Thresholds R Us

At the very gracious request of nineweaving, I took part yesterday in a Boskone panel on "Exotic Mythologies." (Most of the prior day had also been spent at Boskone, where I attended Greer's reading and Kaffeeklatsch, as well as picking up from the dealer's room a very nice copy of Jane Yolen's Sister Light, Sister Dark: the holy book of the year I was nine. I literally read the pages of the Tor paperback off its spine, carrying the book everywhere I went; and agonizing for years until I found its sequel, White Jenna. Jane Yolen was even in attendance at Boskone, and so I could ask her for a signature after a panel on fairy tales on Saturday. My fannish impulses satisfied, I returned to the dealer's room.) Besides Greer, Judith Berman and Elaine Isaak were also on the panel, speaking respectively on Northwestern Native American and Mongolian mythologies. Ostensibly I was invited to speak about mythologies of the ancient Near East, Ištar and Gilgameš and the like, and I did—also my single favorite episode in the Odyssey, XIII.221—303, when Odysseus tries to pull one of his famous Cretan lies on Athene and she catches him— hopefully not at greater length than my audience wanted to hear.

This was easily the most fun I've had at a convention. Something like a cross between teaching a class and storytelling, but with other people: and maybe that's the particular virtue of panels. I know nothing from Mongolian mythology; I am not a specialist in Raven stories; I have only a passing acquaintance with George MacDonald. That's where Judith, Elaine, and Greer came in, and they were terrific to hear. I am informed the panels at Readercon will be much more like this one than those at Worldcon or, God knows, Necon. So look for me there: if I can connive my way into another panel on myth or folklore, I shall.

And on that note, a long-overdue update from the underworld. Be warned, the text becomes increasingly fragmentary and incomprehensible as the narrative nears its end: if we didn't have the Sumerian Inanna's Descent, I don't think we'd be able to interpret Ištar's Descent at all.

To quote Greer: "Yes, we have no Inannas . . ."

^dPapsukkal sukkal ilānī rabûti quddud appašu pānušu
karru labiš malê naškun
illik ^dŠamaš ina pān ^dSîn abīšu ibakki
ina pān ^dEa šarri illaka dimā[šu]
^dIštar ana erseti urid ul ilâ
ultu ullânuma ^dIštar ana KUR.NU.GI₄ uridu
ana būrti alpu ul ušahhit imēru atāna ul ušara
ardatum ina sūqi ul ušara [etlu]
ittil etlu ina kummišu
ittil ardatum ina ahiša
^dEa ina emqi libbīšu ibtani zikru
ibnima ^IAsûšunamir assinu
alka ^IAsûšunamir ina bāb KUR.NU.GI₄ šukun pānika
7 bābī KUR.NU.GI₄ lippetû ina pānika
^dEreškigal limurkama ina pānika lihdu
ultu libbaša inuhhu kabtassa ipperedu
tummešima nīš ilānī rabûti
šuqqi rēšīka ana halziqqi uzna šukun
ē bēltī halziqqu lidnūni mê ina libbi lultati
^dEreškigal annīta ina šemîša
tamhas pēnša taššuka ubānša
teteršanni erištum lā erēši
alka ^IAsûšunamir luzirka izra rabâ
[lušimkama šimti lā mašê ana sâti].

Papsukkal, the minister of the great gods,
was downcast in his features and his face,
he was clothed in a mourning garment, he had dirty hair.
Šamaš went before his father Sîn and wept.
In the presence of Ea the king, [his] twin tears flowed.
"Ištar went down to the underworld and did not come up.
As soon as my lady Ištar went down to the underworld,
the bull does not mount the cow, the donkey does not make pregnant the jenny,
the young man does not make pregnant the young woman in the street,
the young man sleeps in his own private room,
the young woman sleeps among her own company."
Ea in his clever heart created a man
and he created Asûšunamir, the assinu.*
"Come, Asûšunamir, turn your face toward the gate of the underworld,
let the seven gates of the underworld be opened in your presence,
let Ereškigal see you and rejoice in your presence.
When her heart is at rest and her mood lightens,
raise your head, turn your attention to the skin [that Ištar has become]."
"My lady, let them give me the skin, let me drink the water inside."
When Ereškigal heard these things,
she struck her thigh, she bit her finger:
"You asked of me a request that is not asked for.
Come, Asûšunamir, let me curse you with a great curse,
[let me decree you a fate for all time unforgettable]."

*A cross-dressing priest-prostitute. We think.
(Lines 81—103 of Ištar's Descent to the Underworld, manuscript from Nineveh; supplemented with manuscript from Aššur.)

I assert my right to be hexameters

Wait, verse is obsolete?


You are 'regularly metric verse'. This can take
many forms, including heroic couplets, blank
verse, and other iambic pentameters, for
example. It has not been used much since the
nineteenth century; modern poets tend to prefer
rhyme without meter, or even poetry with
neither rhyme nor meter.

You appreciate the beautiful things in life--the
joy of music, the color of leaves falling, the
rhythm of a heartbeat. You see life itself as
a series of little poems. The result (or is it
the cause?) is that you are pensive and often
melancholy. You enjoy the company of other
people, but they find you unexcitable and
depressing. Your problem is that regularly
metric verse has been obsolete for a long time.
What obsolete skill are you?
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Also, I take umbrage with "unexcitable and depressing." What if I'm Sapphic stanzas? Elegiac couplets? Or even, God help us, galliambics? Metrics may put your blood pressure through the top of your head, especially if you are asked ex abrupto to distinguish between penthemimeral, trochaic, and hephthemimeral caesurae (not to mention bucolic diairesis) in a given line of Homeric verse, but I hardly find it depressing.

Don't all crowd to share my enthusiasm at once . . .

At least I'm represented by William Blake.

The eternal gates' terrific porter lifted the northern bar;
Thel enter'd in & saw the secrets of the land unknown:
She saw the couches of the dead, & where the fibrous roots
Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists:
A land of sorrows & of tears where never smile was seen.