Ishtar

The Epic of Gilgamesh seems to be another brief look into Ishtar's life. It is interesting that this goddess who seems to be so powerful ultimately walks away with nothing in both this story and in the story of "Innana's Descent". As Harris mentions she is indeed an intriguing character. A woman who does seem to break many boundaries in her effort’s to get what she wants. In many ways her character seems to be very like Gilgamesh. They are both rash, as can be seen by the fact that both are all too eager to take upon seemingly impossible missions. Each of them have a violent temper, which drives them to kill. In Ishtar’s case she unleashes the wild bull that causes the death of many citizens, while Gilgamesh simply kills anything that happens to land in his path (such as the stone ones). Each of them ultimately fails in their objective. Ishtar is unable to achieve her rules of controlling the under world, while Gilgamesh is unable to achieve immortality. Nonetheless both of them are able to recover from these mistakes and return to the previous positions of king and goddess.
Upon considering their similarities one is tempted to wonder why they couldn't have gotten together perhaps they could have learned a little from each other. Perhaps as they realized the foolishness in the other they would have seen the foolishness in themselves.