Dumuzi's demons caught up with him and he was taken to Ereshkigal in the Underworld. Being mortal, Dumuzi would have made the trip sooner or later. But he was hunted, captured, killed, and dragged away at the prime of his life because Inanna chose him to be her replacement. Why did she do that?
One of the great things about this story (and myths in general) is that it can be read many ways. There's no one "right" answer. We're told that Dumuzi didn't greet Inanna when she returned or even seem to know what had happened to her. We're also told that Inanna decided to make her descent to visit Ereshkigal at a time when Dumuzi was busy with his new powers of kingship. Their honeymoon was over. So did she sentence her husband to the Underworld in a fit of pique? The goddess is passionate, impulsive, and proud. But I don't think that Inanna's only motivation was a desire to punish Dumuzi for neglect. He was her husband, she raised him up and he was her match. They were a pair, male and female. Who but Dumuzi could take Inanna's place?
There is one more installment of the story to tell so we don't know yet how it will end. But if we imagine that Inanna has been powerfully transformed by her visit to Ereshkigal then we can also imagine that there is a gift in this suffering for Dumuzi as well. The demons that caught him were his demons, suggesting that this was his fate. And there are intriguing similarities with Inanna's descent, chiefly the stripping away of his me, Dumuzi's trappings of above world power and identity. In the place of Ninshubur, whose special powers were essential to Inanna's resurrection, we have perhaps, Geshtinanna.
When Inanna and the galla found Dumuzi under the apple tree, sitting on his throne, she "fixed him with the eye of death." She played the same role for her husband that her dark sister, Ereshkigal, goddess of the Underworld, performed for her.
Stay tuned.
The image above is a Door to the Underworld 2000-1600
B.C. Isin-Larsa-Old Babylonian period. Mesopotamia
