One of the most prominent heroines of early Babylonian epic is Ishtar. Indeed, there are many variant stories concerning her. Ishtar's descent into Hades is, in fact, one of the most important legends of Oriental mythology. She is the goddess of love, corresponding to the Canaanite and Phoenician divinities Ashtoreth and Astarte. She is the Aphrodite, the Venus of classic myth. Earlier she did not hold power over men's minds. She was a goddess of war, and the earlier warriors honored her as their patroness. It was Esarhaddon who enlarged the honors paid her; and he is said once to have interrupted his scribe, while reading of two important expeditions of arms, to send and fetch _The Descent of Ishtar into Hades_. This romantic story of adventure on the part of the goddess is well set out in early Assyro-Babylonian literature. Tammuz, the young husband of Ishtar, has been cut off by the boar's tusk (of winter). Ishtar mourned incessantly for her lover, but in vain. She resolved to rescue him if possible from the realm of shade, the kingdom of Allat, whence he had gone; for, though god he was, he must keep company with all the rest whom death claimed. Only one method of restoring him to the realm of life was possible. There was a spring which issued from under the threshold of Allat's own palace. One who could bathe in and drink of these wonderful waters would live again. But, alas! they were zealously guarded; for a stone lay upon the fountain, and seven spirits of earth watched with assiduous care lest some might drink and live. Of these waters Ishtar resolved to go and fetch a draught. But no one, not even a goddess, can descend into this Hades alive. So we read: "To the land from whence no traveller returns, to the regions of darkness, Ishtar, the daughter of Sin, has directed her spirit to the house of darkness, the seat of the God Iskala, to the house which those who enter can never leave, by the road over which no one travels a second time, to the house the inhabitants of which never again see the light, the place where there is no bread, but only dust, no food, but wind. No one can see the light there, ... upon the gate and the lock on all sides the dust lies thick." But Ishtar, in her quest of love, is nothing daunted by the difficulties or the forbidding aspects of her task. She descends to the gates of Allat's abode and knocks upon them, calling commandingly to the doorkeeper to unlock the bolts: "Guardian of life's waters, open thy doors, open thy doors that I may go in. If thou do not open thy gate and let me in, I will sound the knocker, I will break the lock, I will strike the threshold and break through the portal. I will raise the dead to devour the living, the dead shall be more numerous than the living." The porter goes and tells his mistress, Allat, of the imperious demand of Ishtar. "O goddess, thy sister Ishtar has come in search of the living water; she has shaken the strong bolts, she threatens to break