Characters
Oct 28, 2010
The Characters
When Albion fell asleep, he divided into the four zoas:
The Emanations: (Each zoa has an emanation: his feminine, passive half, his wife, lover, consort, whatever it seems like she is at the moment):
Other Characters
Albion has a composite character second to none. It means (originally) England, but at a deeper level it means the cosmos, which is a man!. (In this Blake agrees with the Adam Kadmon of the Kabbalah, the Heavenly Man of Philo, St. Paul's heavenly man, the second Adam, and the cosmic man of Gnostic mythology, and the Hindu god, Krishna.)
Albion, the eternal man, fell asleep into mortality in Beulah. We read at the beginning of Night 2 these ominous words:
Rising upon his Couch of Death Albion beheld his Sons
Turning his Eyes outward to Self, losing the Divine Vision. Albion called Urizen & said:
"Take thou possession! take this Scepter! go forth in my might
For I am weary, & must sleep in the dark sleep of Death.
He divides and divides into four parts, the four zoas (strangely similar to the four functions promulgated a hundred years later by Carl Jung).
This dissolution of the cosmic man, described at the beginning of The Four Zoas, passes through the Circle of Destiny, and at the end of The Four Zoas he awakens from his mortal sleep and resumes his place in Eternity. That in essence is a thumbnail account of Blake's myth: descent from Eternity, struggle, and eventually return.
Jerusalem
Every (male) character in Blake has an emanation; this conforms to Heraclitus' doctrine of contraries, and indicates the ultimate duality. The (male) character represents active energy (especially in Great Eternity), which the (female) emanation represents passive repose. (when Albion fell things changed!)
[Blake thereby unfortunately and unwittingly insulted in a deadly way many if not all 'women's libbers'. But Blake had simply followed the virtually universal principle of mythopoetic sex. Some very secure women find it possible to excuse this violation of 'pc' from one born two centuries ago, just as they excuse the apostle Paul for a few of his unfortunate remarks. We all have failings, and Blake taught above all forgiveness.]
Albion's emanation, Jerusalem, remains eternal through all the Wheel of Destiny; Blake gave her fallen component other names, particularly Vala, Tirzah, and Rahab.
The Four Zoas and their Emanations
When I began to attempt The Four Zoas, I soon realized that Blake saw much more than I can possibly see. Reading it is always an adventure: how much can you grasp? There will always be more to strive for. What follows is an initial attempt to describe the ten primary characters who appear in The Four Zoas.
No matter how much you study Blake much will always remains opaque to many (or most) of us. In that respect he's very like the Bible. In fact he began the poem with a verse from St. Paul, which tell us what he means to do with the poem:
4 lines of Greek text; Ephesians 6: 12:
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
(King James version)]>
Tharmas
Although we hear of the birth of these characters, some from others, they are actually manifestations of the four functions of the Eternal Man (later celebrated by Carl Jung).
Urizen
The word strongly suggests reason, the primary quality of Urizen. Blake felt that the hegemony of rational thinking since The Enlightment had had a stultifying and destructive influence on the British culture. He chose Bacon, Newton and Locke to epitomize that destructive influence. He chose Urizen to exemplify it in his myth.
At the final consummation Blake rehabilitated Bacon, Newton and Locke. They appeared counterbalancing Blake's three great poets.
The Druid Spectre was Annihilate loud thundring rejoicing terrific vanishing J98.7; E257| Fourfold Annihilation & at the clangor of the Arrows of Intellect J98.8; E257| The innumerable Chariots of the Almighty appeard in Heaven J98.9; E257| And Bacon & Newton & Locke, & Milton & Shakspear & Chaucer (Jerusalem 98: 6-9 [257])
In Night II of The Four Zoas Urizen lost his faith and in vision saw the world collapsing into darkness:
Urizen rose from the bright Feast like a star thro' the evening sky.
First he beheld the body of Man pale, cold; the horrors of death
Beneath his feet shot thro' him as he stood in the Human Brain,
Pale he beheld futurity; pale he beheld the Abyss
......[he said:]
Build we a Bower for heavens darling in the grizzly deep,
Build we the Mundane Shell around the Rock of Albion.
FZ2: 23:9-24.8; (314)
The Mundane Shell thus represents the world as we know it with the two contraries, darkness and light competing for priority. (For example after WWII with the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Germany and Japan light came relatively to the fore, to be succeeded by the terrible darkness and chaos of the Vietnam disaster.)
The darkness led Urizen to this confession.
O Fool could I forget the light that filled my bright spheres
Was a reflection of his face who calld me from the deep? I well remember for I heard the mild & holy voice saying
'O light spring up and shine' and I sprang up from the deep
He gave to me a silver scepter & crownd me with a golden crown
and said Go forth & guide my Son who wanders on the ocean.
I went not forth. I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath
I calld the stars around my feet in the night of councils dark
The stars threw down their spears and fled naked away.
We fell.
(Four Zoas Night 5 64:20-28, [344]
More about this in the next section:
Urizen symbolized the demiurge, used by gnostic and other philosophers as the lesser god who created this sorry mess, our world. Urizen often shaded into a Moses like figure, constantly looking at and working on his books of the law, the vengeful Old Testament God, and other uncomplimentary names. In the fallen condition he shades into Satan:
Urizen calld together the Synagogue of Satan in dire Sanhedrin
To Judge the Lamb of God to Death as a murderer & robber. (FZ8-109:6-7) [378])
Urizen lost prominence in the later epics
Luvah
If Urizen suggested reason, then Luvah likewise suggests love (and in the fallen state it's contrary). So Luvah in Eternity is Albion's quality of love, joy, forgiveness, all the positive feelings. But when Luvah crashes (like the other parts of Albion), the contrary comes to the fore: hate, which too often goes by the name of love, especially as in "the torments of love and desire". (It's not just the zoa who fell; the word he points to also fell!) Milton Percival said of Luvah "at the summit he is Christ; at the nadir he is Satan" (page 29).
Luvah's first appearance in Beulah includes his emanation, Vala. They spend idyllic time in her garden of shadows. But this is interrupted when Luvah gives to Urizen the forbidden Wine of the Almighty.
The Fall began when Luvah stole (or was given, lent) the horses of light (the Sun); you might say that Luvah, like Icarus got too close to the Sun. In Night 5 Urizen tells us about it in The Woes of Urizen:
Then in my ivory pavilions I slumberd in the noon
And walked in the silent night among sweet smelling flowers
Till on my silver bed I slept & sweet dreams round me hoverd.
But now my land is darkend & my wise men are departed.
My songs are turned to cries of Lamentation
Heard on my Mountains & deep sighs under my palace roofs,
Because the Steeds of Urizen once swifter than the light
Were kept back from my Lord & from his chariot of mercies
O did I keep the horses of the day in silver pastures
I refusd 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 calld me from the deep
(64:6-20)
This is a central event in Blake's myth; in fact we read about it at least three times in The Four Zoas.
Stop a minute! Think about it. Translate Blake's poetic symbols into (shall we say) psychology: Has Reason become subjective? or anthropology? Our thinly veiled rationalizations, which we call Reason, have certainly contributed to our fallenness. We believe what we want to and call it truth. We even believe what all sorts of knaves tell us is truth--- because we want to! Straight thinking is in short supply-- here as it was in early 19th century England.
When Luvah sunk to the perversion of hate, he caused the Incarnation:
Lest the state calld Luvah should cease, the Divine Vision
Walked in robes of blood till he who slept should awake.
Thus were the stars of heaven created like a golden chain.
(FZ2-33:14-16 [E322])
Luvah, and Christ with him, spend the ages in the
Furnaces of Affliction, but we must know that a happy outcome will come (just as the Sun puts an end to the dark night).
Urthona
"Earth owner": the creative imagination of the individual is how Damon first describes Urthona. He is the contrary of Urizen: In Blake's generation students of Kant and of other philosophers postulated "a form of intelligence superior to the rational mind" (Percival page 37), which eventually went by the name of the unconscious. Blake referred to it as the poetic genius and ascribed it to Urthona.
Urthona is dark, but it isn't the darkness of fallenness; it's a creative darkness--the kind of darkness we find in The Cloud of Unknowing. The dark Urthona and Urizen are a pair: the dark (unconscious) superior intelligence and the light plodding, legalistic mind. With the initial Fall Urizen took control of the universe, but he soon made mess and was suceeded by Los, Urthona's earthly manifestation.
It might be appropriate to define Urthona as intuition. Blake used the word only once, in Annotations to the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (whom he disliked), but the quotation is juicy:
Demonstration Similitude & Harmony are Objects of Reasoning
Invention Identity & Melody are Objects of Intuition.
(Annotations to Reynolds page 200, 659)
You might also say that Urthona brought whatever we have of Eternity to Earth. His creative work took place in his earthly manifestation, Los.
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.
(Jerusalem 35: 7-9 181)
Urthona's fall brought forth a triad:
Los
Enitharmon, Los' emanation
the Spectre Pure negativity, totally commited to absolute materialism negating any spiritual reality. Inventing good and evil the spectre reveled in the evil (of others) and saw none in himself.
Blake saw, and hated the continually intrusive spectre in himself, who doubted, who judged, who forgot Eternity. The spectre condemns us to ulro where Eden and Beulah are alike forgotten and acting as 'realists' we evaluate life as dismal. There is a spectre in every man, and his unwelcome presence is most acutely suffered (night and day) by men of discernment, like Blake. and hated
Los
Los was the fourth immortal starry one, & in the Earth
Of a bright Universe Empery attended day & night
Days & nights of revolving joy, Urthona was his name
(Four Zoas 1-3:9-11; 301)
Los is "the expression in this world of the creative imagination" (Damon, 246), and in Beulah his name reverts to Urthona.
A master smith, worker in metal Los worked at the furnaces, hopefully changing iron to gold; this happens, but it's realized only at the end of time. Los, master of time, is trying to work himself out of a job, and at the end he is in fact reabsorbed into Urthona, the poetic genius. (For that we're still waiting.)
In Ulro Urizen's sun has virtually gone out; Los labors to create a worldly sun (Sun is Los backward).
Then wondrously the Starry Wheels felt the divine hand.
Limit Was put to Eternal Death Los felt the Limit & saw
The Finger of God touch the Seventh furnace in terror
And Los beheld the hand of God over his furnaces
Beneath the Deeps in dismal Darkness beneath immensity (Four Zoas 4-56:23-26 338)
The paradoxical significance of the furnace is borne out in the Bible with Shadrach, Meshach. and Abednego.
Once escaped from Ulro Los, the master builder, proceeded to build Golgonooza, representing material progress. Los builded it and builded it 'time on time'; each time a society went into eclipse, Golgonooza must be built again. This of course is a figure for worldly progress, all very good, but not in the same dimension as the City of God.
However Blake wrote to Hayley: "The Ruins of Time builds Mansions in Eternity." (Letter 9), referring to the final transformation of the best of Golgonooza into Jerusalem, which is the meaning of the Last Judgment.
Children of Los and Enitharmon
Their first born was called Orc; he represented Revolution. We can surmise that Blake was much attached to Revolution in his early years, but with the debacle of the French Revolution his attitude changed.
Blake had important 'prophecies' re America and The French Revolution.
The Book of Urizen, especially chapters vi and vii, gives much insight into the mythical identity of Orc. (This little prophecy in fact is an excellent introduction to some of the important threads of 4Z.)
Here are the later and multiple progency of Los and Enitharmon ("And she bore an enormous race"):
And these are the Sons of Los & Enitharmon. Rintrah Palamabron
Theotormon Bromion Antamon Ananton Ozoth Ohana
Sotha Mydon Ellayol Natho Gon Harhath Satan
Har Ochim Ijim Adam Reuben Simeon Levi Judah Dan Naphtali
Gad Asher Issachar Zebulun Joseph Benjamin David Solomon
Paul Constantine Charlemaine Luther Milton
(FZ8-107.6 Erdman 380)
One might think here that Blake has descended to obscurity; but wait a minute: many of these early 'sons' are characters in other works (and 4Z is really more a notebook than a finished poem. Reuben-Benjamin are of course the 12 sons of Israel (and the 12 tribes). Then he names the leading lights of our faith from David to Milton.
And from Dr. Ed Friedlander, in his classic William Blake's Milton had this to say about the sons of Los and Enitharmon:
Twelve of the Sons of Los and Enitharmon were lost to Urizenism. These remaining Four embrace all humanistic endeavor. All are forms of Orc, but unlike the terrible child, the drive of the Four toward a comfortable and happy world is controlled and directed by Los, prime agent of regeneration. Because Milton is a poem about people as we know them rather than a cosmic chronicle, the Four are very important in our epic. In particular, Rintrah, Palamabron, Theotormon, and Bromion are the enlightened, socially conscious people of Blake's age.
Rintrah
Rintra appears first in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in the first line in fact: "Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burdened air". He composed this work during the course of the French Revolution; we may safely assume that Rintrah might represent the revolution that Blake was personally involved with-- the revolution of thought, history, manners, and values that MHH announced.
Tharmas
The first three zoas have a lot more coverage than Tharmas; they describe attitudes, activities, and changes of Humankind. Tharmas represents the body; his emanation Enion represents Nature.
In particular Tharmas is said to be body's energy (Percival 42). In Night i of The Four Zoas Blake referred to him as the "parent power":
Begin with Tharmas Parent power, darkning in the West.
(Four Zoas Night 1 page 4:6 301)
Damon (122) tells us that Blake used the separation of Thamas and Enion to depict the struggles of the growing lad when he discovers for the first time the power of his awakening sex, and tries "in agonized despair to suppress or control it" page 4 (of Night 1). This likely may not be the issue in our day that it was in Blake's (or in mine). The lad (Tharmas in this case) has learned from his emanation that it is sin:
Lost! Lost! Lost! are my Emanations Enion O Enion
We are become a Victim to the
Living We hide in secret (Four Zoas 1:4:7-8 301)
Enion said--Thy fear has made me tremble thy terrors have surrounded me
All Love is lost Terror succeeds & Hatred instead of Love
And stern demands of Right & Duty instead of Liberty.
Once thou wast to Me the loveliest son of heaven--But now Why art thou Terrible (Four Zoas 4.17-21 301)
I have lookd into the secret soul of him I lovd
And in the Dark recesses found Sin & cannot return
(Four Zoas 1.4:26-7)
Here is the birth of the concept of sexuality as sin which has cursed Western culture for 2000 years. Blake called it Mystery Religion and throughout his works he expressed inveterate hostility again the control of sexual mores by the priest.
In the Four Zoas there follows a loveless embrace of the Spectre from which comes forth Enitharmon (who is the emanation of Los). (This is one of several ways Blake described the appearance of the emanations as the zoas divided into their contraries.)
"As bodily energy Tharmas is the regent of sex" (Percival 42), but much more than that in Eden. There he is the poetic genius and "the symbol of the united world", a "portion of soul":
Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets of Soul in this age
(MHH4; 34)
With the disasters precipitated by Urizen and Luvah Tharmas became a raging storm (in fact he became the deluge). Blake believed that the ante-diluvian age was closer to Eden; with the deluge of Tharmas man is put down into Ulro.
Ahania
Blake wrote less about Ahania, Urizen's emanation, than the other three emanations. She dropped out early in The Four Zoas and dosen't appear in later works.
Ahania represented Urizen's intuitive and visual self; he seems to have preferred reposing in Ahania rather than continuing his activity spreading the seeds of Science in his golden chariot (or plow!). The upshot of this was a level of doubt that caused him to cast Ahania out. Unfortunately when he did this, his intuition failed and he resorted more and more to vindictive law rather than 'sweet reason'; his creations thereafter were fallen (although the golden chain remained, even when it turned to iron).
Am I not God said Urizen. Who is Equal to me
Do I not stretch the heavens abroad or fold them up like a garment
......
His visage changd to darkness & his strong right hand came forth
To cast Ahania to the Earth. He seizd her by the hair
And threw her from the steps of ice that froze around his throne.............
Saying Art thou also become like Vala? Thus I cast thee out.
Shall the feminine indolent bliss
Set herself up to give her laws to the active masculine virtue,
Thou little diminutive portion that darst be a counterpart
Thy passivity, thy laws of obedience & insincerity
Are my abhorrence.
And art thou also become like Vala? Thus I cast thee out.
(Four Zoas Night 3 42:19-43:22 [328]
Vala
Blake called The Four Zoas Vala in the beginning. The emanation of Luvah, she has a checkered career. In Eternity she is Jerusalem; fallen she became Vala, somewhat comparable to Eve in the garden. She carries all creation, all love, but in Ulro love is totally bad (not so in regeneration and in Eternity).
Vala was the contrary (opposite) of Jerusalem (the bride of Christ). She represents all the negativity of the feminine character. She also goes by the names of Rahab and Tirzah.
Among the Flowers of Beulah walkd the Eternal Man & Saw
Vala the lilly of the desart. Melting in high noon
Upon her bosom in sweet bliss he fainted. Wonder siezd
All heaven, they saw him dark. They built a golden wall
Round Beulah. There he reveld in delight among the Flowers.
Vala was pregnant & brought forth Urizen, Prince of Light,
First born of Generation. Then behold: a wonder to the Eyes
Of the now fallen Man a double form Vala appeard. A Male
And female; shuddring pale the Fallen Man recoild
From the Enormity & calld them Luvah & Vala. Turning down
The vales to find his way back into Heaven, but found none
For his frail eyes were faded & his ears heavy & dull.
(Four Zoas 7a:83:8-18; [E358])
So we can see that in Blake's myth Vala occupied the same symbolic role that Eve did in the Garden.
Enitharmon
The fallen emanation of Los, Enitharmon, behaving like a frustrated and restrained housewife, gives a condensed account of the central calamity in Night One in her Song of Death:
Hear! I will sing a Song of Death! it is a Song of Vala!
The Fallen Man takes his repose: Urizen sleeps in the porch
Luvah and Vala woke & flew up from the Human Heart
Into the Brain; from thence upon the pillow Vala slumber'd.
And Luvah seiz'd the Horses of Light, & rose into the Chariot of Day
Sweet laughter siezd me in my sleep! silent & close I laughd
For in the visions of Vala I walkd with the mighty Fallen One
I heard his voice among the branches, & among sweet flowers.
(Four Zoas 1:10-16, 305)
In even fewer words The Fall can be described as
Love gone bad!
In a few words during the Fall Enitharmon comported herself as a sort of Vala, but at a certain point she repented and thereafter became a dutiful help to her husband, Los.
In Jerusalem Los makes a creative proposal to Enitharmon, but she replies like this:
be thou assured I never will be thy slave
Let Mans delight be Love; but Womans delight be Pride
In Eden our loves were the same here they are opposite
I have Loves of my own. (J87:15-18 246)
But in this redemptive scene near the end of Night vii we find Los and Enitharmon released from the horror of the past, in the Garden they had forsaken:
Los trembling answerd Now I feel the weight of stern repentance
Tremble not so my Enitharmon at the awful gates
Of thy poor broken Heart I see thee like a shadow withering
As on the outside of Existence but look! behold! take comfort!
Turn inwardly thine Eyes & there behold the Lamb of God
Clothed in Luvahs robes of blood descending to redeem
(FZ7a-87:39-44 369)
And Enitharmon answered:
O Lovely terrible Los wonder of Eternity O Los my defence & guide
Thy works are all my joy.
..... They shall be ransoms for our Souls that we may live.
(Four Zoas 7a 98:16-24; 370)
Here we see how a terribly unhappy wife, becoming reconciled to her husband, sees in him the Lamb of God. Her sorrow turns to joy, and in the end the two become one spirit.
Enion
The emanation of Tharmas, Enion, is called Earth Mother.
She is noted for her complaints against cold cruel nature:
Enion blind & age-bent wept upon the desolate wind:
Why does the Raven cry aloud and no eye pities her?
Why fall the Sparrow & the Robin in the foodless winter?
Faint! shivering they sit on leafless bush, or frozen stone
Wearied with seeking food across the snowy waste; the little
Heart, cold; and the little tongue consum'd, that once in thoughtless joy
Gave songs of gratitude to waving corn fields round their nest.
Why howl the Lion & the Wolf? why do they roam abroad?
Deluded by summers heat they sport in enormous love
And cast their young out to the hungry wilds & sandy desarts
Why is the Sheep given to the knife? the Lamb plays in the Sun
He starts! he hears the foot of Man! he says, Take thou my wool
But spare my life, but he knows not that winter cometh fast.
The Spider sits in his labourd Web, eager watching for the Fly
Presently comes a famishd Bird & takes away the Spider
His Web is left all desolate, that his little anxious heart
So careful wove; & spread it out with sighs and weariness.
This was the Lamentation of Enion round the golden Feast
Eternity groand and was troubled at the image of Eternal Death.
(Four Zoas 1-17.2-18.9; E310)
This of course is a complaint against blind nature, "red of tooth and claw"; but here's another more pointed complaint against social immorality, where the economic world too often emulates the natural one, which is to say there is no spirit evident in the world (that's Ulro).
What is the price of Experience do men buy it for a song
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath his house his wife his children
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy
And in the witherd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain
It is an easy thing to triumph in the summers sun
in the vintage & to sing on the waggon loaded with corn
It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted
to speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer
To listen to the hungry ravens cry in wintry season
When the red blood is filld with wine & with the marrow of lambs
It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan
To see a god on every wind & a blessing on every blast
To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies house
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, & the sickness that cuts off his children
While our olive & vine sing & laugh round our door & our children bring fruits & flowers
Then the groan & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave grinding at the mill
And the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier in the field
When the shatterd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead
It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity
Thus could I sing & thus rejoice, but it is not so with me!
(Four Zoas 2-35.11-36.13 325)
If nothing else Blake demonstrates here his power as a social prophet. Was it any more appropriate for his age than it is for ours?
Daughters
In the Four Zoas Blake used two kinds of daughters, who collectively represented Jerusalem and Vala:
1. Daughters of Beulah (Inspiration) are devoted to the well-being of man. They guarded the body of Albion in his mortal sleep on the Rock of Ages.
2. Daughters of Albion (Memory), obeying Reason weave the natural world of spiritual depravity.
Council of God (The Eternals)
It has many other names, as sons of Eden, the Divine Family...
Then those in Great Eternity met in the Council of God
As one Man for contracting their Exalted Senses
They behold Multitude or Expanding they behold as one
As One Man all the Universal family & that one Man
They call Jesus the Christ & they in him & he in them
Live in Perfect harmony in Eden the land of life
Consulting as One Man above the Mountain of Snowdon Sublime
For messengers from Beulah come in tears & darkning clouds
Saying Shiloh is in ruins our brother is sick Albion He
whom thou lovest is sick he wanders from his house of Eternity
The daughters of Beulah terrified have closd the Gate of the Tongue
Luvah & Urizen contend in war around the holy tent
(Four Zoas Night 1 21:1-12 311)
The Spectre
In 4Z, Milton, and Jerusalem we meet the Spectre constantly; he's defined there dozens of times. Anyone may exist in a spectrous state: wed to materiality. We are all spectres of the real person who will return in due course to Eternity.
In the Rosetti Manuscript Blake wrote the final word showing how we are afflicted by our spectre:
My spectre around me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way;
My Emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my sin.
`A fathomless and boundless deep,
There we wander, there we weep;
On the hungry craving wind
My Spectre follows thee behind.
`He scents thy footsteps in the snow,
Wheresoever thou dost go,
Thro' the wintry hail and rain.
When wilt thou return again?
`Dost thou not in pride and scorn
Fill with tempests all my morn,
And with jealousies and fears
Fill my pleasant nights with tears?
`Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
Has bereaved of their life.
Their marble tombs I built with tears,
And with cold and shuddering fears.
`Seven more loves weep night and day
Round the tombs where my loves lay,
And seven more loves attend each night
Around my couch with torches bright.
`And seven more loves in my bed
Crown with wine my mournful head,
Pitying and forgiving all
Thy transgressions great and small.
`When wilt thou return and view
My loves, and them to life renew?
When wilt thou return and live?
When wilt thou pity as I forgive?'
`O'er my sins thou sit and moan:
Hast thou no sins of thy own?
O'er my sins thou sit and weep,
And lull thy own sins fast asleep.
`What transgressions I commit
Are for thy transgressions fit.
They thy harlots, thou their slave;
And my bed becomes their grave.
`Never, never, I return:
Still for victory I burn.
Living, thee alone I'll have;
And when dead I'll be thy grave.
'Thro' the Heaven and Earth and Hell
Thou shalt never, never quell:
I will fly and thou pursue:
Night and morn the flight renew.'
'Poor, pale, pitiable form
I follow in a storm;
on tears and groans of lead
Bind around my aching head.
'Till I turn from Female love
And root up the Infernal Grove,
I shall never worthy be
To step into Eternity.
'And, to end thy cruel mocks,
Annihilate thee on the rocks,
And another form create
To be subservient to my fate.
`Let us agree to give up love,
And root up the Infernal Grove;
Then shall we return and see
The worlds of happy Eternity.
`And throughout all Eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.
As 1000 our dear Redeemer said:
"This the Wine, and this the Bread."'
We may take this poem as highly autobiographical, as is in fact everything Blake wrote. Blake told us here that he is two people--actually three; he is Blake, the man; he is the emanation (not used much in this poem), and he is the spectre.
Well folks, we all have a spectre (except those of you who are perfect!). It's the bad old one inside, sometimes called the devil. It's what makes us "do what we would not" (Romans 7). In Blake's case he has told us that the passive acceptance of culture as it is (to work for the main chance) is a temptation; to be acceptable as a artist, even to enjoy the fame he deserves. These are some of the temptations that assail any artist: to please the (fallen) crowd or to keep his integrity. The spectre in him shuts out Eden and condemns him to Ulro. Friedlander tells us that after Blake's poem, Milton, the negative dimension (Negation) of Los became the Spector of Urthona.
A great many particulars could be cited, but he cited them at great length and exhaustively throughout his creative career. He was like Isaiah and Ezekiel, telling his world how they're going to hell and what he could do about it.
To be a prophet always makes a person unpopular. Blake wanted to be successful and popular, but like every prophet he eventually came to terms with the reality that the two things are incompatible.