Jerusalem Chapter Two

Notes:

Every ornament of perfection: The two paragraphs describe the natural sequence of events in the world (or more properly in Ulro when the Fall happened: this life is a Vale of Tears. The fallen Albion condemns everything good and beautiful to be Sin, condensed into hard rock and that 'Man be separate from Man'.

'Cold Snows': it's an Ice Age.

'Tyburns brook': As a boy Blake lived close to Tyburn, where frequent public hangings took place (often including small children). That was emphatically burned into his consciousness and may have led to his frequent mention of Druidic practices.

'A deadly Tree': the Tree of Mystery, where Christ was crucified. (The Tree was mentioned in the Old Testament.) It was related to the Law of Moses, with all its 'thou shalt nots'. The Tree grew and turned into a banyan, 'an endless labyrinth of woe'.

The Eternal mode is 'self-sacrifice', but after the Fall it became sacrifice of (miscall'd) Enemies. You and I may struggle with the last paragraph.

The Picture: (Click on this picture, and it will enlarge

many fold.

The two lovers in the lilly are lovely, but notice the snake that's coiled around them. The two lovers of course are Adam and Eve, The first paragraph of the text shows the lilly as the Garden of Eden. (Some people interpret the long rope as a veil.)

In later copies of this plate the lovers can be seen as

two females, namely Vala and Jerusalem; it's like The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Erdman (307) thought the background to be the Thames.

There appear four fish, the second one (where Albion 'plants his seat' thought to be a kind of shrimp.)

**************************************************************************************************************

**************************************************************************************************************

PLATE 29 [33]

Turning his back to the Divine Vision, his Spectrous

Chaos before his face appeard: an Unformed Memory.

Then spoke the Spectrous Chaos to Albion darkning cold

From the back & loins where dwell the Spectrous Dead

I am your Rational Power O Albion & that Human Form

You call Divine, is but a Worm seventy inches long

That creeps forth in a night & is dried in the morning sun

In fortuitous concourse of memorys accumulated & lost

It plows the Earth in its own conceit, it overwhelms the Hills

Beneath its winding labyrinths, till a stone of the brook

Stops it in midst of its pride among its hills & rivers[.]

Battersea & Chelsea mourn, London & Canterbury tremble

Their place shall not be found as the wind passes over[.]

The ancient Cities of the Earth remove as a traveller

And shall Albions Cities remain when I pass over them

With my deluge of forgotten remembrances over the tablet

So spoke the Spectre to Albion. he is the Great Selfhood

Satan: Worshipd as God by the Mighty Ones of the Earth

Having a white Dot calld a Center from which branches out

A Circle in continual gyrations. this became a Heart

From which sprang numerous branches varying their motions

Producing many Heads three or seven or ten, & hands & feet

Innumerable at will of the unfortunate contemplator

Who becomes his food[:] such is the way of the Devouring Power

And this is the cause of the appearance in the frowning Chaos[.]

Albions Emanation which he had hidden in jealousy

Appeard now in the frowning Chaos prolific upon the Chaos

Reflecting back to Albion in Sexual Reasoning Hermaphroditic

Albion spoke. Who art thou that appearest in gloomy pomp

Involving the Divine Vision in colours of autumn ripeness

I never saw thee till this time, nor beheld life abstracted

Nor darkness immingled with light on my furrowd field

Whence camest thou! who art thou O loveliest? the Divine Vision

Is as nothing before thee, faded is all life and joy

Vala replied in clouds of tears Albions garment embracing

I was a City & a Temple built by Albions Children.

I was a Garden planted with beauty I allured on hill & valley

The River of Life to flow against my walls & among my trees

Vala was Albions Bride & Wife in great Eternity

The loveliest of the daughters of Eternity when in day-break

I emanated from Luvah over the Towers of Jerusalem

And in her Courts among her little Children offering up

The Sacrifice of fanatic love! why loved I Jerusalem!

Why was I one with her embracing in the Vision of Jesus

Wherefore did I loving create love, which never yet

Immingled God & Man, when thou & I, hid the Divine Vision

In cloud of secret gloom which behold involve me round about

Know me now Albion: look upon me I alone am Beauty

The Imaginative Human Form is but a breathing of Vala

I breathe him forth into the Heaven from my secret Cave

Born of the Woman to obey the Woman O Albion the mighty

For the Divine appearance is Brotherhood, but I am Love

(Erdman 175-6)

Notes:

Every ornament of perfection: The two paragraphs describe the natural sequence of events in the world (or more properly in Ulro when the Fall happened: this life is a Vale of Tears. The fallen Albion condemns everything good and beautiful to be Sin, condensed into hard rock and that 'Man be separate from Man'.

'Cold Snows': it's an Ice Age.

'Tyburns brook': As a boy Blake lived close to Tyburn, where frequent public hangings took place (often including small children). That was emphatically burned into his consciousness and may have led to his frequent mention of Druidic practices.

'A deadly Tree': the Tree of Mystery, where Christ was crucified. (The Tree was mentioned in the Old Testament.) It was related to the Law of Moses, with all its 'thou shalt nots'. The Tree grew and turned into a banyan, 'an endless labyrinth of woe'.

The Eternal mode is 'self-sacrifice', but after the Fall it became sacrifice of (miscall'd) Enemies. You and I may struggle with the last paragraph.

The Picture: (Click on this picture, and it will enlarge

many fold.

The two lovers in the lilly are lovely, but notice the snake that's coiled around them. The two lovers of course are Adam and Eve, The first paragraph of the text shows the lilly as the Garden of Eden. (Some people interpret the long rope as a veil.)

In later copies of this plate the lovers can be seen as

two females, namely Vala and Jerusalem; it's like The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Erdman (307) thought the background to be the Thames.

There appear four fish, the second one (where Albion 'plants his seat' thought to be a kind of shrimp.)

**********************************************************************************

**********************************************************************************

Plate 31

PLATE 45 [31]

His western heaven with rocky clouds of death & despair.

Fearing that Albion should turn his back against the Divine

Vision

Los took his globe of fire to search the interiors of Albions

Bosom, in all the terrors of friendship, entering the caves

Of despair & death, to search the tempters out, walking among

Albions rocks & precipices! caves of solitude & dark despair,

And saw every Minute Particular of Albion degraded & murderd

But saw not by whom; they were hidden within in the minute

particulars

Of which they had possessd themselves; and there they take up

The articulations of a mans soul, and laughing throw it down

Into the frame, then knock it out upon the plank, & souls are

bak'd

In bricks to build the pyramids of Heber & Terah. But Los

Searchd in vain: closd from the minutia he walkd, difficult.

He came down from Highgate thro Hackney & Holloway towards London

Till he came to old Stratford & thence to Stepney & the Isle

Of Leuthas Dogs, thence thro the narrows of the Rivers side

And saw every minute particular, the jewels of Albion, running

down

The kennels of the streets & lanes as if they were abhorrd.

Every Universal Form, was become barren mountains of Moral

Virtue: and every Minute Particular hardend into grains of sand:

And all the tendernesses of the soul cast forth as filth & mire,

Among the winding places of deep contemplation intricate

To where the Tower of London frownd dreadful over Jerusalem:

A building of Luvah builded in Jerusalems eastern gate to be

His secluded Court: thence to Bethlehem where was builded

Dens of despair in the house of bread: enquiring in vain

Of stones and rocks he took his way, for human form was none:

And thus he spoke, looking on Albions City with many tears

What shall I do! what could I do, if I could find these

Criminals

I could not dare to take vengeance; for all things are so

constructed

And builded by the Divine hand, that the sinner shall always

escape,

And he who takes vengeance alone is the criminal of Providence;

If I should dare to lay my finger on a grain of sand

In way of vengeance; I punish the already punishd: O whom

Should I pity if I pity not the sinner who is gone astray!

O Albion, if thou takest vengeance; if thou revengest thy wrongs

Thou art for ever lost! What can I do to hinder the Sons

Of Albion from taking vengeance? or how shall I them perswade.

So spoke Los, travelling thro darkness & horrid solitude: And he beheld Jerusalem in Westminster & Marybone, Among the ruins of the Temple: and Vala who is her Shadow, Jerusalems Shadow bent northward over the Island white. At length he sat on London Stone, & heard Jerusalems voice. Albion I cannot be thy Wife. thine own Minute Particulars, Belong to God alone. and all thy little ones are holy They are of Faith & not of Demonstration: wherefore is Vala

Clothd in black mourning upon my rivers currents, Vala awake!

I hear thy shuttles sing in the sky, and round my limbs

I feel the iron threads of love & jealousy & despair.

Vala reply'd. Albion is mine! Luvah gave me to Albion

And now recieves reproach & hate. Was it not said of old

Set your Son before a man & he shall take you & your sons

For slaves: but set your Daughter before a man & She

Shall make him & his sons & daughters your slaves for ever!

And is this Faith? Behold the strife of Albion, & Luvah

Is great in the east, their spears of blood rage in the eastern

heaven

Urizen is the champion of Albion, they will slay my Luvah:

And thou O harlot daughter! daughter of despair art all

This cause of these shakings of my towers on Euphrates.

Here is the House of Albion, & here is thy secluded place

And here we have found thy sins: & hence we turn thee forth,

For all to avoid thee: to be astonishd at thee for thy sins:

Because thou art the impurity & the harlot: & thy children!

Children of whoredoms: born for Sacrifice: for the meat & drink

Offering: to sustain the glorious combat & the battle & war

That Man may be purified by the death of thy delusions.

So saying she her dark threads cast over the trembling River:

And over the valleys; from the hills of Hertfordshire to the

hills

Of Surrey across Middlesex & across Albions House

Of Eternity! pale stood Albion at his eastern gate,

(Erdman 194-5)

Notes:

The bottom picture:

The figure on the left is Vala; she holds a spindle in her

right hand and in her left she passes the thread between

her legs and enmeshes Jerusalem in her vale. Reading line 48-9 Jerusalem says 'round my limbs I feel the iron threads of jealousy and despair' (Morton Paley; page 180).

'The pyramids of Heber and Terah' Heber was the son of Shem, father of the Semites(?). Terah was Abraham's father.

The post concerns Los and his globe of fire. Highgate, Hackney, and Holloway are various locations away from London as are Straford, Stepney, and the Isle of Leutha's Dogs; Blake is telling us that Los made his journey through southwestern England searching for the interiors of Albions bosom. (The man had a vivid imagination!)

The fallen Albion obviously had a dismal bosom; this may be Blake's way of commenting on Luke 16:19-26. Albion and (father) Abraham might well be compared; therefore Blake might be commenting of the iron laws of the Old Testament.

There's much more to this plate!!

***************************************************************************************************

***************************************************************************************

PLATE 46 [32]

Leaning against the pillars, & his discase rose from his skirts

Upon the Precipice he stood! ready to fall into Non-Entity.

Los was all astonishment & terror: he trembled sitting on the

Stone

Of London: but the interiors of Albions fibres & nerves were

hidden

From Los; astonishd be beheld only the petrified surfaces:

And saw his Furnaces in ruins, for Los is the Demon of the

Furnaces;

He saw also the Four Points of Albion reversd inwards

He siezd his Hammer & Tongs, his iron Poker & his Bellows,

Upon the valleys of Middlesex, Shouting loud for aid Divine.

In stern defiance came from Albions bosom Hand, Hyle, Koban,

Gwantok, Peachy, Brertun, Slaid, Huttn, Skofeld, Kock, Kotope

- 195 -Bowen: Albions Sons: they bore him a golden couch into the porch

And on the Couch reposd his limbs, trembling from the bloody

field.

Rearing their Druid Patriarchal rocky Temples around his limbs.

(All things begin & end, in Albions Ancient Druid Rocky Shore.)

*******************************************************************

This text obviously bears little acquaintance with the text. It seems best to discuss the picture, which is one of the most obvious contraries between Vala and Jerusalem. The veiled figure on the left is obviously Vala and the naked figure in the center Jerusalem. (Veils and nakedness have often been explained to differentiate between the garment of worldlings and the nakedness in Eternity, which is to say that Vala represents the world and materiality while Jerusalem (the bride of Christ) represents the nakedness with which we all expect to arrive at the Heavenly Gate.

Note that the church at the lower left is St. Paul, the citadel of Anglicanism, a flawed institution, especially in Blake's time, while the one on the right is Westminster Abbey, which goes back way before the Reformation. Once again, a marker between materiality and eternity.

Vala is dark- like Ulro, while Jerusalem is radiant.

The three younger figures clutched around Jerusalem might be called her daughters.

*******************************************************************************

this Gate cannot be found By Satans Watch-fiends tho' they search numbering every grain Of sand on Earth every night, they never find this Gate. It is the Gate of Los. Withoutside is the Mill, intricate, dreadful And fill'd with cruel tortures; but no mortal man can find

the Mill

Of Satan, in his mortal pilgrimage of seventy years

For Human beauty knows it not: nor can Mercy find it! But

In the Fourth region of Humanity, Urthona namd, Mortality begins

to roll the billows of Eternal Death

Before the Gate of Los. Urthona here is named Los.

And here begins the System of Moral Virtue, named Rahab.

Albion fled thro' the Gate of Los, and he stood in the Gate.

Los was the friend of Albion who most lov'd him. In

Cambridgeshire

His eternal station, he is the twenty-eighth, & is four-fold.

Seeing Albion had turn'd his back against the Divine Vision,

Los said to Albion, Whither fleest thou? Albion reply'd.

I die! I go to Eternal Death! the shades of death

Hover within me & beneath, and spreading themselves outside

Like rocky clouds, build me a gloomy monument of woe:

Will none accompany me in my death? or be a Ransom for me

In that dark Valley? I have girded round my cloke, and on my feet

Bound these black shoes of death & on my hands, death's iron

gloves:

God hath forsaken me, & my friends are become a burden

A weariness to me, & the human footstep is a terror to me.

Los answerd, troubled: and his soul was rent in twain:

Must the Wise die for an Atonement? does Mercy endure Atonement?

No! It is Moral Severity, & destroys Mercy in its Victim.

So speaking, not yet infected with the Error & Illusion,

Notes:

In the second paragraph we see Urthona namd, Mortality begins to roll the billows

of Eternal Death Before the Gate of Los. Urthona here is named Los: so who is

Urthona? It's typical of Blake to use one word with several (or many!) meanings.

In this case Urthona is Los (fallen); his name is (also) Mortality; he goes

on to explicate: 'the system of Moral Virtues, named Rahab.'

This is another of the many explanations of the meaning of Fallenness in Blake's myth

then we have an amplified description of Los.

The dialogue between Albion and Los could be considered a meditation on the meaning of

the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross, with sentiments that many of us share.

The Pictures:

There are two. The top one shows a satanic old king surrounded by bat-wings on his horse shooting an arrow from a three fold bow at--what? (In nightmares I see myself shooting

arrows at my three sons.) In the text of this plate Blake tells us in line 1 that Satan's watch fiends cannot find the Gate of Los. There it is. (look also at this little picture in the Gates of Paradise.) Blake has sent his own arrow at the Pale Horse.

Below the setting sun resembles the cogwheels (satanic mills) of Plate 22 (Erdman1 301).

********************************************************

*******************************************************

PLATE 36 [40]

Los shudder'd at beholding Albion, for his disease

Arose upon him pale and ghastly: and he call'd around

The Friends of Albion: trembling at the sight of Eternal Death

The four appear'd with their Emanations in fiery

Chariots: black their fires roll beholding Albions house of

Eternity

Damp couch the flames beneath and silent, sick, stand shuddering

Before the Porch of sixteen pillars: weeping every one

Descended and fell down upon their knees round Albions knees,

Swearing the Oath of God! with awful voice of thunders round

Upon the hills & valleys, and the cloudy Oath roll'd far and wide