When she gets back to the surface, Inanna, the Sumerian Queen of Heaven and Earth, taps her husband Dumuzi to take her place in the underworld. Seems like a very tough break for Dumuzi, even though he is an inattentive husband. Later this month I'll post the rest of that story. In the meantime, here's a Sumerian-mythos inspired thought.
Dumuzi was a shepherd before Inanna made him king. The goddess was initially inclined to marry a farmer but Dumuzi presented her with all of the right gifts and conducted himself through all of the prescribed rituals of courtship so gallantly that she couldn't resist. Dumuzi may be an avatar of Gilgamesh, the sun king of the city of Uruk. Gilgamesh appears in "The Huluppu Tree," the first hymn to Inanna, in which the creation of the world and the beginning of Inanna's career as goddess are related. She fishes a great huluppu tree out of the Euphrates River and replants it in her sacred garden with the plan to make a bed and a throne from it when the tree is grown. When the time comes to use the tree, Inanna finds it infested with evil creatures. Mighty Gilgamesh chases them off for her and builds the desired furniture.
The myth of Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu form another important part of the Sumerian mythology. Gilgamesh was superhuman (one-third god and two-thirds human) and had a difficult time finding his place in the world and fulfilling his destiny as king and protector of his people. As a beautiful young man his great strength was used only to intimidate and abuse others. The citizens prayed to the gods for deliverance from him! (Alas, we can relate).Then the gods created Enkidu to be his foil and the two men had many adventures together. But Enkidu dies and Gilgamesh travels through the mountain at the end of the world to find the secret of immortality. He fails, but he almost, almost, makes it back to the human realm with the plant that restores youth. Unfortunately he dropped the plant and a snake ate it. Gilgamesh fails to complete his personal quest. He doesn't save humans from death or otherwise change the familiar cycle but he does go home to Uruk to (finally) become a wise and beloved king.
I've always loved the end of this story. What make Gilgamesh truly great in the eyes of the Sumerians is the fact that he writes his story on the walls of the city.
(Other fragments of the mythology/history of Sumer tell the tale of Enmerkar, another king of Uruk, who disregards the advice of the gods and disappears without recording any of his experiences or decisions. Enmerkar was apparently held up as an example for other leaders; creating a written record was, for the Sumerians, Akkadians, and others in the Middle East at the time, an essential duty of kingship).
Gilgamesh records his triumphs and mistakes, the events witnessed and lessons learned, on the city walls, his personal history and that of his people co-mingled, part of what protects and preserves them as a people. Compare this with Going Rogue, Palin's pitiful attempt at self-aggrandizement and maybe you'll share my enthusiasm for the Sumerian definition of leadership. But we're not without contemporary models. Czeslaw Milosz's Native Realm, for example, which ends with words worthy of a Sumerian king: "Through defeats and disasters, humanity searches for the elixir of youth; that is, life made into thought, the ardor that upholds belief in the wider usefulness of our individual effort, even if it apparently changes nothing in the iron working of the world."
Life made into thought...writing...the elixir of youth. Isn't that grand?
