rage, when she saw herself obliged to yield to her rival; “she beat her sides, she gnawed her fingers,” she broke out into curses against the messenger of misfortune. “’Thou hast expressed to me a wish which should not be made!—­Fly, Uddushunamir, or I will shut thee up in the great prison—­the mud of the drains of the city shall be thy food—­the gutters of the town shall be thy drink—­the shadow of the walls shall be thy abode—­the thresholds shall be thy habitation—­confinement and isolation shall weaken thy strength.’"* She is obliged to obey, notwithstanding; she calls her messenger Namtar and commands him to make all the preparations for resuscitating the goddess.  It was necessary to break the threshold of the palace in order to get at the spring, and its waters would have their full effect only in presence of the Anunnas.  “Namtar went, he rent open the eternal palace,—­he twisted the uprights so that the stones of the threshold trembled;—­he made the Anunnaki come forth, and seated them on thrones of gold,—­he poured upon Ishtar the waters of life, and brought her away.”  She received again at each gate the articles of apparel she had abandoned in her passage across the seven circles of hell:  as soon as she saw the daylight once more, it was revealed to her that the fate of her husband was henceforward in her own hands.  Every year she must bathe him in pure water, and anoint him with the most precious perfumes, clothe him in a robe of mourning, and play to him sad airs upon a crystal flute, whilst her priestesses intoned their doleful chants, and tore their breasts in sorrow:  his heart would then take fresh life, and his youth flourish once more, from springtime to springtime, as long as she should celebrate on his behalf the ceremonies already prescribed by the deities of the infernal world.

* It follows from this passage that Ishtar could be delivered only at the cost of another life:  it was for this reason, doubtless, that Ea, instead of sending the ordinary messenger of the gods, created a special messenger.  Allat, furious at the insignificance of the victim sent to her, contents herself with threatening Uddushanamir with an ignominious treatment if he does not escape as quickly as possible.

Dumuzi was a god, the lover, moreover, of a goddess, and the deity succeeded where mortals failed.* Ea, Nebo, Gula, Ishtar, and their fellows possessed, no doubt, the faculty of recalling the dead to life, but they rarely made use of it on behalf of their creatures, and their most pious votaries pleaded in vain from temple to temple for the resurrection of their dead friends; they could never obtain the favour which had been granted by Allat to Dumuzi.

* Merodach is called “the merciful one who takes pleasure in raising the dead to life,” and “the lord of the pure libation,” the “merciful one who has power to give life.”  In Jeremias may be found the list of the gods who up to the present are known to have had the power to resuscitate the dead; it is probable that this power belonged to all the gods and goddesses of the first rank.

[Illustration:  229.jpg DUMUZI REJUVENATED ON THE KNEES OF ISHTAR.]