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For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise Frontispiece |
Blake published The Gates of Paradise twice: once For
Children, once For The Sexes. The second version
provides the same pictures with added statements.
On the Frontispiece is an image of a caterpillar on a leaf above
another leaf upon which rests a chrysalis bearing the face of a
sleeping infant. Blake has set the stage for two versions of the
answer to the question, "What is Man!", which forms the caption
for the picture. When he issued the plate for a second time he
added: "The Suns Light when he unfolds it/Depends on the Organ
that beholds it." Thus he reinforced the idea that there are
alternate ways of understanding the nature of man.
The version of the poem, For The Sexes, adds Keys to the
gates at the end of the 18 plates. The Key to the Frontispiece is,
"The Catterpiller on the Leaf/ Reminds thee of thy Mothers Grief."
Being born of woman is Natural birth, birth into the Natural world
by the Natural man. The Gates of Paradise proposes to lead
the reader through a rebirth which is available to the sleeping
infant bound in the chrysalis if he emerges from the Natural to
the Spiritual.
THE KEYS, (E 268)
"The Catterpiller on the Leaf
Reminds thee of thy Mothers Grief
of the GATES
1 My Eternal Man set in Repose
The Female from his darkness rose
And She found me beneath a Tree
A Mandrake & in her Veil hid me
Serpent Reasonings us entice
Of Good & Evil: Virtue & Vice
2 Doubt Self Jealous Watry folly
3 Struggling thro Earths Melancholy
4 Naked in Air in Shame & Fear
5 Blind in Fire with shield & spear
Two Horn'd Reasoning Cloven Fiction
In Doubt which is Self contradiction
A dark Hermaphrodite We stood
Rational Truth Root of Evil & Good
Round me flew the Flaming Sword
Round her snowy Whirlwinds roard
Freezing her Veil the Mundane Shell
6 I rent the Veil where the Dead dwell
When weary Man enters his Cave
He meets his Saviour in the Grave
Some find a Female Garment there
And some a Male, woven with care
Lest the Sexual Garments sweet
Should grow a devouring Winding sheet
7 One Dies! Alas! the Living & Dead
One is slain & One is fled
8 In Vain-glory hatcht & nurst
By double Spectres Self Accurst
My Son! my Son! thou treatest me
But as I have instructed thee
9 On the shadows of the Moon
Climbing thro Nights highest noon
10 In Times Ocean falling drownd
In Aged Ignorance profound
11 Holy & cold I clipd the Wings
Of all Sublunary Things
12 And in depths of my Dungeons
Closed the Father & the Sons
13 But when once I did descry
The Immortal Man that cannot Die
14 Thro evening shades I haste away
To close the Labours of my Day
15 The Door of Death I open found
And the Worm Weaving in the Ground
16 Thou'rt my Mother from the Womb
Wife, Sister, Daughter to the Tomb
Weaving to Dreams the Sexual strife
And weeping over the Web of Life"
Thel, Plate 3, (E 5)
"Then if thou art the food of worms. O virgin of the skies,
How great thy use. how great thy blessing; every thing that lives,
Lives not alone, nor for itself: fear not and I will call
The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice.
Come forth worm of the silent valley, to thy pensive queen.
The helpless worm arose, and sat upon the Lillys leaf,
And the bright Cloud saild on, to find his partner in the vale."
Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 133, (E 401)
"And Many Eternal Men sat at the golden feast to see
The female form now separate They shudderd at the horrible thing
Not born for the sport and amusement of Man but born to drink up all his powers
They wept to see their shadows they said to one another this is Sin
This is the Generative world they rememberd the Days of old
And One of the Eternals spoke All was silent at the feast
Man is a Worm wearied with joy he seeks the caves of sleep
Among the Flowers of Beulah in his Selfish cold repose
Forsaking Brotherhood & Universal love in selfish clay
Folding the pure wings of his mind seeking the places dark"
Job 7[17] What is man, that thou dost make so much of him,
and that thou dost set thy mind upon him,
Psalms 8
[4] what is man that thou art mindful of him,
and the son of man that thou dost care for him?
John 19
[5] So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Behold the man!"
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