Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/22

 those who were wounded by the bow surround thee; the sceptre no more thou carriest in thine hand, the spirits of the dead ban (?) thee; bangles no more thou puttest upon thine ankles, no (war-) cry raisest thou evermore on earth; thy wife whom thou lovedst thou kissest no more; thy wife whom thou hatedst thou smitest no more; thy daughter whom thou lovedst thou kissest no more; thy daughter whom thou hatedst thou smitest no more, the woe of the Underworld hath seized upon thee."

The misery of death was a special theme of song at the rites of mourning for the spring god Tammuz (Adonis), who each year sank into the world of the dead at the approach of winter. One lament for Tammuz recalls to mind the gardens and flower-pots used in the Phoenician and Greek Adonis cult, the forced growth and rapid fading of the plants. It runs: "Thou shepherd and lord, spouse of Istar, king of the Underworld, king of the dwelling-place of the waters; thou O shepherd art a seed corn that drank no water in the furrow, whose germ bore no fruit in the field, a young sapling that has not been planted by the water course, a sapling, whose root has been cut, a plant that drank no water in the furrow." In another Tammuz dirge we read : "Thou treadest (?) the closed way, the path without return he departed, descended to