Dumuzi-Inanna Courtship Songs
Erotic desire between a shepherd-king and a goddess is presented as the ritual engine of the state itself, since the king's sexual union with Inanna, performed yearly, is what actually guarantees the land's fertility.
- sacred marriage rite (hieros gamos)
- kingship legitimized through ritual union with a goddess
- pastoral eroticism as liturgy
- seasonal death and return of the fertility consort
A cycle of love songs and wedding poetry celebrating the courtship and sacred marriage of the shepherd-god Dumuzi and Inanna, likely performed as part of an annual rite in which the king ritually embodied Dumuzi. The songs range from pastoral courtship dialogue to frank celebrations of desire, and they sit uneasily beside Dumuzi's fate in Inanna's Descent, where the same bridegroom is condemned to death; taken together the two traditions frame him as the yearly-dying, yearly-returning consort whose union with the goddess secures the fertility of herds and fields.
Commentary
Readers' notes on this work. No account needed - be scholarly, or at least civil.
Loading commentary…