ister, soul of
her brother".... "Come thou to us as a babe".... "Lo, thou art as the
Bull of the two goddesses--come thou, child growing in peace, our
lord!"... "Lo! the Bull, begotten of the two cows, Isis and
Nepthys".... "Come thou to the two widowed goddesses".... "Oh child,
lord, first maker of the body".... "Father Osiris."[126]

As Ishtar and Belit-sheri weep for Tammuz, so do Isis and Nepthys weep
for Osiris.

Calling upon thee with weeping--yet thou art prostrate upon thy
bed!
Gods and men ... are weeping for thee at the same time, when
they behold me (Isis).
Lo! I invoke thee with wailing that reacheth high as heaven.

Isis is also identified with Hathor (Ishtar) the Cow.... "The cow
weepeth for thee with her voice."[127]

There is another phase, however, to the character of the mother
goddess which explains the references to the desertion and slaying of
Tammuz by Ishtar. "She is", says Jastrow, "the goddess of the human
instinct, or passion which accompanies human love. Gilgamesh ...
reproaches her with abandoning the objects of her passion after a
brief period of union." At Ishtar's temple "public maidens accepted
temporary partners, assigned to them by Ishtar".[128] The worship of
all mother goddesses in ancient times was accompanied by revolting
unmoral rites which are referred to in condemnatory terms in various
passages in the Old Testament, especially in connection with the
worship of Ashtoreth, who was identical with Ishtar and the Egyptian
Hathor.

Ishtar in the process of time overshadowed all the other female
deities of Babylonia, as did Isis in Egypt. Her name, indeed, which is
Semitic, became in the plural, Ishtarate, a designation for goddesses
in general. But although she was referred to as the daughter of the
sky, Anu, or the daughter of the moon, Sin or Nannar, she still
retained traces of her ancient character. Originally she was a great
mother goddess, who was worshipped by those who believed that life and
the universe had a female origin in contrast to those who believed in
the theory of male origin. Ishtar is identical with Nina, the fish
goddess, a creature who gave her name to the Sumerian city of Nina and
the Assyrian city of Nineveh. Other forms of the Creatrix included
Mama, or Mami, or Ama, "mother", Aruru, Bau, Gula, and Zerpanitu^m.
These were all "Preservers" and healers. At the same time they were
"Destroyers", like Nin-sun and the Queen of Hades,