BA #1 Ishtar

1) Ishtar. She is first mentioned on page 77 in book 1.
2) Ishtar is a goddess, daughter to Anu and Anutu. She plays a significant role in the fate of Gilgamesh and Enkidu at the end of the book.
3) A simple comparison to Ishtar would be that to Shamhat. Shamhat, being a priestess of Ishtar gives her body willing to men in honor of the goddess. At the beginning, Shamhat is seen as a civilizing force for when after Enkidu and her made love he was more cultured and in a sense became a man. Ishtar, however, is more of a destroyer than a civilizer. At one point she offered herself to Gilgamesh, pleading that he be her husband. However, Gilgamesh refuses because every man that she has ever loved has come to a certain misfortune due to her. He responds to her, “If I too became your lover, you would treat me as cruelly as you treated them” (135).
4) Ishtar is not a hero. When she does not get her way she seeks revenge and is selfish. Nothing she does or plans is a benefit to the human race but only to her. All she feels is a need to pleasure herself and not help others. A hero seeks to serve his people fearlessly with their wellbeing in mind and not his own, with that Ishtar is not a hero.