This book examines popular erotic myths with regard to their origins and literary treatment throughout antiquity. The relation of ritual to certain mythic patterns that reflect initiation rites is also considered. These myths reinforce the association between cult and mythology in literature. Initiation patterns were employed as literary metaphors for falling in love or even for holding a philosophical argument on human progress. The myths are chosen in order to form a narrative sequence, but also as an example of how mythic patterns can be variously manipulated in literature.

Examining the evolution of kingship in the Ancient Near East from the time of the Sumerians to the rise of the Seleucids in Babylon, this book argues that the Sumerian emphasis on the divine favour that the fertility goddess and the Sun god bestowed upon the king should be understood metaphorically from the start and that these metaphors survived in later historical periods, through popular literature including the Epic of GilgameA and the Enuma EliA . The author s research shows that from the earliest times Near Eastern kings and their scribes adapted these metaphors to promote royal...