The child was reared by the people who found him, and he became a great instructor and warrior and ruled over the tribe as king. The poem opens with a reference to the patriarch "Scyld of the Sheaf". When he died, his body, according to the request he had made, was laid in a ship which was set adrift:. Upon his breast lay many treasures which were to travel with him into the power of the flood. Certainly they the mourners furnished him with no less of gifts, of tribal treasures, than those had done who, in his early days, started him over the sea alone, child as he was.
Moreover, they set besides a gold-embroidered standard high above his head, and let the flood bear him--gave him to the sea. Their soul was sad, their spirit sorrowful. Sceaf or Scyld is identical with Yngve, the patriarch of the Ynglings; with Frey, the harvest and boar god, son of Njord, 2 the sea god; and with Hermod, referred to as follows in the Eddic "Lay of Hyndla":. To some grants he wealth, to his children war fame, Word skill to many and wisdom to men, Fair winds to sea-farers, song craft to skalds, And might of manhood to many a warrior.
Tammuz is similarly "the heroic lord of the land", the "wise one", the "lord of knowledge", and "the sovereign, lord of invocation". Heimdal, watchman of the Teutonic gods, also dwelt for a time among men as "Rig", and had human offspring, his son Thrall being the ancestor of the Thralls, his son Churl of churls, and Jarl of noblemen.
Tammuz, like Heimdal, is also a guardian. He watches the flocks and herds, whom he apparently guards against the Gallu demons as Heimdal guards the world and the heavens against attacks by giants and monsters. These were the clouds illuminated by the sun, which were likened to sheep--indeed, one of the early Sumerian expressions for 'fleece' was 'sheep of the sky'.
The name of Tammuz in Sumerian is Dumu-zi, or in its rare fullest form, Dumu-zida, meaning 'true or faithful son'. There is probably some legend attached to this which is at present unknown.
Like an herdsman the sentinel place of sheep and cattle he Tammuz has forsaken. From his home, from his inhabited domain, the son, he of wisdom, pre-eminent steer of heaven, The hero unto the nether herding place has taken his way.
Agni, the Aryo-Indian god, who, as the sky sentinel, has points of resemblance to Heimdal, also links with Tammuz, especially in his Mitra character:. Agni has been established among the tribes of men, the son of the waters, Mitra acting in the right way. Rigveda , iii, 5, 3. Agni, who has been looked and longed for in Heaven, who has been looked for on earth--he who has been looked for has entered all herbs.
Rigveda , i, Tammuz, like the Egyptian lunar and solar god Khonsu, is "the healer", and Agni "drives away all disease".
Tammuz is the god "of sonorous voice"; Agni "roars like a bull"; and Heimdal blows a horn when the giants and demons threaten to attack the citadel of the gods.
As the spring sun god, Tammuz is "a youthful warrior", says Jastrow, "triumphing over the storms of winter". Tammuz, "the heroic lord", was therefore a demon slayer like Heimdal and Agni. Each of these gods appear to have been developed in isolation from an archaic spring god of fertility and corn whose attributes were symbolized.
In Teutonic mythology, for instance, Heimdal was the warrior form of the patriarch Scef, while Frey was the deified agriculturist who came over the deep as a child. In Saxo's mythical history of Denmark,. Frode returns to earth, like Tammuz, in due season. It is evident that there were various versions of the Tammuz myth in Ancient Babylonia. In one the goddess Ishtar visited Hades to search for the lover of her youth. A part of this form of the legend survives in the famous Assyrian hymn known as "The Descent of Ishtar".
It was first translated by the late Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum. A box containing inscribed tablets had been sent from Assyria to London, and Mr. Smith, with characteristic patience and skill, arranged and deciphered them, giving to the world a fragment of ancient literature infused with much sublimity and imaginative power.
Ishtar is depicted descending to dismal Hades, where the souls of the dead exist in bird forms:. I spread like a bird my hands. I descend, I descend to the house of darkness, the dwelling of the god Irkalla: To the house out of which there is no exit, To the road from which there is no return: To the house from whose entrance the light is taken, The place where dust is their nourishment and their food mud. Its chiefs also are like birds covered with feathers; The light is never seen, in darkness they dwell.
Keeper of the waters, open thy gate, Open thy gate that I may enter. If thou openest not the gate that I may enter I will strike the door, the bolts I will shatter, p. Allatu's heart is filled with anger, and makes reference to those whom Ishtar caused to perish:.
Let me weep over the strong who have left their wives, Let me weep over the handmaidens who have lost the embraces of their husbands, Over the only son let me mourn, who ere his days are come is taken away. Go, keeper, open the gate to her, Bewitch her according to the ancient rules;. As Ishtar enters through the various gates she is stripped of her ornaments and clothing.
At the first gate her crown was taken off, at the second her ear-rings, at the third her necklace of precious stones, at the fourth the ornaments of her breast, at the fifth her gemmed waist-girdle, 1 at the sixth the bracelets of her hands and feet, and at the seventh the covering robe of her body. Ishtar asks at each gate why she is thus dealt with, and the porter answers, "Such is the command of Allatu. After descending for a prolonged period the Queen of Heaven at length stands naked before the Queen of Hades.
Ishtar is proud and arrogant, and Allatu, desiring to punish her rival whom she cannot humble,. From the Painting by E. The effect of Ishtar's fate was disastrous upon earth: growth and fertility came to an end. Meanwhile Pap-sukal, messenger of the gods, hastened to Shamash, the sun deity, to relate what had occurred. The sun god immediately consulted his lunar father, Sin, and Ea, god of the deep. Ea then created a man lion, named Nadushu-namir, to rescue Ishtar, giving him power to pass through the seven gates of Hades.
When this being delivered his message. May I imprison thee in the great prison, May the garbage of the foundations of the city be thy food, May the drains of the city be thy drink, May the darkness of the dungeon be thy dwelling, May the stake be thy seat, May hunger and thirst strike thy offspring. Unto Ishtar give the waters of life and bring her before me. Namtar says:. Since thou hast not paid a ransom for thy deliverance to her Allatu , so to her again turn back, For Tammuz the husband of thy youth.
The glistening waters of life pour over him. In splendid clothing dress him, with a ring of crystal adorn him. Ishtar mourns for "the wound of Tammuz", smiting her breast, and she did not ask for "the precious eye-stones, her amulets", which were apparently to ransom Tammuz.
The poem concludes with Ishtar's wail:. O my only brother Tammuz thou dost not lament for me. In the day that Tammuz adorned me, with a ring of crystal, With a bracelet of emeralds, together with himself, he adorned me, 1 With himself he adorned me; may men mourners and women mourners On a bier place him, and assemble the wake.
A Sumerian hymn to Tammuz throws light on this narrative. It sets forth that Ishtar descended to Hades to entreat him to be glad and to resume care of his flocks, but Tammuz refused or was unable to return.
The amorous Queen of Heaven sits as one in darkness. Langdon also translates a hymn Tammuz III which appears to contain the narrative on which the Assyrian version was founded.
The goddess who descends to Hades, however, is not Ishtar, but the "sister", Belit-sheri. Apparently, however, he promises to return to earth.
I will go up, as for me I will depart with thee. I will return, unto my mother let us go back. Probably two goddesses originally lamented for Tammuz, as the Egyptian sisters, Isis and Nepthys, lamented for Osiris, their brother. Ishtar is referred to as "my mother". Isis figures alternately in the Egyptian chants as mother, wife, sister, and daughter of Osiris. It has been, however, commonly supposed that the poem originated in Babylonia and was first composed in Semitic.
The two Assyrian texts contain about one hundred and forty lines. The origin of the legend itself is known to have been Sumerian so far as Babylonian religion is concerned. It was originally similar to the Egyptian form of this myth in which Isis, the mother goddess, is the sister of Osiris, the dying god.
Through Semitic influence the myth in Babylonia became composite, the Sumerian tradition being largely given up in favor of the Semitic view in which the earth goddess was the mother of Tammuz.
The Semites identified her with their own goddess Ishtar and substituted her name for the Sumerian appellative in the Semitic poem. The myth has almost certainly an astronomical origin, being based upon the Sumerian identification of Innini with Sirius Major or the Dog Star. This star was invisible for about two months of the year in the hot season when the god of vegetation was said to perish annually as a child cast adrift on the waters of the Euphrates. The ancients supposed that celestial bodies journeyed in darkness across the lower world during their periods of invisibility.
Hence, with the disappearance of her star Sirius, they inferred that the goddess also took her by an interesting tablet of the Nippur collection in Constantinople. If even a goddess can change her mind and go through Hades to make her mistake right, what wrongs do we need to put right? With our tears, what do we revive, and how do we forgive ourselves? News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline.
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