In my review of A. Merritt's THE MOON POOL, I observed the following of his highly lapidary prose style:
Author Merritt takes great pleasure in describing the interfusion of loveliness and wickedness, of heaven and hell, and in future novels he develops this trope to greater effect.
SHIP OF ISHTAR is in my mind one of those more accomplished later novels, though the titular ship itself might seem to reject any such fusions, given that the ship is divided into a white-colored half devoted to Ishtar, Goddess of Love, and a black-hued half devoted to Nergal, God of Death. Furthermore, early in the novel the human representative of Ishtar on said ship, the priestess Sharane, explicitly lays down a rather Manichean separation between Love and Death that sounds more Christian than Babylonian to my ears.
"Between Ishtar and Nergal is and ever must be unending hatred and strife. For Ishtar is the Bestower of Life and Nergal is Taker of Life; she is the Lover of Good and he is the Lover of Evil. And how shall ever Heaven and Hell be linked; or life and death, or good and evil?"
That said, Sharane, relating to protagonist John Kenton the story of the Ship's creation, doesn't necessarily speak for her creator. It's true that unending strife rules the Ship, with Sharane and her fellow priestesses constantly warding off the mystical attacks of Klaneth and his priests of Nergal. And despite the opposition of male and female forces, Klaneth has no designs on Sharane. Most villains from similar adventure-romances were always the hero's competition for the girl, but Klaneth just wants Sharane dead. The two of them seem to validate the opposition of the gods they represent, deities who can enter the bodies of their servants at will, like the orisha-spirits of voodoo.
However, the Ship comes about because of a love that transgresses the normal boundaries between religious spheres. In ancient Babylon the Ishtar-priestess Zarpanit falls in love with the Nergal-priest Alasu, and the two begin meeting clandestinely. The mortals are about to consummate their love when, quixotically enough, both of their deities choose to possess their votaries at the same moment. Merritt is decorous in having Sharane claim that the two mortals did not quite "meet," which would have had the effect of bringing about a cosmic sex-act between two opposed forces. (It would have also been a traducement of Babylonian marital law, because in Merritt's world Ishtar is the wife of the war-god Bel.)
The Ship is created as a punishment for the rebellious votaries, in that Zarpanit and her retinue-- including Sharane-- must occupy one half of the ship while Alasu and his retinue-- including Klaneth-- must remain on the other side. However, Zarpanit and Alasu cross the forbidden barrier and die together. Thus Sharane and Klaneth inherit the punishment of the two dead lovers, though this ends up giving them an otherworldly immortality, as they and all in their contact remain preserved while the Babylon of history perishes.
Into this domain of sexual brinkmanship, modern-day Kenton enters. Yet he doesn't precisely get the same friendly welcome from the leading lady as Burroughs' heroes usually receive. Having heard her story, Kenton tells Sharane that Babylon is long gone. Sharane, who has already experienced an instant attraction for the American, becomes angry at his claim that she's a spectre who's outlived her culture. She has her warrior-maidens overwhelm Kenton and thrust him over the Nergal-side of the ship. Klaneth consigns Kenton to the oar-locks, ensuring that Klaneth will rue the day he did so. However, Kenton is more than a little wroth with Sharane as well, particularly when she and one of her maidens venture close enough to taunt the imprisoned oarsman.
"Satalu," [Sharane] murmured, "would you not think the sight of me would awaken even a slave? That any slave, so he were young and strong, would break his chains-- for me?"
I doubt any Burroughs heroines ever talked this way. Sharane is mocking Kenton for his enslavement, but at the same time she's daring him to use his masculine might to break free, claiming that even "any slave" would willingly break his bonds if tempted by her feminine charms. On some level she wants him to break free and ravish her, because ravishment is the proof of vital male energy. She pretends to be offended when Kenton responds that when he takes over the ship, he's also going to take her. But all these sallies are rough love-talk, not any sort of literal promise of rapine.
Kenton takes over the Ship of Ishtar and rids it of all other males except those in his retinue. However, the death-god Nergal hurls his own rejoinder, manifesting warriors to attack Kenton's forces (all before he takes Sharane, though he does catch her unaware in her cabin and bind her). But Ishtar sends her own female emissaries, not to fight the Nergal-men, but to overwhelm them with love. Both groups of magical minions dissolve in an act of cosmic sex, and immediately after, Sharane is suddenly converted to instant love of Kenton's masterful ways. The two retire to a cabin-- not without some more rough talk from Kenton-- and Merritt tells us that the goddess sends down her sacred doves to consecrate this "wedding" of Babylonian priestess and American archaeologist.
The latter part of the book throws another image of sexual duplication into the mix. Sharane, captured by Klaneth's forces, is taken to Emaktila, another still-living part of Old Babylon. Almost all of the action on this island takes place in the Temple of Seven Zones, which like the Ship is a shrine dedicated to more than one god-- in fact, to all seven of Babylon's planetary deities.
Now at the Temple Merritt plays up a detail about Sharane: that she's actually a priestess of Bel, not of his wife Ishtar, and this opens her to a new kind of peril. Even though Sharane has obviously had sex with Kenton, she stands in danger of having sex with another man-- because Shalamu, the priest of Bel, is a twin for Kenton. Shalamu takes over the role scorned by Klaneth: that of the rotter who's willing to rape a woman for sheer lust. Kenton invades the temple to save Sharane, and the two men fight. Ironically, Shalamu is doomed not by Kenton but by a female dancer, Narada, who loves the Bel-priest and stabs him by mistake. Sharane then kills Narada, so that the "good couple" wins out over "the bad couple."
Nergal and Ishtar have a mystical conflict toward the novel's end, but for the most part their opposition becomes less important for most of the latter half of the story. In a larger symbolic sense, Bel and Nergal are equivalent menaces, in that the union of the good couple is threatened by the human representatives of both male gods. In contrast, Ishtar ends up being beneficent to the good couple, which follows from her consecration of their unofficial marriage.
Without going into too much detail, suffice to say that the Babylonian fantasy-world does not endure, and all of its occupants, including the one alien to that domain, meet their doom as well. Merritt presents this doleful demise with an upbeat note, implying that Kenton and Sharane will be united in some Babylonian heaven. I consider SHIP to be Merritt's strongest novel for two reasons. For one, he weaves a strong sexual myth out of his take on ancient pagan beliefs. And for two, Merritt takes all the old gods seriously, rather than depicting them as too many authors of the time did: as super-scientific entities from Atlantis or the planet Pluto.
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