SNOW CRASH

in the city of Eridu where Enki stored up the me-and got Enki to give her all the me. This is how the me were released into civilization.”

“Watery fortress, huh?” “Yes, sir.”

“How did Enki feel about this?”

“He gave them to her willingly, apparently because he was drunk, and besotted with manna’s physical charms. When he sobered up, he tried to chase her down and get them back, but she outsmarted him.”

“Let’s get semiotic,” Hiro mumbles. “The Raft is L. Bob Rife’s watery fortress. That’s where he stores up all of his stuff. All of his me. Juanita went to Astoria, which was as close as you could get to the Raft a couple of days ago. I think she’s trying to pull an manna.”

“In another popular Sumerian myth,” the Librarian says, “Inanna descends into the nether world.”

“Co on,” Hiro says.

“She gathers together all of her me and enters the land of no return.”

“Great.”

“She passes through the nether world and reaches the temple that is ruled over by Ereshkigal, goddess of Death. She is traveling under false pretenses, which are easily penetrated by the all-seeing Ereshkigal. But Ereshkigal allows her to enter the temple. As manna enters, her robes and jewels and me are stripped from her and she is brought, stark naked, before Ereshkigal and the seven judges of the underworld. The judges ‘fastened their eyes upon her, the eyes of death; at their word, the word which tortures the spirit, Inanna was turned into a corpse, a piece of rotting meat, and was hung from a hook on the wall.’ Kramer.”

“Wonderful. Why the hell would she do something like that?”

“As Diane Wolkstein puts it, ‘manna gave up - -. all she had accomplished in life until she was stripped naked, with nothing remaining but her will to be reborn.. - because of her journey to the underworld, she took on the powers and mysteries of death and rebirth.’”

“Oh. So I guess there’s more to the story?”