Blake's Laocoon

Drawn & Engraved by William Blake


















[Jehovah] & his two Sons Satan & Adam as they were copied
  from the Cherubim Of Solomons Temple by three Rhodians &
  applied to Natural Fact. or. History of Ilium
[Above the father's head:]
The Angel of the Divine Presence
[Angel of Jehovah]
[Serpent-holder]
He repented that he had made Adam
(of the Female, the Adamah)
& it grieved him at his heart

[About the serpent and figure (? Satan) to the right:]
Good
[Lilith]
Satans Wife The Goddess Nature is War & Misery & Heroism a Miser

[About the serpent and figure (? Adam) to the left:]

Evil
Good & Evil are

Riches & Poverty a Tree of Misery
propagating Generation & Death

[Remaining aphorisms, reading outward in thematic order:]

What can be Created Can be Destroyed
Adam is only The Natural Man & not the Soul or Imagination

The Eternal Body of Man is The IMAGINATION.
       God himself  |
that is                |[Yeshua] JESUS We are his Members
     The Divine Body|

It manifests itself in his Works of Art (In Eternity All is
  Vision)
All that we See is VISION from Generated Organs gone as soon as
  come
Permanent in The Imagination; considered as Nothing by the
  NATURAL MAN

HEBREW ART is called SIN by the Deist SCIENCE

The whole Business of Man Is The Arts & All Things Common

Christianity is Art & not Money
Money is its Curse

The Old & New Testaments are the Great Code of Art

Jesus & his Apostles & Disciples were all Artists
Their Works were destroyd by the Seven Angels of the Seven
 Churches in Asia.  Antichrist Science

SCIENCE is the Tree of DEATH
ART is the Tree of LIFE GOD is JESUS

The Gods of Priam are the Cherubim of Moses & Solomon The Hosts
of Heaven

The Gods of Greece & Egypt were Mathematical Diagrams See Plato's

Works
There are States in which all Visionary Men are accounted Mad
Men such are Greece & Rome   Such is Empire or Tax
  See Luke Ch 2 v I

Art Degraded Imagination Denied War Governed the Nations

Divine Union Deriding And Denying Immediate Communion with
  God
The Spoilers say Where are his Works That he did in the
  Wilderness
Lo what are these Whence came they These are not the Works
Of Egypt nor Babylon Whose Gods are the Powers of this World.
  Goddess, Nature.                                           t
Who first spoil & then destroy Imaginative Art For their Glory is

  War and Dominion

Empire against Art     See Virgils Eneid. Lib. VI. v 848

                           Spiritual War
Israel deliverd from Egypt is Art deliverd from Nature &
  Imitation

What we call Antique Gems are the Gems of Aarons Breast Plate

Prayer is the Study of Art
Praise is the Practise of Art
Fasting &c. all relate to Art
The outward Ceremony is Antichrist
Without Unceasing Practise nothing can be done

Practise is Art     If you leave off you are Lost

A Poet a Painter a Musician an Architect: the Man
Or Woman who is not one of these is not a Christian
You must leave Fathers & Mothers & Houses & Lands
  if they stand in the way of ART

The unproductive Man is not a Christian much less the Destroyer

The True Christian Charity not dependent on Money (the lifes
  blood of Poor Families) that is on Caesar or Empire or
  Natural Religion

For every Pleasure Money Is Useless

Money, which is The Great Satan or Reason the Root of Good & Evil
  In The Accusation of Sin

Where any view of Money exists Art cannot be carried on, but War
  only (Read Matthew CX. 9 & 10 v) by pretences to the Two
  Impossibilities Chastity & Abstinence Gods of the Heathen

Is not every Vice possible to Man described in the Bible openly

All is not Sin that Satan calls so    all the Loves & Graces of
  Eternity.

If Morality was Christianity Socrates was the Saviour

Art can never exist without Naked Beauty displayed

No Secresy in Art
(Erdman 273-5)