title: A Study Guide to William Blake and The Four Zoas
author: tim4or5
universe: Paying Attention series
part: 9
summary: a longer version of part of story 9, Thom and the Minds
of Fire
keywords: MF


A Study Guide to William Blake and The Four Zoas

Copyright 2007, 2008 twalden4


Northrop Frye tried to explain Blake in his book Fearful
Symmetry. Most people know Blake wrote a poem about a tiger, many
have read some of his shorter lyric poetry, and some know he
wrote obscure longer poems. Except for a few frequently quoted
passages, the longest ones are only read by an occasional
graduate student, or the insane (I must create a system or be
enslaved by another man's. I will not reason and compare, my
business is to create. Jerusalem plate 10).

Blake used his ideas about Satan's fall, the world's creation,
and man's redemption in his early poems, and wrote them out in
his longer later works, the prophetic books, particularly in the
Four Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem. Blake changed his ideas after
writing seven sections of the Four Zoas, which he had originally
called Vala. He wrote a new version of section seven, then
sections eight and nine. He was not happy with what he had and
eventually abandoned it unpublished. For him, publication was a
long and tedious process. He engraved his text and illustrations
directly onto copper plates, his wife or he printed them by hand,
and he hand colored each copy. He had to do all this between the
illustration and engraving work he did for others, which paid the
bills. Milton contained 43 plates, Jerusalem 100 plates, and the
Four Zoas in the form he left it would have had about 81 plates.
I had a used 1970 edition of Blake's Poetry and Prose, edited by
Erdman and annotated by Bloom, which is different from other
editions. Written on left over proofs, the Four Zoas is full of
erasures and insertions and deletions, and editors keep changing
their minds about which words and lines to include or not
include. Blake and the editor left out most of the commas and
periods (of 139 manuscript pages, the last 93 have only 28
commas, and the final 15 have none), so the reader has to figure
out which words go together, what the complicated phrases apply
to, and where the long sentences begin and end.

Blake never did things the easy way. He divided Albion (God or
Britain or the Cosmos) into four aspects. He associated each
aspect with one of the four Living creatures or Zoa from Ezekiel
and Apocalypse, gave each an eternal name and a female
counterpart with another name, and had three of them fall from
grace separately. He also gave two of them fallen names. (Zoa is
already plural. The singular is Zoe, living creature or life, the
same word used for the luminous Life God sent to dwell within
Adam in the Secret Book of John.) Most of the Four Zoas is made
up of these various characters arguing or complaining. In fact,
that seems to be why each of them fell. I could see why Blake
wasn't happy with the poem. The four aspects are Love, Intellect,
Creation and Imagination, and can be matched up with the four
Lights from the Secret Book of John. Innocence and Experience
represent Love and Intellect. One isn't good and the other evil,
we need both to survive. I had to write my own study guide. I
know it's long, but his story is better and more important than
mine. There should be more of him and less of me. I shouldn't
mind. When I hear the voices of my friend and a girl I like
sharing an orgasm, I should be happy for both of them and not
jealous. Many of the quotes have been edited for length, and some
for clarity. Jerusalem is less obscure but not nearly as much
fun.

The Four Zoas starts with Tharmas complaining to Enion (Lost!
Lost! Lost! are my Emanations, Enion, O Enion! We are become a
victim of the Living we hide in secret, p 4). The other three
Zoas are from earlier poems. Tharmas first appears here and is
associated with eagles and water. He is the power of Creation.
His female counterpart or Emanation is the earth mother Enion,
who weaves life upon her loom. They live in Beulah, the garden of
potential being. Emanations are beings or things created by or
from other beings. It's a bit vague. The Living he mentions are
other Zoas, one of whom is Los. Enitharmon, the female
counterpart of Los, has hidden inside of Tharmas. Enion complains
about Tharmas's fear. Neither of them handle deception well. If
God isn't perfect, he isn't God. Tharmas falls and his Spectre
becomes part of Enion's weaving (So saying, he sank down into the
sea a pale white corpse. In torment he sank down and flowed among
her filmy woof, p 5). Tharmas becomes the sea, the chaotic watery
darkness or deep which surrounds Albion or Britain. Each of the
Zoas has a Spectre, which seems to be their shadow side or
opposite. Enion spends nine days weaving the Spectre of Tharmas
into her work as the circle of Destiny, since without Tharmas's
power beings can no longer be created. They must be born. This is
the first story of the war in heaven. We learn more about it in
later.

She drew the Spectre forth from Tharmas, in her shining loom
of vegetation, weeping in wayward infancy and sullen youth.
Listening to her soft lamentations, soon his tongue began
to lisp out words, and soon in masculine strength augmenting, he
reared up a form of gold and stood upon the glittering rock,
a shadowy human form, winged, and in his depths
the dazzlings as of gems shone clear, rapturous in fury,
glorying in his own eyes, exalted in terrific pride.
Opening his rifted rocks, mingling together, they join in burning
anguish,
mingling his horrible darkness with her tender limbs. Then high
she soared,
shrieking above the ocean, a bright wonder that nature shuddered
at,
half woman and half beast. All his darkly waving colors mix
with her fair crystal clearness in her lips and cheeks, his
metals rising
in blushes like the morning and his rocky features softening,
a wonder lovely in the heavens, or wandering on the earth
with female voice warbling upon the hollow vales,
beauty all blushing with desire, a self-enjoying wonder. (pp 6-7)

Later the editor decided that speeches by the Spectre of Tharmas
and by Enion go in the middle of this passage (Exalted in
terrific pride the Spectre thus spoke, Who art thou diminutive
husk and shell?). Los and Enitharmon are born to Enion and grow
quickly. Los is the Zoa associated with men and earth, and his
unfallen name is Urthona. He is the power of Imagination, of and
poetry and redemption, the eternal Prophet, and he works as a
smith. Enitharmon is his female counterpart and another weaver of
life. Since one of them had hidden inside Tharmas before his
fall, they get born into the world of Time instead of falling
there. Los is the Zoa who doesn't fall.

Then Eno, a daughter of Beulah, took a moment of time
and drew it out to seven thousand years, with much care and
affliction
and many tears, and in every year made windows into Eden.
She also took an atom of space and opened its center
into infinitude and ornamented it with wondrous art.
Astonished sat her sisters of Beulah to see her soft affections.
They saw not not yet the hand Divine for it was not yet revealed,
but Los and Enitharmon delighted in the moony spaces of Eno. (p
9)

The daughters of Beulah are unformed spirits. Without Tharmas,
they can only take on form by being born into the fallen world as
beings or things or ideas. Los and Enitharmon wander the world.
Because they are Imagination he can see the future and control
time, she can control space. Los remembers who they are and sees
their parents mourning, but Enitharmon sings a song of Death
(upon the pillow Vala slumbered, in visions of Vala I walked with
the fallen mighty one, p 10). Los smites and scorns her (twas
long eer she revived, p 11). She responds. The night darkens and
the ground trembles. Urizen descends (the one must have murdered
the other if he had not descended, p 12). Urizen is the Zoa
associated with lions, tigers and horses. He is Wisdom or age or
experience, the power of tyranny and regulation. He is the
religious or intellectual or political order against which Orc
rebels. He is Blake's prince of Light, and in his fallen state is
the angry God. Los argues with Urizen but agrees to marry
Enitharmon (they eat the fleshly bread, they drank the nervous
wine, p 12). This is a bad thing (crowned with roses and the
circling vine, p 16). They and the world lose the power of
Imagination and submit to the regulations of Urizen. Enitharmon
still won't have sex with Los.

Blake's early prophetic poem America had Orc and Urizen as the
young God and the old God. In the Four Zoas, after Blake's
disillusionment with revolution, the opposition changes to Los
and Urizen as the open God and the rigid God. Instead of Love vs
Intellect, it becomes Imagination vs Intellect. Intellect without
compassion is war, but Love without vision is blind. Only the
power of Creation and sex unites Love and Intellect. Then
Imagination can join. I don't know how Blake reconciled this
elaborate scheme with his hatred of abstraction and
generalization (he who would do good to another must do it in
minute particulars. Jerusalem plate 55). Maybe that's why he
abandoned the poem.

There appears to be a power above Albion, which is mentioned on
pages 21, 55, 64 and 99, but it could be a form or remnant of him
(then those in great Eternity met in the Council of God, p 21).
They are many and one and everyone and Jesus (they in him and he
in them). Messengers from Beulah arrive and tell them Albion is
sick (he whom thou lovest). They tell about Urizen plotting with
Luvah against the holy tent or the Council or Jerusalem or Albion
or something (each tenth man is bought and sold). Luvah is the
Zoa associated with bulls and fire. He is Love or youth or
innocence, the power of rebellion. In earlier poems he was called
Orc, which is his fallen name, and revolution included
redemption. Blake changed that when Americans kept owning slaves
and the French revolution turned sour. His female counterpart is
Vala. Urizen tells Luvah to seize the chariots of the morning and
attack elsewhere, but Luvah knows it's a trick and refuses (I
will remain as well as thou, and here with hands of blood smite
this dark sleeper in his tent, then try my strength with thee, p
22). They and their sons fight. Urthona is at his anvil, and all
his sons join the fight. Enitharmon tears out of Urthona and
flees into Tharmas. We are now back to the situation at the
beginning of the poem, with Enion being jealous. Enion seems to
be inside Tharmas too, because this time we are told she murders
Enitharmon, hides her inside herself, and embalms her so she
can't come back to life (such a thing was never known in Eden,
that one died a Death never to be revived). Urthona's Spectre
also flees to Enion and his body falls. I'm not sure what this
means. He seems to change into a raging serpent and be driven off
(into the world of Tharmas into a caverned rock). Urizen
retreats, leaving Luvah to take the fall into an unknown space.
Jerusalem, the Emanation of Albion, is in ruins. This is a second
story of the war in heaven. After the council hears all this, it
gets out of the way and elects the seven Eyes of God as saviors,
the innermost of whom is Jesus. The page numbers are out of
sequence here and elsewhere.

The daughters of Beulah beheld the Emanation. They pitied,
they wept before the inner gates of Enitharmon's bosom,
and of her fine wrought brain, and of her bowels within her
loins.
Three gates within, glorious and bright, open into Beulah
from Enitharmon's inward parts, but the bright female terror
refused to open the bright gates. She closed and barred them
fast,
lest Los should enter into Beulah through her beautiful gates. (p
20)

This is the first section or night. In the second and third
nights Luvah has rebelled, Tharmas fallen, Urthona vanished, and
Albion been smote. Without his Divine vision he doesn't know
Urizen also rebelled, so he gives him authority, asks him to pity
Luvah's youth, and disappears into sleep. Or he does know and it
doesn't matter. Urizen exults that his plan worked and sets about
rebuilding the ruined cosmos. He pales at what he sees (mighty
was the draft of Voidness to draw Existence in, p 24). The bands
of heaven form and frame the plow and harrow, quadrant and
balance. They erect furnaces (the lions of Urizen stood round the
anvil, and the leopards covered with skins of beasts tended the
roaring fires). Blake's picture Ancient of Days shows Urizen
using his golden compass to measure out the earth according to
strict rules, the same way he showed Isaac Newton. Luvah is cast
in the furnaces and Vala feeds the fire, delights in his
howlings, and forgets who he is. Luvah is melted, the furnaces
unsealed, and the fluid poured in channels cut by the plow
dragged by the bulls of Luvah. They build twelve halls and three
domes surrounded by towns, nations and mountains. As Urizen
works, Ahania, his female counterpart, fades. Los and Enitharmon
joy at Luvah and Vala's sorrows. Urizen sees Vala complaining and
laboring among the brick kilns and fires (we are made to turn the
wheel for water, to carry the heavy basket, p 31). She can't
perceive Luvah (in vain his love brought him in various forms
before her, still she knew him not, still she despised him,
professing love, pp 31-32). Love is blind. Meanwhile, the
wonderful work arises.

On clouds the sons of Urizen beheld heaven walled round.
They weighed and ordered all, and Urizen comforted saw.
Thus were the stars of heaven created, like a golden chain
to bind the body of man to heaven, from falling into the abyss.
Each took his station and his course began with sorrow and care
according to their various powers, subordinate to Urizen,
traveling in silent majesty along their ordered ways. (p 33)

The stars will control the lives of men, but Urizen is still
terrified of the future and the unformed void. Enitharmon
worships the bright God, Urizen. She won't have sex with Los and
drives the other females away (for thou art mine, farewell the
God calls me away, p 34). She flees and leaves Los holding a
corpse. He drives complaining Enion to shadowy Ahania (there she
beheld the spectrous form of Enion in the void, and never from
that moment could she rest upon her pillow, p 36).

Ahania tells Urizen that she had a vision of Albion walking with
Vala. He idolized her, his own shadow, the work of his own hands
(if thou withdraw thy breath I die, p 40). Luvah descended and
smote the weakened Albion with boils (can Love seek for dominion?
p 41). It was a set up. Albion limited their senses and cast them
out. This is a third story of the war in heaven. Urizen doesn't
like Ahania's vision. He says he is God, seizes her by the hair,
and casts her out. But without Ahania, Urizen is not God. He and
his hosts fall with her into Death and life. Everything he has
built comes crashing down. It was all supported by his own rules
and regulations, and he has broken them. Their fall into chaos
rouses Tharmas, who cries for Enion. She dissolves and Ahania
replaces her as the complaining wanderer.

In the fourth, fifth and sixth nights Tharmas sees the fall of
Urizen's heaven as a deluge. Los and Enitharmon emerge together,
and Tharmas misses Enion (deathless for ever now I wander seeking
oblivion, are love and rage the same passion? they are the same
in me, p 47). He tells Los to rebuild the world, and Los defies
him (hitherto shalt thou come, no farther, here thy proud waves
cease, p 48). Tharmas throws Enitharmon far away and Los howls
(all the fibers rent where Enitharmon joined his left side, p
49). Tharmas tells the injured Spectre of Urthona to retrieve
Enitharmon (the dark Spectre who upon the shores with dislocated
limbs had fallen). The Spectre drives solid rock (a world, dark
dreadful, rose, and Enitharmon lay at Los's feet, p 51). Tharmas
threatens Los and leaves. Los seizes Urizen's ruined furnaces and
forms anvils. He creates time and a material body to bind Urizen,
and is trapped by his own fear and anger.

But Urizen slept in a stoned stupor in the nether abyss
in mighty power. Round him Los rolled furious,
frightened with cold infectious madness, in his hand the
thundering
hammer of Urthona, forming under his heavy hand the hours,
the days and years in chains of iron, round the limbs of Urizen.
(pp 52-3)

Los and Enitharmon shrink into fixed space, and she clings around
him and shrieks. Soft flute and harp and silver voices sound, and
daylight fades, as the earth begins to turn. It convulses.
Enitharmon groans and bears Orc, who is Luvah. Trumpets bellow,
demons wake and howl. Enitharmon nurses her fiery child. Los
builds Golgonooza on the lake of Udan Adan.

But when fourteen summers and winters had revolved over
their solemn habitation, Los beheld the ruddy boy
embracing his bright mother and beheld malignant fires
in his young eyes, discerning plain that Orc plotted his death.
(p 60)

An iron band grows around Los's chest each day and bursts each
night. It forms the chain of jealousy. Los seizes the boy, and
Enitharmon follows him, weeping, up the iron mountain. The chain
falls from his chest, and Los binds the boy (the hammer of
Urthona smote the rivets in terror, p 61). After returning to
Golgonooza Los repents and they go back (he thought to give
Enitharmon her son even if his own death resulted, p 62). They
can't free him.

Nor all Urthona's strength, nor all the power of Luvah's bulls,
though they each morning drag the unwilling sun out of the deep,
could uproot the infernal chain, for it had taken root
into the iron rock and grew. A chain beneath the earth,
even to the center, wrapping round the center and the limbs
of Orc entering with fibers, became one with him, a living chain.
(pp 62-3)

The gate in Enitharmon's heart opens and closes, and Vala stirs.
Orc's howling wakes Urizen (outstretched upon the stones of ice,
the ruins of his throne, p 63). He tells a fourth story of the
war in heaven, which may or may not be consistent with the
others.

My fountains, once the haunt of Swans, now breed the scaly
tortoise.
The houses of my harpers are become a haunt of crows.
Nine virgins clothed in light composed the song to their immortal
voices,
But now my land is darkened, and my wise men are departed.

O did I keep the horses of the day in silver pastures.
O I refused the Lord of day the horses of his prince.
O Fool could I forget, the light that filled my bright spheres
Was a reflection of his face who called me from the deep.

He said, Go forth and guide my Son who wanders on the ocean.
I went not forth. I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath.
We fell. I seized thee, dark Urthona, In my left hand falling.
I seized thee, beauteous Luvah, thou art faded like a flower.

Then thou didst keep with Strong Urthona the living gates of
heaven,
But now thou art bound down with him, even to the gates of hell,
Because thou gavest Urizen the wine of the Almighty
For steeds of Light, that they might run in thy golden chariot of
pride. (pp 63-5)

Urizen arises and, leaning on his spear, explores his dens. He
flies to a river and drinks from his helmet, then is driven back
by three women. One pours water, one attracts water, and one
divides it into four streams. They won't speak, and drain into
the rock when they recognize their father. He curses them.
Tharmas comes and threatens him, but Urizen freezes his waves and
ignores him. Urizen labors over mountains and deserts, annoyed by
scaled and finned monsters (the ruined spirits once his children
and the children of Luvah, p 70). He heads toward Urthona,
lighting his journey with a globe of fire, writing in his books
of iron and brass. He beholds suffering men and women in the
forms of beasts and serpents who can't see or hear anything
outside themselves. He is unable to help them and regrets his
curse. He leaves the south and approaches the east, a void of
sleet and hail and rain. He looks back, then throws himself in.
He falls. He hits a bed of clay.

When wearied dead he fell, the slimy bed his limbs renewed.
But still in solitude he sat, then rising, threw his flight
onward, though falling through the waste of night and ending in
death
and in another resurrection to sorrow and weary travel.
But still his books he bore in his strong hands, and his iron
pen.
He hid them when he slept in death. When he revived, the clothes
were rotted by the winds, the books remained still unconsumed.
For such a journey none but iron pens can write, nor can
the man who goes the journey, obstinate, refuse to write. (pp
71-2)

Urizen comes to a place where there is no up nor down. He says
that every direction he turns is upward, and after sleep revives
his spirit every direction is downward. The world is the ruin of
his once glorious heaven (books and instruments of song and
pictures of delight, where are they whelmed beneath these ruins?
p 73). He decides to start rebuilding where he is. He digs and
forms metal instruments (to measure out the immense and fix the
whole into another world, better suited to obey his will). The
people are terrified of the turning wheels of heaven and shrink
inward, and he gains dominion over all. These are still those who
fell from heaven with him, his children and Luvah's. His hair
turns white. He continues wandering. He comes to the world of
Urthona (where no tree grew nor river flowed, p 74). He continues
to the world of Los and hears Orc howling. He descends toward the
sound and is met by the Spectre of Urthona and Tharmas and their
armies. Urizen backs up and calls down comets (down among
Urthona's vales and round red Orc, returning back to Urizen
gorged with blood, p 75).

In the seventh and eighth nights the Spectre and Tharmas flee.
Urizen descends to the caves of chained Orc (howling Orc whose
awful limbs cast forth red smoke and fire, p 77). He sits on a
rock and reads his books. Orc rages, and Urizen tries to cool his
flames with his snows and storms.

Age after age, till underneath his heel a deadly root
struck through the rock. The root of Mystery, accursed, shooting
up,
branches into the heaven of Los. The piped forms, bending down,
take root again wherever they touch, again branching forth
in intricate labyrinths, oerspreading many a grisly deep.
Amazed started Urizen when he found himself compassed round
and high roofed over with trees. (p 78)

The tree of Mystery is religion that represses sex and
sensuality, and seems to be part of Orc's chain. It grows from
the snows of aged rationalism and opposes the fires of angry
passion. Urizen reads from his book (with pomp give every crust
of bread, say he smiles if you hear him sigh, p 80). Orc curses
his hypocrisy and becomes a serpent. The Shadow of Enitharmon is
drawn down to the tree of Mystery, and Los mourns (in my absence
flaming with beauty, cold pale in sorrow at my approach, p 81).
The Spectre of Urthona woos the Shadow. She tells him that Albion
walked in Beulah and saw Vala (upon her bosom in sweet bliss he
fainted, p 83). She became pregnant and bore Urizen. Then Albion
saw Vala as male and female, Luvah and Vala, and fled, but he
stayed in Beulah (among his family, his flocks and herds and
tents and pastures). Luvah conspired with Urizen and smote
Albion. She doesn't remember any more. This is a fifth story of
the war in heaven. The Spectre continues it. Albion was divided,
and the gentle passions stood before him as a bright female.
Urthona sank and was divided from Enitharmon in the womb of
Enion. He fled but formed a male counterpart of her, Los, to whom
he is now a slave. The Shadow weeps and embraces him fervently
(conferring times on times among the branches of that tree, p
85). She becomes pregnant and bears a shadowy female.

The gate in Enitharmon's heart bursts open, one of her three
gates that open to Beulah. Many dead burst forth (cruel and
ravening with enmity and hatred and war). These are those who
fell when Urizen's heaven collapsed, died in his battle with
Tharmas, and reappeared in Beulah as unformed spirits. The
Spectre reunites with Los, but Enitharmon flees. They build
Golgonooza higher (builded pillars high and domes terrific, for
beneath opened new heavens and a new earth, p 87). Enitharmon
eats the fruit of the tree of Mystery and sees that life feeds on
Death. She despairs and gives it to Los. Something about six
thousand years of sorrow. Los fabricates bodies, Enitharmon
breathes forth the dead, and the dead inhabit the bodies and calm
down. Orc, though bound, is comforted by his younger siblings.
These seem to be the first people on earth.

The Council of God meets. Albion stirs and sneezes seven times.
The shadowy female's delusion tempts the dead in Beulah through
Enitharmon's broken gate. In Golgonooza, Enitharmon sets up her
loom, Cathedron, in the gate of Luban and weaves new bodies for
them. The daughters of Beulah see Jesus.

When Urizen saw the Lamb of God clothed in Luvah's robes,
perplexed and terrified he stood, though well he knew that Orc
Was Luvah. But he now beheld a new Luvah, or one
who assumed Luvah's form and stood before him opposite. (p 101)

Urizen attacks Los. He sees the battle take the unintended form
of a vast shadowy hermaphrodite whom the soldiers name Satan.

Los builds the walls of Golgonooza against the stirring battle,
that only through the gates of Death they can enter to
Enitharmon.
And Urizen gave life and sense by his immortal power
to all his engines of deceit, that linked chains might run
through ranks of war spontaneous, and that hooks and boring
screws
might act according to their forms by innate cruelty. (pp 101-2)

The shadowy female, who is Vala and Rahab, prays to Urizen and
becomes Mystery.

I see the murderer of my Luvah clothed in robes of blood,
he who assumed my Luvah's throne in times of Everlasting.
Where hast thou hid him whom I love? in what remote abyss
resides that God of my delight? O might my eyes behold
my Luvah, then could I deliver all the sons of God.
Beginning at the tree of Mystery, circling its root,
she spread herself through all the branches, in the power of Orc.
(p 103)

What Vala wants, badly, is Luvah, or loving sex, but all she can
see is Orc, or angry sex, who she thinks killed Luvah and took
his place. Los's forges create the times and spaces of mortal
life, and the daughters of Enitharmon weave clothing for the dead
(in soft silk drawn from their own bowels in lascivious delight,
p 113). Satan's mills unwind the threads, and Rahab reweaves them
as despair and compunction and death. Rahab smites Jesus with her
knife of flint and nails him upon the tree of Mystery. Los
carries his body to the sepulcher. Rahab is divided and questions
Los. He says he is the shadowy Prophet who fell six thousand
years ago, and lists the generations of his sons and daughters
(Tamar, Rahab, Tirzah, Mary, p 115). He says Satan is a state.
There is a difference between states, and individuals in those
states (when Luvah in Orc became a serpent, he descended into
that state called Satan). The seven Eyes of God were sent, but
only Jesus was willing to die for Satan (Lucifer refused, Molech
was impatient, Elohim created Adam, Shaddai was angry, Pachad
terrified, and Jehovah leprous). Rahab goes to Urizen. He
embraces the shadowy female and becomes a stone idol (scales his
neck and bosom covered, and scales his hands and feet, p 106).
Tharmas feels the stony stupor, gives his power to Los, and
pursues vain hope into abstraction. Enion says Jesus has rent the
veil of Mystery and Albion will soon return.

So Man looks out in tree and herb and fish and bird and beast,
collecting up the scattered portions of his immortal body
into the Elemental forms of every thing that grows. (p 110)

Rahab triumphs and takes Jerusalem a willing captive (by delusive
arts impelled to worship Urizen's dragon form, to offer her own
children, p 111). But when she hears Enion's voice, no more
spirit remains in her. She leaves and communes with Orc in
secret, sometimes returning to Satan in pride, sometimes weeping
before Orc in humility.

The ninth night is the Apocalypse or rapture. Los and Enitharmon
weep over the crucified body. Jesus separates their spirit from
their body, the heavens crack, and the falling fires of Eternity
call the dead to Judgment (flames of mental fire bathing their
limbs in the bright visions of Eternity, p 118). Orc and the tree
of Mystery are consumed. Albion awakes and calls Urizen (wake
thou dragon of the deeps, p 120). Urizen repents and is
rejuvenated. Ahania appears and dies. Urizen drives his plow over
cities and mountains, and sows and harrows the Seed of Men (the
trembling souls of all the dead, p 124). Ahania reappears (like
the harvest moon Ahania cast off her death clothes, p 125). Luvah
reappears as a cloud, Vala as a young woman.

And on the river's margin she ungirded her golden girdle.
She stood in the river and viewed herself within the watery
glass,
and her bright hair was wet with the waters. She rose up from the
river,
and as she rose her eyes were opened to the world of waters.
She saw Tharmas sitting upon the rocks beside the wavy sea. (p
129)

Vala prays to Enion and Luvah, and Tharmas and Enion reappear as
children. Urizen takes his sickle and reaps. A feast is spread
for the Zoas, who are all restored, the Wine of Eternity is
served, and Albion rejoices. Urizen rises and threshes the grain,
and Tharmas blows the chaff into the sea. Luvah rises and gathers
the vintage (bear away the families of earth, p 135). The
winepresses are filled.

O terrible wine presses of Luvah, O caverns of the grave,
how lovely the delights of those risen again from Death.
O trembling joy, excess of joy is like excess of grief.
The pangs of eternal birth are better than the pangs of eternal
Death.
How red the sons and daughters of Luvah, how they tread the
grapes.
Naked in all their beauty, dancing round the wine presses,
they dance around the dying and they drink the howl and groan.
They catch the shrieks in cups of gold. They hand them to one
another.
These are the sports of love and these the sweet delights of
amorous play,
tears of the grapes, the death sweat of the cluster, the last
sigh
of the mild youth who listens to the luring songs of Luvah. (pp
136-7)

There are a bunch of different images all mixed up here.
Winepresses and workers, graves with spirits being pressed out,
death of the body and birth to eternal life, workers dancing and
drinking and fucking, humans as grapes and grapes as humans,
confusion of workers with those in the winepress, Luvah as
Dionysus who is both God and grape and as Jesus whose blood is
wine, howls and groans of both death and sex, shrieks as orgasms
and cups of gold as vaginas, oral and ritual sex, grapes as
testicles with their juice as cum but also as tears and death
sweat, and a sigh of death, drunkenness, sex and exhaustion (many
fall oerwearied, drowned in the wine is many a youth and maiden,
p 136). Urthona and Tharmas rise from the feast (Urthona, limping
from his fall, on Tharmas leaned, in his right hand his hammer, p
137). Enion, Ahania, Vala and Enitharmon rise and work at their
looms. Tharmas separates the lees and takes the Wine of Ages to
Albion (the human Wine stood wondering, p 137). Urthona grinds
the grain and makes the Bread of Ages. The sun rises, seeds grow,
and the earth beams forth life. Dark religions are gone and
Knowledge reigns.

Except Blake doesn't use the word Knowledge, which he may have
associated with Intellect. He uses Science, but he doesn't mean
Isaac Newton or men in white lab coats. I think he means
something closer to an artistic sensitivity to a participatory
universe, or at least something that includes Imagination and
ethics.

What is happening in this poem? Albion starts out as the One.
Everything exists within him. He is Man, Internal Man, or
Universal Man. Before his fall, he may have been the one
associated with horses. His female side is Jerusalem, the city of
mental flames and expanded senses. Albion fucks Vala, who is
Love, and she bears Urizen. Albion sees Vala is also Luvah and
flees. Urizen, who is Intellect, convinces Luvah, who is also
rebellion, to rebel against Albion. Duh. Luvah sends Vala, his
female side, to fascinate Albion. He then attacks. Los hears the
conflict and Enitharmon, his female side, flees to Tharmas, who
is Creation. Enion, the female side of Tharmas, becomes jealous
and kills Enitharmon. This divides Tharmas and Enion, and he and
heaven sink into chaos. Albion casts out Luvah and Vala. Enion
uses her weaving to create earth and bears Enitharmon and Los as
children. Albion puts Urizen in charge and goes to sleep. Urizen
rebuilds heaven according to laws, as Ahania, his female side,
fades. Luvah and Vala are among his workers. Enitharmon won't
fuck Los, so he drives complaining Enion to Ahania, who depresses
her. Urizen casts out Ahania, and he and the new heaven fall with
her. This is the first three nights. I could have just said this,
but Blake puts the important stuff in the details, not in the
plot. Like an action movie where the important stuff is the
explosions and the effects.

Enitharmon hiding inside Tharmas seems to represent him having
sex with another woman. Enion being afraid and jealous is the
female will. A man and woman are supposed to be one unit and the
woman have no will, as a man is supposed to follow the will of
God. So women being jealous of men having sex with other women is
the ultimate source of all problems in the world. Blake had
issues, but he was following current interpretation of the Bible.
The legend of Lilith says she was Adam's first wife, created with
him on the sixth day. She wanted to be on top during sex and thus
his equal or superior, so she was banished to the wastes and
became a howling vampire. There is evidence that Blake wanted to
bring a second wife into his marriage, and that Catherine cried
and would not allow it. This was a source of friction between
them. The conflict in the poem is tearing Albion apart. Blake's
illustration on plate 25 of Jerusalem represents this. His body
contains the sun, moon and cosmos (those are stars upon his
thighs, real stars, not tattoos), and it is being torn out of him
by one of his daughters while another supports his head on her
knee and a third hovers over him (they could be Gwendolen, Ragan
and Gonorill).

Before the poem changed to Urizen vs Los, it was the Song of
Vala. Can Blake's original story be recreated? Some of it was
broken up into flashbacks. The first thing that happens, though
we are not told about it until later, is that Vala, who is Love,
seduces Albion. She may originally have been Albion's female
side. She bears Urizen, prince of Light, first born of
generation. Albion flees when he sees Luvah, who is now the male
side of Vala, and who may been part of Albion before they had
sex. An early case of homophobia. Since his senses are dulled,
Albion can't find his way back to heaven and eventually forgets
about it. (After he separates from Vala, he is separated from
Jerusalem.) He has more children, including Urthona and
Enitharmon, and possibly Tharmas and Enion. Urizen grows up in
the plains of Beulah. He convinces Luvah to rebel. Vala, separate
from Luvah, fascinates Albion. He worships her and sins against
himself. This makes him vulnerable to Luvah, but it is still no
contest. Vala and Luvah are cast out. When Urizen rebuilds
heaven, Vala becomes a worker. She mourns for Luvah. He is there,
but she is unable to recognize him. After heaven falls again,
Enitharmon bears Luvah as Orc. Much later, the Shadow of
Enitharmon bears Vala as a shadowy female. She wants Luvah but is
still unable to recognize him. Vala seduces the dead from Beulah
into the world. She prays to Urizen, her son who has grown old,
and spreads through the tree of Mystery. She sees Jesus clothed
in Luvah's robes of blood and kills him. She cuts the robes of
blood from him and reveals the temple of Satan to all heaven and
earth. What is left when both spirit and body are denied? Seeing
this divides her. She goes to Los and listens to his story of Orc
and Satan. She goes to Urizen, who embraces her and turns to
stone. She seduces Jerusalem and worships both Orc and Urizen,
her lover and son. She returns after the Apocalypse as a young
woman in a pastoral setting. She prays to Luvah and has a vision
of Tharmas. At the end, she works at a loom with the other female
counterparts.

Vala is responsible for Albion's fall, Jesus's death, and
Urizen's degradation, who were all the highest God. She has a
large role, but mostly sets things up so the other characters can
do something. She is the Pagan Goddess Aphrodite, Ishtar or
Inanna, with elements of Isis, Demeter and Orpheus, from the
older mystery religions. Vala is the Goddess of Love who mourns
her lost lover, Luvah. She journeys to the underworld to recover
him, but she is the one who becomes a shade or shadow. She is
Mary and the mystery religion that the church had become. In some
of the myths, the Goddess's lover is reborn each year as her son.
This resurrection or return represents spring and the growth of
plants. Mary mourning her son, Jesus, and women mourning Tammuz,
the lover of Ishtar or Astarte or Ashtoreth, are in the Bible.
Aphrodite was Venus, the morning star and bringer of Light. In
earlier myths she was the Dawn, and the two morning stars her
twin lovers. This became Helen of Troy and her two brothers
Castor and Pollux. In another story, Lucifer was the morning
star, who in Blake becomes Urizen, prince of Light. Vala worships
the twin idols Orc and Urizen, her lover and son, and sins
against herself. Both become serpents, which Blake uses as
phallic symbols in some pictures, and which are associated with
Ishtar. (Urizen becomes a serpent when Enitharmon flees to
Tharmas, and Tharmas seems to be Leviathan, thus all men are
snakes.) Vala starts as Albion's consort and ends as a textile
worker. She is an ambiguous figure.

For Blake, heaven is within, it is a state of mind, a way of
looking at things. He uses lots of different names for things and
it is hard to tell which of these names mean the same thing.
Heaven seems to be Eternity, the holy or universal or eternal
tent, Jerusalem, Albion, Man, Jesus, or the Council of God. I've
called it the world of Eternity. Critics use different schemes of
above and below, and center and circumference, to explain Blake's
different images of his topography. Another way, which may be no
worse, is to see it as a globe or sphere. Heaven is in one place.
On the opposite side or pole is earth. The image works better in
four dimensions as a hypersphere, but that may be too confusing.
Earth seems to be Time and Space, the fallen world, Nature,
Vegetation, Generation, or Life. I've called it the world of
Time. Between the two, and thus surrounding both of them, is
Beulah. Blake uses this name pretty consistently, and associates
it with the moon and moony places. It is a garden of unformed or
potential spirits or souls, the daughters of Beulah, and the
dwelling place of Tharmas. In his fallen state, Tharmas sees it
as a chaotic watery darkness or deep, the Chaos that surrounds
everything and where everything is a jumble, nothing has form.
Things or ideas originate in Eternity, and must pass through
Beulah to acquire an essence before being born or created in
Time. Blake's Beulah replaces Dante's Purgatory, which souls
passed through to lose their human qualities. Eden seems to
include both Jerusalem and Beulah.

Beneath or within these three is what Blake sometimes calls Ulro,
or hell. Some of it is fiery caverns, and some may be the inside
surface of the globe. If the globe is hollow, it would explain
why, to Urizen in night six, every direction always looks uphill.
He is on a surface which curves upward, like an ant inside a
basketball. It would also explain why, in another part, he feels
as if he is always falling. Inside a hollow world there is no
gravity. At any point in the interior, the pull of gravity in any
direction is exactly balanced by the pull in the opposite
direction, except for local variations in the thickness or
density of the enclosure. The pull of a nearby section of wall is
stronger, but there is a lot more wall in the other direction.
Ulro is eternal Death, the grave, non Existence, non Entity, the
void, caverns, a hollow den, an abyss, or hell. It is the
material or secular world viewed as an abstraction to be measured
and analyzed, where nothing has a soul or self and everything is
intellect. On earth there is self and non self, subject and
object, within and without, love and intellect. Beulah is
sometimes said to have three gates or aspects, heart and brain
and loins, love and intellect and creation, and may be glimpsed
at moments of orgasm or ecstasy. Artistic vision can see heaven,
which is the combination of the four Zoas, love and intellect and
creation and imagination. It is hard to tell which ideas are
Blake's and which were made up by people trying to understand the
poem.

Turning his eyes outward to self, losing the Divine vision. (p
23)
Their eyes, their ears, nostrils and tongues roll outward. They
behold
what is within now seen without. (p 25)
Contracting or expanding their all flexible senses,
at will to murmur in the flowers small as the honey bee,
at will to stretch across the heavens and step from star to star.
(p 34)
I will turn the volutions of your ears outward; and bend your
nostrils
downward; and your fluxile eyes, englobed, roll round in fear;
your writhing lips and tongue shrink up into a narrow circle. (p
42)

Blake talks about the senses in several places. In the world of
Time, the eyes look outward and see a dualistic world of subject
and object. In the world of Eternity, the Divine vision of the
Imagination looks inward and sees all things as self. Saying the
eyes are turned outward is sort understandable. Saying the tongue
is turned outward is confusing, so I am groping here. For Blake,
the tongue represents both touch and taste. He likes to do things
in four, so he has to combine two of the usual senses. Touch is
the most basic sense. It defines self. What you can feel is self.
What you can't feel without going over and touching it is not
self. You can feel the inside of what is self, your skin, throat
and muscles. You can only feel the outside of what is not self,
rocks and trees, except in the special case of something soft
with something hard inside. If in the world of Time touch is
shrunk, then in the world of Eternity touch is expanded.
Everything is self, everything is inside, and everything can be
felt. The insides of rocks and trees, things that are small or
far away, and also what other people feel inside their skins,
throats and muscles. This sounds like Blake knew about what
happens to me, sensing other minds and sharing their experience.
This might be what is behind the popular conception of Blake
having hallucinations and writing down what he saw.

We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Through the Eye
That was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
While the Soul Slept in Beams of Light.
God Appears and God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night.
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day. (from Auguries of Innocence)

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth. (from
Proverbs of Hell)

Blake wrote see With, then he changed it to see not Through,
which improves the rhythm but obscures the meaning. He was
looking for a quality. The enlightenment called it Intellect, but
Blake saw that reason can be cold and can rationalize anything.
He tried Love, but found love could be selfish and blind. He
settled on Imagination, the ability to see what isn't there, or
as Shaw and Kennedy said, to dream of things that never were and
ask why not. Looking at the concern for the suffering of others
shown in his work, perhaps a better word would be compassion.
Sometimes we need compassion instead of intellect to see the
truth. God is anthropomorphic, God has a human shape, God is not
an abstraction. As you do to the least of my brothers, you do to
me. Blake takes this literally. He uses many Gnostic beliefs, but
disagrees with the idea that the body and the material world are
evil or irrelevant. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which says
Innocence and Experience must be united into a single vision, may
be Blake's clearest statement of his beliefs.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk, or jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too. (from The Divine Image)

Cruelty has a Human Heart,
And Jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy the Human Dress. (from A Divine Image)

The four qualities in each of these poems are earlier versions of
the four Zoas from the Songs of Innocence and Songs of
Experience. Mercy and cruelty are Urthona and Los, pity and
jealousy are Urizen, love and terror are Luvah and Orc, peace and
secrecy are Tharmas. Blake may not have had all the names and
associations yet, but the ideas and qualities were already there.

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every black'ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls. (from London)

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes!
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? (from The Tyger)

The Tiger is the rebelling Lucifer, and the stars his angels, who
threw down their spears when the rebellion failed (the stars
threw down their spears and fled naked away, The Four Zoas p 64).
Why is there evil if God is all powerful and all merciful? The
Gnostics reply he is neither. God (or a female aspect of God)
made a mistake, which resulted in the deluded being who claims to
be God and punishes people for breaking his rules. (Without the
tiger there would be no story. The Jungle Book, and even Winnie
the Pooh, needed a tiger.) Sea and forest, nature without man,
were chaos. When Blake moved out of London for a time he was
miserable. He was an urban poet. The nature images he uses always
represent something else. A tiger is not just a tiger and, in
spite of what someone else might say, a rose is not a rose.

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy. (The Sick Rose)

I asked a thief to steal me a peach:
He turned up his eyes.
I ask'd a lithe lady to lie her down:
Holy and meek she cries.
As soon as I went an angel came.
He wink'd at the thief
And Smil'd at the the dame.
And without one word spoke
Had a peach from the tree,
And 'twixt earnest and joke
Enjoy'd the Lady. (from Blake's notebook)

What is it men in women do require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire. (A Question Answered)

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble Sheep a threat'ning horn;
While the Lilly white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn, nor a threat, stain her beauty bright. (The Lilly)

Rules were used by the church and state to separate and repress
people. The lives of the mill workers were highly regimented.
Women and children worked in dangerous and unhealthy conditions.
When you use the Law to repress people and commit injustice, when
you apply the prohibition against adultery (which originally
protected women) to women but not to men, you are not just
bending the Law, you are shattering it. The poor want freedom so
they can get food and shelter and companionship (liberty equality
fraternity), the rich want justice so they can keep their wealth
and control (order and discipline). Both are needed so people can
get what they need and not have it taken away. Not the letter of
the law but the spirit. Blake's parents or grandparents may have
belonged to a mystical offshoot of the Moravian church that had a
secret inner circle that practiced ritual sex, which would
explain where he got some of his unusual ideas. It is possible
that he was abused. Blake hated the church but was radically
Christian. On his death, his most explicit drawings and writings
were destroyed. For the next poem to sound right, cabinet has to
be pronounced with three syllables, as ca-bi-net.

The Maiden caught me in the Wild,
Where I was dancing merrily;
She put me into her Cabinet,
And Lock'd me up with a golden Key.

This Cabinet is form'd of Gold
And Pearl and Crystal shining bright,
And within it opens into a World
And a little lovely Moony Night.

Another England there I saw,
Another London with its Tower,
Another Thames and other Hills,
And another pleasant Surrey Bower,

Another Maiden like herself,
Translucent, lovely, shining clear,
Threefold each in the other clos'd --
O, what a pleasant trembling fear!

O, what a smile! a threefold Smile
Fill'd me, that like a flame I burn'd.
I bent to Kiss the lovely Maid,
And found a Threefold Kiss return'd.

I strove to seize the inmost Form
With ardor fierce and hands of flame,
But burst the Crystal Cabinet
And like a Weeping Babe became,

A weeping Babe upon the wild,
And weeping Woman, pale, reclin'd;
And in the outward air again
I fill'd with woes the passing Wind. (The Crystal Cabinet)

The Crystal Cabinet is about sex. The girl's cabinet with
glistening gold and pearl is her clitoris and vagina. She puts
the narrator's wild and dancing penis there and he experiences a
different state of reality, shining, moony and translucent. He
starts trembling with feeling and burning like fire. He
experiences her through multiple senses, touch and taste and
scent, and in multiple forms, as lover, beloved and child (the
moon and the three aspects of Beulah). She smiles and kisses with
three sets of lips, her mouth and outer and inner labia. He
strives to possess her inmost lips, his ardor grows fierce, he
bursts into flame inside her, and he ends up weak and exhausted
as a baby. After his orgasm he loses his vision. Now all he can
see is a pale woman lying next to him, and he's not happy about
it and doesn't seem to care about her. She may be a prostitute
and he may see himself as a victim. He saw another girl while
having sex with her, and it was this other girl that he wanted.
She may have been an illusion or a lie, or an aspect of her which
he lost when he tried to separate and possess it. There is no way
to tell from the words in the poem.

Blake's poetry is about religion and politics, but it is also
about psychology. The sons and daughters of the Zoas could be
different types of people. Those who have to explain and
rationalize and make rules for everything are sons of Urizen,
sensualists and rebels are sons of Luvah, visionary artists and
poets are sons of Los. I don't know who the sons of Tharmas are,
perhaps the workers who build or make things, and women who bear
children. Those who actually do the work or those caught in
chaos. Ahania, the female side of Urizen, the Zoa of Intellect,
is a shadowy and fading figure because Blake doesn't think women
are rational. At the beginning of the Four Zoas are these lines.

Four mighty ones are in every man. A perfect unity
cannot exist but from the universal brotherhood of Eden.
What are the natures of those Living creatures the heavenly
Father only
knoweth. No individual knoweth, nor can know in all Eternity. (p
3)