“To Tammuz, her youthful consort Pour out pure waters, costly oil.”[34] A scene of the mourning for Tammuz is also introduced, which may be taken as the original lamentation, all other summer solstice weepings being anniversaries of this original one. His sister is there lamenting: “O my only brother, let me not perish!”[35] And a great company of mourners sing dirges by the accompaniment of the flute and follow the instruction which Tammuz, though dead, seems to be giving then and there: “On the day of Tammuz play for me, On the flute of _uknu_ and _samtu_! With it play for me! With it play for me! O male and female mourners! That the dead may arise and inhale incense!”[36] Of course the story is not finished and the circle of events not completed without the resurrection of Tammuz. In a Chaldaean intaglio there is a picture of Tammuz rejuvenated on the knees of Ištar (see Clercq Vol. I, Plate IX, No. 83). Some forms of the story must include his return to the earth, and the complete service of lamentation must have been sometimes supplemented by a service of joy in which the idea of resurrection was significant. Though the original lamentation was an expression of grief for Tammuz dead, the fully developed ceremony was an expression of several pathetic ideas. It was accompanied with sacrifice and offerings of wine. In Babylonia the commemoration was observed every year on the second day of the fourth month, called the month of Tammuz. It was not only a weeping for dead Tammuz, but a weeping for dead vegetation. The dying leaf had a mourner. The withered stock had a sympathizing friend. For the blasted blade of grass there was shed a tear. For the barren tree bereft of golden foliage and luscious fruit there went up a cry of sympathy. The ceremony was an expression of sadness that came over the people as the oppression of the heat of summer bore down upon them, the water supply being reduced, vegetable life put out and human life consequently made almost unendurable by the deprivation and heat of summer. The time of weeping was one for the expression of personal sorrow that lurks in almost every heart. The wail of anguish was a relief to souls burdened with their own peculiar griefs. The soul found relief in lifting up the voice attuned to some form of elegy. There came a relief like the rolling of the burden of guilt from the breast. The ceremony was one that embraced in its performance the expression of confession. It was, however, performed with the consciousness that the drought of summer was but for a season, and that there was to follow a period of happier existence, as the succeeding winter should merge into a new spring.