Ishtar's Journey into the Underworld

I have another announcement for you, dear reader. I'm full of those lately. I am officially a published author! A Tale of Two Tricksters is live on Amazon as both an ebook and a paperback. It's an Urban Fantasy novel that follows the exploits of a college student who doesn't remember that she's a djinn. There's plenty of mythological creatures from all of the world thrown in as well as the power of friendship and extreme dislike. A few of the stories on this blog tie into this novel, either directly or indirectly. Go check it out!

Ishtar in all of her finery...except her shoes.

Now that you've done that, let's get down to business. Today's tale comes to us from ancient Babylon. Ishtar's Journey into the Underworld kind of seems like a small part of a larger tale. Still, we'll take what we can get and just look at this piece of it. Go ahead and follow the link to read the story and then analyze it with me below.

It's interesting to me that a goddess knows so little about the underworld. Ishtar went there to be with her deceased husband, but she didn't seem to know that she would forget all about him when she died. Which means he had also forgotten about her. It seems like their underworld is terrible no matter what you were like in life. For the ancient Greeks, at least there were different parts of Hades depending on whether you did good things or bad things. In ancient Babylon, being dead is just terrible no matter what. And Ishtar seems to have no idea about any of this. I understand that as a goddess, she wouldn't have to worry about dying, but you'd think she would ask around a bit before she went into the underworld.

I'm also interested in Irkalla. Did she already dislike Ishtar before she demanded to be let into the underworld? The punishment Ishtar gets seems a little out of proportion for demanding to be let in somewhere. I could see why they might not get along, though. Ishtar is the goddess of love and Irkalla is the goddess of death. One causes new life to be created and the other is there when life ends. Still, it's a little much to make the girl you hate strip down naked before someone gives her the plague and kills her. Especially since she's a goddess and probably immortal. What kind of plague was that, anyway?

While we're wondering about people, let's wonder about the watchmen at the gates. I'm not sure how long Ishtar was dead, but I'm assuming it was for awhile. These watchmen took all of her awesome stuff on her way into the underworld, but they just kept it and gave it back to her on her way back out. I could understand if they might not have wanted to wear her dress, but it's weird that they didn't do anything with her finery. I would have thought Irkalla would take it, if nothing else, just to be mean. Although, I suppose once Ishtar was dead, she wouldn't have cared. Maybe Irkalla didn't care about it after the watchmen took it and she just left the watchmen to do with that what they would. Or maybe they assumed that since Ishtar was a goddess, she would be leaving the underworld at some point and she would want her clothes and jewelry back.

The moral of this story is that if you're going to go into the underworld after your dead husband, you'd better be sure someone more powerful will come get you if you don't come back. Alternatively, if seven is an important number in your culture, make sure you have seven things to give the watchmen. Otherwise you might get stuck in between gates.

Think of a different moral? Annoyed that after all of that Ishtar didn't get her husband back? Have a different fairy tale you want me to talk about? Comment below!