dChan
Anonymous ID: f34d8e Oct. 14, 2024, 4:42 p.m. No.21765512   🗄️.is 🔗kun

"The seven Apkallu, the Holy Carp, the Seven Sages of Ea, who were close relatives of mine"

 

"What did father and daughter talk about, all day and night? Those Days and Nights, rather…No one can say. All we know is Ishtar left laden with gifts. One hundred and five powers.

She looked on with a stern gaze as they were placed one by one on the Boat of Heaven. But how could she see them? We mustn't suppose that the powers were as they are now: invisible. On the contrary, they were often things we could touch. Talismans people used to call them. But what were those powers? And why were there so many?"

 

"Let me list some of the most important for you: the power to go down to the underworld and comeback; the use of the sexual organs. Ea explained: wisdom in holding the phallus. Ishtar answered: 'I accept.

 

"But that was only the beginning. There were many others: the art of working in wood, the art of the scribe, attention, kindling fires, procreation, judgement; betrayal; deceit; black clothing; colored clothing; the banner; the quiver; the kiss; hypocrisy; the tavern song; treachery; pillage; the lament; prosperity, architecture; the oblation; deference; lying; victory; makeup. And these are only some of the one hundred and five powers.

 

"What here I call powers were once called mes, a word that later lost its clarity. The mes are at once powers and laws. Or rules. A destiny. When Ishtar, who was still called Inanna then, went down to the Underworld, she was wearing seven mes. They included, a crown, some jewels, a cloak.

 

"How can one hold a law or a power in ones hand? When a ceremony was performed without any mistakes, people said that the mes had been accomplished. At the time, everyone understood perfectly what this meant. Now it is too late to explain. But that's how it was."

 

"The mes that Ishtar persuaded Ea to grant her were not restricted to regal or priestly emblems. True, these were at the top of the list, but after them came other mes, such as the art of tying and loosening a hair bun, or sacking a city, or of starting arguments, or disguising oneself. What was it that held them together?"

The list of mes included everything that the world of light, to which Ishtar was about to return, must not and could not do without. It was the imperishable fabric of appearance. And from the beginning it included the capacity to come into contact with death and not to succumb. The me immediately before that one was truth.

 

"The mes were also norms, laws, rules. But before anything else they were manifestations that must belong to the path of life. If even one me, no matter how frivolous or ferocious were to be missing, then order in the world would prove inadequate. And in fact order was away inadequate. Though it continued to be order, up to a point. Until something broke and everything fell apart.