Ishtar: Disguised Irony

In the modern world we rarely discuss the validity of ancient polytheistic religions like those of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Mesopotamians. We most often think of them as "what people used to think" and "simple myths." But reading Ishmael has opened my eyes to the fact that everything could be called a myth.

So Ishtar, is she real? Is she plausible? Could she have actually had the impact she had and done the things she did? The only thing I do know for sure is that she's symbolic. As the goddess of both fertility and warfare, pretty much life and death, she could also be called ironic, but I don't see her that way. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Ishtar is seen as an evil goddess, one who is cunning and manipulating and can never truly love, only lust. Then in "The Descent of Ishtar" she is seen as almost Innocent and misunderstood. So both extremes are evident in her character, it's not ironic, its real.

Other questions also arise. Like what does it show about Mesopotamian society if their Goddess of Warfare is also the Goddess of Fertility? I think it shows that in ancient life, death and life were intensely intertwined to the point that war meant death and death meant life and life meant war. It doesn't sound like it makes sense but in the ancient world it does. It's all a circle, so no wonder that Ishtar represented both ends of the spectrum. People needed to know that when someone died, no matter if it involved war or not, it was okay because death inevitably meant life, no matter how messed up it sounds. So to me, Ishtar means hope for people. I don't think that she tried to make herself out to be a dirty whiner, maybe its the bias of the author of Gilgamesh. Either way, Ishtar just seems misunderstood to me.

I've had a hard time trying to think about how I relate to Ishtar. I mean the dancer wrote something brilliant, so brilliant that I couldn't completely understand the meaning of her well... meaning. Quite possibly because I'm not a dancer and I'm not her and it's her personal meaning. So then what is my meaning? I'm not sure actually. I usually have a lot to say and ironically I'm silent (even though I'm still babbling on about being silent.) Before I talked about the irony of Ishtar. The irony of life and death. And now the irony of silence. I'm silent because I'm thinking, something most people don't do in depth when discussing Ishtar. She's not simply what she seems on the surface, she's deep. She's scared of vulnerability because she was exposed by the Queen and then by the rejection of Gilgamesh, and she didn't like it. So now she's pretending to be someone else so that she can't be hurt again. But really? She's waiting for someone somewhere to figure out that she's not what she seems. I think she taught me to think, maybe the biggest irony of all.