, justice, winds, what-have-you). It’s their job to keep that facet of creation running and in good order. If they neglect those responsibilities, the world gets out of whack. People and animals, even the gods themselves, can suffer.

Inanna

This is relevant to Inanna because she is the goddess of a suite of related domains: fertility, sexuality, crops, and abundance, among others. Perhaps it was hubris (something we are more forgiving of in a man, by the way, than in a woman, where it more often translates to “selfishness”) that she acted on her wild notion to experience the underworld. But when she died there—had she remained there, dead forever—what would have happened to the world? No Spring, no offspring, no crops, no abundance, no sacrifices of meat and drink to the gods. The world dying and out of whack, winter without end.

That’s why so much effort was put into Inanna’s resurrection and retrieval from the Underworld. But even so, her return is achieved only through compromise: she is free to leave, but only if someone takes her place.

Ereshkigal

That non-negotiable “deal” sets the stage for Inanna’s desperate search to find a hostage to trade for her release. It’s a terrible choice, yet she must make it. But who? Ninshubur? Unthinkable. Ninshubur, her protector and enforcer, has been with her since she was a girl, and she relies on her special powers. Her own sons? How could a mother make that choice? She can’t bear the thought. But who else could be close enough that their sacrifice would hurt? It can’t be some luckless passerby who means nothing to her. (For one thing, I doubt that a mortal could survive the horror of hell for one day, much less the decreed term of half a year.) No, it pretty much has to be a god or demigod—and that narrows the choice down pretty drastically: Dumuzi, poor bastard. Didn’t help that he doesn’t seem to have noticed she was gone…

GILGAMESH & ENKIDU
How many movies have we seen where two macho hombres square off in a bar fight, beat the crap out of each other for an hour or so, then suddenly start laughing their heads off, bond over it, and—boom—BFFs forever? (Yeah I know, Department of Redundancy Department, but rhythmically, the “forever” was required…) It’s a Y-chromosome trope, from time immemorial. You can find parallel X-chromosome examples (usually without the brawling) in literature, life, and film as well…

SEXUALITY

Sexuality is a major theme in Mesopotamian literature (let’s face it, all literatures, even if driven underground by taboo). It is certainly plain that sexual matters had no need of being whispered behind drawn curtains or disguised inside elaborate metaphors. (The line between metaphor and reality in the Inanna hymns is vanishingly small...)

Inanna

It is also an important topic for American readers to confront, because of the stark contrast between the treatment of sexuality in Sumerian and Akkadian literature and its treatment in the literature of the three great Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam—where matters of sexuality are often severely and substantially repressed. Christianity, especially, has taken this suppression to great lengths. This rejection of the flesh and suspicion of earthly pleasures, which is our troubled Western inheritance from that tradition, can warp our initial responses to the Mesopotamian materials. American readers may experience something almost like shock at the openness of sex and sexuality in these religious and cosmological works—so different in this regard from our own religious texts! Such shock can be an impediment to understanding and appreciation...

INANNA’S LIFE HISTORY
Many people commented Inanna’s character and possible character flaws, contrasting her more loving earlier nature with the more cruel persona of her resurrection and return. There is a change in her nature as she matures from adolescent to young woman, from lover to mother, from queen to goddess.

Inanna

That’s what I find so extraordinary about the Inanna hymn cycle (especially as Diane Wolkstein has chosen and arranged the disparate fragments into a single, chronological narrative): we see Inanna in the round, through time, in a fullness rarely seen for a female character in this mythic genre. (There are few to no comparable longitudinal portrayals of women in ancient Greek or Biblical or Egyptian literature—at least that I am aware of…) No, we must wait for the development of the novel for that kind of character development…

It’s easy to see the Ishtar of Gilgamesh as simply a continuation of Inanna as we last see her in the Hymns. Dumuzi was just the first of her many conquests, none of which ended well for the chosen one. Ishtar is indeed an organic continuation of the goddess Inanna by another name, but remember: Inanna and Ishtar are separated from each other by culture (Sumerian vs. Old Babylonian), language (Sumerian vs. Akkadian), and some 800 years of history (2000 BCE vs. 1200 BCE). Over that time-span, though retaining many of her earlier Sumerian traditions and attributes, Inanna has been passed through the long filter of a new language, changing cultures, and complex histories—somewhere along the line adding War Goddess to her portfolio—to emerge as the wrathful Ishtar whom Enkidu smacks with the Bull of Heaven’s thigh.

In short, it’s not entirely fair to treat Inanna and Ishtar as the “same” character…

Sexuality in Mesopotamia

Sex.  The basis of our society and repopulation. but for many of you us in western society sex is regarded as something shame-full and not to be talked about.  But why is this the way it is? For something so important to every species on earth, and as one of the few species who do it specifically for pleasure why is it such a taboo subject?

In Mesopotamian literature, it is clear that sex is freely talked about and accepted. Inanna, for instance, is so wooed by her own Vulva that she stopped and gazed at it in wonder. With the Holy Me’s Inanna was gifted with the art of kissing the Phallus. In both the stories of Inanna and the Epic of Gilgamesh there are references to temple harlots. Priestesses who are regularly engaged in ritualistic sex for the main pantheon of gods. In Gilgamesh, there are even examples off gay relationships that are common and accepted in the day to day of heroes. Even in the Iliad, references to sex and keeping women besides wives for purposes of consummating is seen to be the norm by the Greeks.

         Why then, if these things are so common in the origins of many peoples, if not most, Is it so taboo in our current day to day society? How was sex changed from something to be proud of to something to keep closed behind doors?

Why the Similarities?

While I was reading these stories, namely the myths about Inanna and Gilgamesh, I was struck by the similarities between these myths and the Bible. For instance, we discussed in class the commonalities between the flood that was prophesied in Gilgamesh and the flood in the bible. Given the fact that these two texts were not written even remotely close to each other, so I can't help but wonder where, why, and how these similarities came to be. One theory I have is that the stories of Gilgamesh were still being passed down orally and they somehow made their way around so that the people who contributed to the Bible were able to draw some similarities. On the other hand, this could be pure coincidence, but that is one peculiar coincidence if you ask me. Either way one chooses to look at this, it is interesting to wonder whether people were still talking about Gilgamesh, and even Inanna, when the Bible first came to be.

Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh was a brave character who wanted his destiny to above and beyond. Only to realize it is not how great the length and the task but the meaning of the length and the task. Everyone hears that actions speak louder than words and people hear about how one small thing can make everything better. After Gilgamesh returned from his search of eternal life, he realized it was the small things too. Gilgamesh is a fantastic story and has many great lessons to it that are kind of hidden but not. Not only does it show someone it’s not about the greatness of a task, it also shows an important friendship. Gilgamesh would have never done what he did without Enkidu. Enkidu was his best friend and in today’s society not many friendships like theirs exist. In my eyes Gilgamesh is a great read and something everyone should read. However, it is also a read that someone could take something from despite some of the parts.

The Evolution of Inanna: What happened?

As we have already read, Inanna started out with no real knowledge of the ways of the world. However, as time went on, Inanna became a completely different person. Now, we all do grow up and learn the ways of the world but, I feel as though Inanna may have been feigning innocence. I feel as though there was an abrupt shift from the young woman in the first story with her marriage to Dimuzi and when she so totally throws her husband, quite literally, to the hounds of hell. We are all aware of the fact that pieces of this story, and many others, are literally missing so spaces needed to be filled and other phrases and such cannot be translated into English as well as other languages. Here are my questions for us today;

1) Do you agree with me in the fact that, maybe she knew just what she was doing and was playing the others around her to gain what she wanted? (And it's okay to disagree! I am seriously confused here so any and all insight is more than welcome!)

2) What is your take on Dimuzi? Do you think that he was a good husband and father? And if so, why do you think that Inanna did the things that she has been depicted of doing in these stories?

3) What was your favorite part out of Gilgamesh and/or Inanna? I think mine would have to be where Gil and Enkidu are tearing each other to pieces, ripping the feast hall apart and then BAAAAMMMM!!!!!! Hi, yeah, we're bestie now... I called my mom right after reading that because I was so darn confused as to how one minute, they went from mortal enemies, to being brothers (or becoming even more, if you closely read the text).