The Babylonian World - Historia Antigua

— Joan Goodnick Westenholz —
132 . . . mercy and pity are yours, Inanna.
134 To cause the . . . heart to tremble, . . . illnesses are yours,
Inanna.
135 To have a wife, . . ., to love . . . are yours, Inanna.
138 To build a house, to create a woman’s chamber, to possess
implements, to kiss a child’s lips are yours, Inanna.
140 To interchange the brute and the strong and the weak and the
powerless is yours, Inanna.
142 To interchange the heights and valleys . . . is yours, Inanna.
143 To give the crown, the throne and the royal sceptre is yours,
Inanna.
156–157 To bestow the divine and royal rites, to carry out the
appropriate instructions, slander, untruthful words, abuse, to
speak inimically and to overstate are yours, Inanna.
164–168 strife, chaos, opposition, fighting and speeding carnage, . . ., to
know everything, . . . to instill fear . . . and to hate . . . are
yours, Inanna.
(Inninshagurra, ETCSL No. 4. 07. 3)
This litany of Inanna’s antithetical attributes contains polar notions that reflect the
dimorphism of Venus and, at the same time, indicate the whole by defining the
limits.
Among the courtly tales told in the court of the Neo-Sumerian kings, the epic
poems of the heroic cycle of Uruk were recounted. One poem narrates the conflict
between Enmerkar of Uruk and Ensuhkeshdanna of Aratta, over whom would be the
most beloved of Inanna. Enmerkar won more favour in her eyes and Ensuhkeshdanna
submits in these words:
You are the beloved lord of Inanna, you alone are exalted. Inanna has truly chosen
you for her holy lap, you are her beloved. From the south to the highlands, you
are the great lord, and I am only second to you.
(lls. 276–278, ETCSL No. 1. 8. 2. 4)
In like manner, the Neo-Sumerian kings considered themselves the spouses of Inanna.
It is difficult to evaluate when Inanna was first linked with sexuality; certainly by
the Sargonic period she was invoked in Akkadian love incantations. This aspect became
pre-eminent in the Sumerian corpus of love lyrics from the Neo-Sumerian period onwards.
The theme of this corpus is the love between the goddess, the young maiden
Inanna, and the shepherd god Dumuzi, as the archetypical bride and groom. The cycle
of texts includes various stories of Dumuzi’s courtship of Inanna, preparations for the
wedding and the wedding itself. These songs portray Inanna as a young woman, with
her teenage enthusiasms, her passionate love and sexual yearnings for her beloved.
The temporal setting of the poetry is at sunset or later when day has passed and night
has come, the time of lovers and Inanna’s appearance in the night sky.
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