MILTON & URIZEN

New York Public Library

Milton

Plate 29

One of the difficulties is reading Blake's Milton is processing multiple events simultaneously. Blake recognized that he couldn't communicate all that he had to say by writing in a linear fashion. Each character experienced situations differently and reacted according to his individual nature. Instead of following his characters chronologically he wrote as if events experienced by one character affected others as well.

As Milton traveled he encountered Urizen who attemped to alters his brain with the icy water of rigid rules of conventional thought. Milton responded by exposing Urizen to living in a human body. The result of these efforts seems to be have been creating a consciousness of the disorded functioning of the fourfold psyche.  Milton continued his journey toward the world of Los and Enithanmon who sought to build Golgonooza, the world of Art and Industry. Urizen continued to atttack Milton's efforts.

When Milton reaches his destination Blake perceived Milton's entry into the material world coming directly to the tarsus of his own left foot. Blake accepted the falling star as the arrival of Milton and with the assistence of Los bound to his foot all the vegetable world to "walk forward thro' Eternity." Blake - the  Human Poet, Milton - the Immotal Soul, and Los - the Creative Imagination were joined together to resolve all conflicts and divisions.

 

Milton, Plate 18 [20],  (E 112)

"Urizen emerged from his Rocky Form & from his Snows

Plate 19 [21]

And he also darkend his brows: freezing dark rocks between
The footsteps. and infixing deep the feet in marble beds:
That Milton labourd with his journey, & his feet bled sore
Upon the clay now chang'd to marble; also Urizen rose,
And met him on the shores of Arnon; & by the streams of the brooks    

Silent they met, and silent strove among the streams, of Arnon
Even to Mahanaim, when with cold hand Urizen stoop'd down
And took up water from the river Jordan: pouring on
To Miltons brain the icy fluid from his broad cold palm.
But Milton took of the red clay of Succoth, moulding it with care
Between his palms: and filling up the furrows of many years
Beginning at the feet of Urizen, and on the bones
Creating new flesh on the Demon cold, and building him,
As with new clay a Human form in the Valley of Beth Peor.

Four Universes round the Mundane Egg remain Chaotic    
One to the North, named Urthona: One to the South, named Urizen:
One to the East, named Luvah: One to the West, named Tharmas
They are the Four Zoa's that stood around the Throne Divine!
But when Luvah assum'd the World of Urizen to the South:
And Albion was slain upon his  mountains, & in his tent;     
All fell towards the Center in dire ruin, sinking down.
And in the South remains a burning fire; in the East a void.

In the West, a world of raging waters; in the North a solid,
Unfathomable! without end. But in the midst of these,
Is built eternally the Universe of Los and Enitharmon:       
Towards which Milton went, but Urizen oppos'd his path.

The Man and Demon strove many periods." 

Milton, Plate 20 [22], (E 113)

"And let us bind thee in the bands of War & be thou King          
Of Canaan and reign in Hazor where the Twelve Tribes meet.

So spoke they as in one voice! Silent Milton stood before
The darkend Urizen; as the sculptor silent stands before
His forming image; he walks round it patient labouring.
Thus Milton stood forming bright Urizen, while his Mortal part   
Sat frozen in the rock of Horeb: and his Redeemed portion,
Thus form'd the Clay of Urizen; but within that portion
His real Human walkd above in power and majesty
Tho darkend; and the Seven Angels of the Presence attended him.

O how can I with my gross tongue that cleaveth to the dust,      
Tell of the Four-fold Man, in starry numbers fitly orderd
Or how can I with my cold hand of clay! But thou O Lord
Do with me as thou wilt! for I am nothing, and vanity.
If thou chuse to elect a worm, it shall remove the mountains.
For that portion namd the Elect: the Spectrous body of Milton:   
Redounding from my left foot into Los's Mundane space,
Brooded over his Body in Horeb against the Resurrection
Preparing it for the Great Consummation; red the Cherub on Sinai
Glow'd; but in terrors folded round his clouds of blood.

Now Albions sleeping Humanity began to turn upon his Couch;      
Feeling the electric flame of Miltons awful precipitate descent."

Milton, Plate 15 [17], (E 110)

"Milton bent down
To the bosom of death, what was underneath soon seemd above.
A cloudy heaven mingled with stormy seas in loudest ruin;
But as a wintry globe descends precipitant thro' Beulah bursting,
With thunders loud and terrible: so Miltons shadow fell        
Precipitant loud thundring into the Sea of Time & Space.

Then first I saw him in the Zenith as a falling star,
Descending perpendicular, swift as the swallow or swift;
And on my left foot falling on the tarsus, enterd there;
But from my left foot a black cloud redounding spread over Europe.          

Then Milton knew that the Three Heavens of Beulah were beheld
By him on earth in his bright pilgrimage of sixty years"  

Fearful Symmetry, by Northrop Frye, Page 337:

"Milton's journey to the fallen world, or part of it, repeats the journey of Moses through the wilderness to the boundaries of the Promised Land, and like Moses, he fails to cross the Jordan and enter Cannan though all the forces of evil coax him to do so. Moses, Palamabron, Milton and Blake (and as far as possible Hayley) all belong to the "Redeemed" class which has to be separared from the Satanic element within it. As such, Milton is what we may loosely be called a Puritan: he is a mixture of Christian vision with the sterility of moral virtue and rationalism...Only Los sees the signifiance of the return. Los sees that Milton must be on his way to reinforce, not the Deists, but the visionaries who have inherited the other half of Puritanism, its belief in the civilizing Word of God; that Deism is a consolidation of error,  and that Milton's return is consequently a sign "the time is at hand," as the New testament says. So Los allows Milton to pass into the world, Milton enters Blake's "left foot," Blake stoops down and binds the material world as a sandal on that foot, and unites with Los, the spiritual form of time. This union completes the recreation of Milton's vision." 

Mark 1

[13] And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
[14] Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
[15] And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

MILTON & SHADOW

New York Public Library

Milton 

Plate 16

In Blake's Milton the decisive moment when Milton felt compelled to leave Heaven and go to Eternal Death initiated his journey to "Albions land: Which is this earth of vegetation on which now I (Blake) write."

Blake assumed the role of recording the transformation of Milton's "immortal self'" as he experienced events in the world of time and space. His journey was both outward though the natural world and inward through his own psyche. 

Milton's psyche was divided as he determined to redeem his "Sixfold Emanation scatter'd thro' the deep In torment!" He becomes a quaternary consisting of his Humanity, his Shadow, his Emanation and his Spectre. Each aspect of his eternal self had work to do in the journey to wholeness.

Blake first dealt with the Shadow which is delusion without substance. It is not error itself but the image of error - without form it cannot be destroyed. Urizen must receive a body before he can be confronted by Milton. Blake and Milton both knew that the reasoning mind tended to dominate the psyche, therefore Blake first tackeled Urizen in order to begin the changes needed in Milton.

 

Milton's religion was tainted by Puritanism, a strict religion based on rules and punishment. Paradise Lost emphasized the failures of Satan, Eve and Adam to abide by God's dictates. They suffered alienation and penalties for their disobedience.

Blake's Milton postulates that through hearing the Bard's Song in heaven, Milton became aware that his poetic works, his instructional pamplets, his participation in revolution, and his relation with women were based on errors which required correction. His consciousnes of himself was distorted by his inability to discern truth.

Blake attempted to examine Milton's life and work with the aim of separating truth from error in Milton's life and work, for the purpose of building on Milton's experience to enhance his own prophetic calling. 

---

From The Iluminated Blake, by David v Erdman, (Page 236):

"Los shoots his limbs forth 'like the limbs of trees" - and we see that he is almost headless. .. Urizen, nothing but head, peers from the ground and beholds "the immortal Man."

...

Historically the separation of England's head and body is what happened in the "fury premature" of 1649; it was justified by the republican Milton, but the ensuing Civil War did not achieve a resurrected England. In the Bard's Song King Charles "calls upon Milton for atonement."'

Milton, Plate 14,[15], (E 108) 

"Then on the verge of Beulah he beheld his own Shadow;
A mournful form double; hermaphroditic: male & female
In one wonderful body. and he enterd into it
In direful pain for the dread shadow, twenty-seven-fold

Reachd to the depths of direst Hell, & thence to Albions land:  
Which is this earth of vegetation on which now I write,

The Seven Angels of the Presence wept over Miltons Shadow!"

Milton, Plate 15 [17], (E 109)
"As when a man dreams, he reflects not that his body sleeps,
Else he would wake; so seem'd he entering his Shadow: but
With him the Spirits of the Seven Angels of the Presence
Entering; they gave him still perceptions of his Sleeping Body;
Which now arose and walk'd with them in Eden, as an Eighth   
Image Divine tho' darken'd; and tho walking as one walks
In sleep; and the Seven comforted and supported him."

Milton, Plate 17,[19], (E 110)

"In those three females whom his Wives, & those three whom his Daughters
Had represented and containd, that they might be resum'd
By giving up of Selfhood: & they distant view'd his journey
In their eternal spheres, now Human, tho' their Bodies remain clos'd
In the dark Ulro till the Judgment: also Milton knew: they and   
Himself was Human, tho' now wandering thro Death's Vale
In conflict with those Female forms, which in blood & jealousy
Surrounded him, dividing & uniting without end or number.

He saw the Cruelties of Ulro, and he wrote them down
In iron tablets: and his Wives & Daughters names were these      
Rahab and Tirzah, & Milcah & Malah & Noah & Hoglah,
They sat rangd round him as the rocks of Horeb round the land
Of Canaan: and they wrote in thunder smoke and fire
His dictate; and his body was the Rock Sinai; that body,
Which was on earth born to corruption: & the six Females         
Are Hor & Peor & Bashan & Abarim & Lebanon & Hermon

Seven rocky masses terrible in the Desarts of Midian. 

But Miltons Human Shadow continu'd journeying above

The rocky masses of The Mundane Shell; in the Lands
Of Edom & Aram & Moab & Midian & Amalek.                         

The Mundane Shell, is a vast Concave Earth: an immense
Hardend shadow of all things upon our Vegetated Earth
Enlarg'd into dimension & deform'd into indefinite space,
In Twenty-seven Heavens and all their Hells; with Chaos
And Ancient Night; & Purgatory. It is a cavernous Earth          

Of labyrinthine intricacy, twenty-seven folds of opakeness
And finishes where the lark mounts; here Milton journeyed
In that Region calld Midian among the Rocks of Horeb
For travellers from Eternity. pass outward to Satans seat,
But travellers to Eternity. pass inward to Golgonooza.           

Los the Vehicular terror beheld him, & divine Enitharmon
Call'd all her daughters, Saying. Surely to unloose my bond
Is this Man come! Satan shall be unloosd upon Albion
Los heard in terror Enitharmons words: in fibrous strength
His limbs shot forth like roots of trees against the forward path
Of Miltons journey. Urizen beheld the immortal Man,"