"Oh my insides!"

Down in the cold, dusty underworld, Inanna is hanging on a hook. Ereshkigal is moaning like a woman in labor. Ninshubur has garnered the concern and wise assistance of Enki, who has sent two little creatures down to visit Ereshkigal, with very specific instructions.

The kurgurra and the galatur find Ereshkigal in her throne room, moaning like a woman giving birth, clothes in disarray, hair matted. It’s a terrible sight.

Ereshkigal cries out ‘Oh my insides, my insides!”

The creatures cry out “Oh your insides, your insides!”

Ereshkigal cries out “Oh my outsides, my outsides!”

The creatures also cry out “Oh your outsides, your outsides!”

Ereshkigal moans “Oh my back, my back!”  and the creatures moan “Oh your back, your back!”

Ereshkigal groans “Oh my liver, my liver!” and the creatures groan “Oh your  liver, your liver!”

The queen of the underworld stops and looks around. “Who is there?” she demands, “and why do you comfort me? If you are gods, I thank you, and if you are not, I will give you a great gift.” The kurgurra and the galatur come forward. Ershekigal smiles. “ I will give you the water of life,” she says. But they shake their heads. “No?” said Ereshkigal. “Well then, how about the power to grow grain, the staff of life?” But again they shake their heads no. “Thank you” say the creatures, “but we would like to have our queen, Inanna.”

Ereshkigal purses her lips. “I don’t know about that,” she replies. “I don’t think I can give you Inanna. She’s not in the same shape that she was in the last time you saw her.” But the kurgurra and the galatur insist. “Inanna is our queen and we want to take her back.”

Ereshkigal signals her servants to take Inanna down from the hook. The kurgurra and the galatur sprinkle the corpse with the water and food of life. Inanna comes back to life.

The gift of compassion, an empathetic ear, this is what Enki offered Ereshkigal. The dramatic meeting of the primordial, instinctual self and the civilized, adapted self comes to an end.  Ereshkigal and Inanna are very different but they are both vulnerable, both wounded, both healed through tenderness and concern. We can only guess at how these two goddesses have been transformed by this encounter, but the fact that they have both survived distinguishes this myth from many others that involve courage, confrontation, and heroism. The hero’s journey always involves the frightening, often in the shape of terrible monsters. But unlike Gilgamesh, another recent example from Sumerian mythology, Inanna does not overcome, kill, or tame the monstrous Other. What’s heroic in her story is the willingness and humility to face and incorporate the fearsome.

What is so frightening and alien about Ereshkigal, and how could any aspect of this dark goddess complete the bright and shining Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth? Ereshkigal is nature’s raw vitality, the drive for life that is not controllable, Dylan’s “green pulse.” Wild life, which belongs to the maggots as well as the roses. With this awareness, Inanna can truly be the goddess of life. She understands the complete cycle.

This paraphrase is from Diane Wolkstein and Noah Kramer's wonderful translation of the myth, Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth, Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer.