William Blake: Religion and Psychology

QUEEN KATHERINE'S DREAM

2012-01-31T07:30:00.000-05:00

Plate 33

2012-01-30T06:18:00.002-05:00

PLATE 33 [37]And One stood forth from the Divine Family &,said
I feel my Spectre rising upon me! Albion! arouze thyself!Why dost thou thunder with frozen Spectrous wrath against us?The Spectre is, in Giant Man; insane, and most deform'd.Thou wilt certainly provoke my Spectre against thine in fury! He has a Sepulcher hewn out of a Rock ready for thee: And a Death of Eight thousand years forg'd by thyself, uponThe point of his Spear! if thou persistest to forbid with LawsOur Emanations, and to attack our secret supreme delightsSo Los spoke: But when he saw blue death in Albions feet,

Again he join'd the Divine Body, following merciful;
While Albion fled more indignant! revengeful covering(Plate 34 begins:
'His face and bosom with petrific hardness...')

Notes:

The text is short, but a picture calls for a detailed explanation:

Two pictures, separated by the short text:

The picture above shows a strickened Albion, his head supported by a merciful Savior. Below is a very dark moon.

Immediately below 'While Albion fled..' you may observe a bat-like figure...the spectre with two eyes and a sharpened beak pointed directly at the sleeping figure below.
A more detailed image shows who seems to be Jerusalem encased in Vala's veil. This of course is a symbol of Albion's fallen condition-- in the light of a moon (full on the left and new on the right).
Below the couch is the sea, but is that bottom wave serpentine?
*********************************************************
(Jerusalem, edited by Morton D Paley, page 188)
'The upper design shows..Albion..sunk down "between the Palm Tree and the Oak of Weeping", between the symbol of the Triumph Entry into Jerusalem and the tree in Golgotha where the Lord was crucified.)
The 'winged disk' (with stars) is "an ancient symbol of divinity", and he quoted in FZ Night Seven "thou knowest that the Spectre is in Every Man insane brutish." The original reading of 'blue death' is 'pale death'.

MARY'S SONG

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Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Virgin & Child in Egypt
1810

The gospel of Luke records the song Mary sang when her cousin Elizabeth recognised that the Lords's promise of salvation was to be fulfilled through the child Mary was to bear.

Luke 1
[41] And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:
[42] And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
[43] And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
[44] For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
[45] And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.
[46] And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
[47] And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
[48] For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
[49] For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.
[50] And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
[51] He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
[52] He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
[53] He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
[54] He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;
[55] As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.

In Jerusalem Blake similarly has Mary burst into song but the occasion is the realisation that she is forgiven by God and by Joseph. Blake chooses to have Mary represent the sinner who calls upon God to forgive because it is his nature to forgive.

Jerusalem, Plate 61, (E 212)
"But Jehovahs Salvation
Is without Money & without Price, in the Continual Forgiveness of Sins
In the Perpetual Mutual Sacrifice in Great Eternity! for behold!
There is none that liveth & Sinneth not!"

To Blake to be forgiven was more worthy than to be pure. His Jesus was borne by a Mother who knew that she was not to be glorified. She was made pure through God's mercy. She knew that she could make no claim of virtue. Through mercy she became acquainted with the Divine Humanity, the God of Pity, compassion, and forgiveness.

Jerusalem, Plate 61, (E 212)
"And this is the Covenant
Of Jehovah: If you Forgive one-another, so shall Jehovah Forgive You:
That He Himself may Dwell among You. Fear not then to take
To thee Mary thy Wife, for she is with Child by the Holy Ghost

Then Mary burst forth into a Song! she flowed like a River of
Many Streams in the arms of Joseph & gave forth her tears of joy
Like many waters, and Emanating into gardens & palaces upon
Euphrates & to forests & floods & animals wild & tame from
Gihon to Hiddekel, & to corn fields & villages & inhabitants
Upon Pison & Arnon & Jordan. And I heard the voice among
The Reapers Saying, Am I Jerusalem the lost Adulteress? or am I
Babylon come up to Jerusalem? And another voice answerd Saying

Does the voice of my Lord call me again? am I pure thro his Mercy
And Pity. Am I become lovely as a Virgin in his sight who am
Indeed a Harlot drunken with the Sacrifice of Idols does he
Call her pure as he did in the days of her Infancy when She
Was cast out to the loathing of her person. The Chaldean took
Me from my Cradle. The Amalekite stole me away upon his Camels
Before I had ever beheld with love the Face of Jehovah; or known
That there was a God of Mercy: O Mercy O Divine Humanity!
O Forgiveness & Pity & Compassion! If I were Pure I should never
Have known Thee; If I were Unpolluted I should never have
Glorified thy Holiness, or rejoiced in thy great Salvation.

Mary leaned her side against Jerusalem, Jerusalem recieved
The Infant into her hands in the Visions of Jehovah. Times passed on
Jerusalem fainted over the Cross & Sepulcher She heard the voice
Wilt thou make Rome thy Patriarch Druid & the Kings of Europe his
Horsemen? Man in the Resurrection changes his Sexual Garments at will
Every Harlot was once a Virgin: every Criminal an Infant Love!"

Plate 32

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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

Vala and Jerusalem

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.

CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH

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British Museum
'The Christian Triumph', illustration to Young's 'Night Thoughts'
Frontispiece to Night the Fourth
1795-1797

Blake seems to have lived through the 7TH and 8TH chapters of Romans. His struggles with the demonic forces in the world as well as his self-condemnation and doubt showed him the wretchedness from which only Christ could release him. Emerging into the Light gave him the strength to continue conquering.

Romans 7
[23] But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
[24] O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
[25] I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Letters, 22, (E 719)

[To] Mr Butts, Gr Marlborough Street

"Felpham Novr. 22: 18O2
...
But You will justly enquire why I have not written All this
time to you? I answer I have been very Unhappy & could not think
of troubling you about it or any of my real Friends (I have
written many letters to you which I burnd & did not send)
...
And now let me finish with assuring you that Tho I have been
very unhappy I am so no longer I am again Emerged into the light
of Day I still & shall to Eternity Embrace Christianity and Adore
him who is the Express image of God but I have traveld thro
Perils & Darkness not unlike a Champion I have Conquerd and shall
still Go on Conquering Nothing can withstand the fury of my
Course among the Stars of God & in the Abysses of the Accuser My
Enthusiasm is still what it was only Enlarged and confirmd"

Romans 8
[34] Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
[35] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
[36] As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
[37] Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
[38] For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
[39] Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Post on second part of Blake's letter to Butts (Nov 22, 1802): ON THE WALK TO LAVANT.

FOUR GATES

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Illustrations to the Book of Job
Linnell Set
Picture 14

Blake's famous concept of Fourfold is something of a misnomer. The fourfoldness of Blake's system is repeated at multiple levels. For instance, the Zoas each contained aspects of the three other Zoas. The mathematical concept of fractals may give us a handle on the way Blake keeps dividing his entities into replicas at more minute scales. The information contained at each level of the fractal supplies the information for other levels. Just as the hologram contains all of the information for the entire image in each particular, each iteration of the fractal is a replication of the original. Blake's multiple divisions allow us to examine the repetition of manifestations of archetypical entities as they are visible in multiple situations.

In this passage from Jerusalem, Blake is clearly inviting us to dig deeper as we explore the gates through which transitions are accomplished. I've divided the passage into sections to emphasise the repetition of four within each of the four gates. I've italicised the number four of which there are 17 occurrences.

Jerusalem , Plate 12, (E 156)

"And the Four Points are thus beheld in Great Eternity
____________

West, the Circumference: South, the Zenith: North,
The Nadir: East, the Center, unapproachable for ever.
These are the four Faces towards the Four Worlds of Humanity
In every Man. Ezekiel saw them by Chebars flood.
And the Eyes are the South, and the Nostrils are the East.
And the Tongue is the West, and the Ear is the North.

And the North Gate of Golgonooza toward Generation;
Has four sculpturd Bulls terrible before the Gate of iron.
And iron, the Bulls: and that which looks toward Ulro,
Clay bak'd & enamel'd, eternal glowing as four furnaces:
Turning upon the Wheels of Albions sons with enormous power.
And that toward Beulah four, gold, silver, brass, & iron:

PLATE 13
And that toward Eden, four, form'd of gold, silver, brass, &
iron.
_____________

The South, a golden Gate, has four Lions terrible, living!
That toward Generation, four, of iron carv'd wondrous:
That toward Ulro, four, clay bak'd, laborious workmanship
That toward Eden, four; immortal gold, silver, brass & iron.
_____________

The Western Gate fourfold, is closd: having four Cherubim
Its guards, living, the work of elemental hands, laborious task!
Like Men, hermaphroditic, each winged with eight wings
That towards Generation, iron; that toward Beulah, stone;
That toward Ulro, clay: that toward Eden, metals.
But all clos'd up till the last day, when the graves shall yield
their dead
_____________

The Eastern Gate, fourfold: terrible & deadly its ornaments:
Taking their forms from the Wheels of Albions sons; as cogs
Are formd in a wheel, to fit the cogs of the adverse wheel.

That toward Eden, eternal ice, frozen in seven folds
Of forms of death: and that toward Beulah, stone:
The seven diseases of the earth are carved terrible.

And that toward Ulro, forms of war: seven enormities:
And that toward Generation, seven generative forms.
____________

And every part of the City is fourfold; & every inhabitant,
fourfold.
And every pot & vessel & garment & utensil of the houses,
And every house, fourfold; but the third Gate in every one
Is closd as with a threefold curtain of ivory & fine linen &
ermine.
And Luban stands in middle of the City. a moat of fire,
Surrounds Luban, Los's Palace & the golden Looms of Cathedron."
______________

Blake's symbols do not readily yield their content. This is partly because the meaning they convey can be read as viewed from afar or from close-up. We focus our eyes on the object or on a plane to which we want to give attention. Blake has written in such a way that the focus of our attention will allow us to move about his worlds in their infinite variety.

Letters , 16, to Thomas Butts, (E 712)

"Each grain of Sand
  Every Stone on the Land
  Each rock & each hill
  Each fountain & rill
  Each herb & each tree
  Mountain hill Earth & Sea
  Cloud Meteor & Star
  Are Men Seen Afar"

Post 31

2012-01-24T01:34:00.000-05:00

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!!

YOUR WORLD

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Milton's Mysterious Dream,
Watercolor Illustration to Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso
Wikimedia Commons

Each person creates his own universe according to Blake and he takes it with him wherever he goes. His reasoning mind provides an abstraction of a microscopic or macroscopic world,
but man lives within the cavern of his skull.

Milton, PLATE 29 [31], (E 127)
"The Sky is an immortal tent built by the Sons of Los
And every Space that a Man views around his dwelling-place:
Standing on his own roof, or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his Universe;
And on its verge the Sun rises & sets. the Clouds bow
To meet the flat Earth & the Sea in such an orderd Space:
The Starry heavens reach no further but here bend and set
On all sides & the two Poles turn on their valves of gold:
And if he move his dwelling-place, his heavens also move.
Wher'eer he goes & all his neighbourhood bewail his loss:
Such are the Spaces called Earth & such its dimension:
As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner,
As of a Globe rolling thro Voidness, it is a delusion of Ulro"

In the Eternal world there is no differentiation among aspects of existence because all belong to one reality and can enter into each other through the means of mind or body. In the limited existence where we dwell, the individuality experiences itself as mind and body, internal and external, oneself and other. The imagination contains the paradigm whose shadow is projected externally and perceived as exterior worlds.

Jerusalem , Plate 71, (E 225)
"For all are Men in Eternity. Rivers Mountains Cities Villages,
All are Human & when you enter into their Bosoms you walk
In Heavens & Earths; as in your own Bosom you bear your Heaven
And Earth, & all you behold, tho it appears Without it is Within
In your Imagination of which this World of Mortality is but a
Shadow."

The confusion between the subjective and objective infects the mind which cannot distinguish between what is internal mental processing and the projected world of mind created images.

Jerusalem , PLATE 32 [36], (E 179)
"As Los bended the Senses of Reuben Reuben is Merlin
Exploring the Three States of Ulro; Creation; Redemption. &
Judgment

And many of the Eternal Ones laughed after their manner

Have you known the judgment that is arisen among the
Zoa's of Albion? where a Man dare hardly to embrace
His own Wife, for the terrors of Chastity that they call
By the name of Morality. their Daughters govern all
In hidden deceit! they are Vegetable only fit for burning
Art & Science cannot exist but by Naked Beauty displayd

Then those in Great Eternity who contemplate on Death
Said thus. What seems to Be: Is: To those to whom
It seems to Be, & is productive of the most dreadful
Consequences to those to whom it seems to Be: even of
Torments, Despair, Eternal Death; but the Divine Mercy
Steps beyond and Redeems Man in the Body of Jesus Amen
And Length Bredth Highth again Obey the Divine Vision Hallelujah"

The distortion of Eternal reality which results from the assumptions made in Ulro (the exclusively material world) is seen to amuse the Eternals. But they realize that the illusions which are thought to be real produce consequences which seem to the individual to be just as real as if they were accurate descriptions of Eternal realities. The undistorted perception is reached through receiving the integration of spirit and matter achieved and made available through Christ.

Plate 29

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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
Albion turned has back on the Divine Vision, and his Spectre was a sorry replacement (it's like going from Heaven to Hell, which many of us do much of the time, perhaps always; Albion is us!) The Spectre tells Albion that he's his Rational Power, and Man is very inconsequential ('a worm seventy inches long living (a half life!) only during the Night. Blake goes on to name four British places that will disappear with time, much like the biblical places that the prophets excoriated (a home of jackals!) The Spectre goes on to tell Albion he'sthe Great Selfhood Satan: Worshipd as God by the Mighty Ones of the Earth"; his last line is just below the picture; Two lions seem to be pulling a plow, directed by whom? The Spectre! Erdman sees the Spectre trying to push, rather than guide the plow, and he adds that the Spectre should be pulling it 'with Los in control'. (The Illuminated Blake, P 308).Albion spoke to Vala accusing her of prostitution of the Divine Vision, with 'darkness immingled with light' and convincing him to hide the Divine Vision.

Vala replies convincing him to hide the Divine Vision. 'For the Divine appearance is Brotherhood, but I am Love'.

BRING FORTH A WORLD

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There are resemblances between Blake's thought and the current theories of cognition. In Fritjof Capra's The Web of Life we read of the development of theories of cognition which go under the names such as 'dynamical systems theory', 'the theory of complexity', 'nonlinear dynamics', and 'network dynamics.' Capra has attempted to follow the change of paradigms from the mechanistic to the ecological worldview in understanding living systems.

When I read of nonlinear thinking, feedback loops, and bringing forth a world, I am reminded that Blake spoke of these things in his own language of symbolic poetry 200 years ago.

p 264
"In the emerging theory of living systems mind is not a thing, but a process. It is cognition, the process of knowing, it is identified with the process of life itself. This is the essence of the Santiago theory of cognition, proposed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela.
...
In ancient times the rational human mind was seen as merely one aspect of the immaterial soul, or spirit. The basic distinction was not between body and mind, but between body and soul, or body and spirit. While the differentiation between soul and spirit was fluid and fluctuated over time, both originally unified in themselves two concepts - that of the force of life and the activity of consciousness.
In the languages of ancient times both of these ideas are expressed through the metaphor of the breath of life. Indeed, the etymological roots of 'soul' and 'spirit' mean 'breath' in many antique languages."

p 267
"Since cognition traditionally is defined as the process of knowing, we must be able to describe it in terms of an organism's interactions with its environment. Indeed, this is what ,he Santiago theory does. The specific phenomena underlying the process of cognition is structural coupling. As we have seen, an autopoietic system undergoes continual structural change while preserving its weblike pattern of organization. It couples to its environment structurally in other words, through recurrent interactions, each of which triggers structural changes in the system. The living system is autonomous, however. The environment only triggers the structural changes, it does not specify or direct them.
Now, the living system not only specifies these structural changes, it also specifies which perturbations from the environment trigger them. This is the key to the Santiago theory of cognition. The structural changes in the system constitute acts of cognition. By specifying which perturbations from the environment trigger its changes, the system 'brings forth a world', as Maturana and Varela put it. Cognition, then, is then not a recognition of an independently existing world, but a continual bring forth of a world through the process of living."

p 271
"Maturana and Varela do not maintain that there is a void out there, out of which we create matter. There is a material world, but it does not have any predetermined features. The authors of the Santiago theory do not assert that 'nothing exists'; they assert that 'no things exist' independent to the process of cognition."

Image from New York Public Library Digital Gallery
Milton, Plate 45

Songs of Experience , Song 40, (E 23)
THE FLY.

"Little Fly
Thy summers play,
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink & sing:
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength & breath:
And the want
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die."

Jerusalem, Plate 27, (E 173)
" He witherd up the Human Form,
By laws of sacrifice for sin:
Till it became a Mortal Worm:
But O! translucent all within.

The Divine Vision still was seen
Still was the Human Form, Divine
Weeping in weak & mortal clay
O Jesus still the Form was thine.

And thine the Human Face & thine
The Human Hands & Feet & Breath
Entering thro' the Gates of Birth
And passing thro' the Gates of Death"

Milton, Plate 26 [28], (E 122)
"These are the Sons of Los, & these the Labourers of the Vintage
Thou seest the gorgeous clothed Flies that dance & sport in
summer
Upon the sunny brooks & meadows: every one the dance
Knows in its intricate mazes of delight artful to weave:
Each one to sound his instruments of music in the dance,
To touch each other & recede; to cross & change & return
These are the Children of Los; thou seest the Trees on mountains
The wind blows heavy, loud they thunder thro' the darksom sky
Uttering prophecies & speaking instructive words to the sons
Of men: These are the Sons of Los! These the Visions of Eternity

But we see only as it were the hem of their garments
When with our vegetable eyes we view these wond'rous Visions"

Plate 28

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PLATE 28 [This is the beginning of Chapter 2 (To the Jews),
but the previous Plate directly addressed the Jews.]
                                                       
                Jerusalem.

                 Chap: 2.

Every ornament of perfection, and every labour of love,
In all the Garden of Eden, & in all the golden mountains
Was become an envied horror, and a remembrance of jealousy:
And every Act a Crime, and Albion the punisher & judge.

And Albion spoke from his secret seat and said                   

All these ornaments are crimes, they are made by the labours
Of loves: of unnatural consanguinities and friendships
Horrid to think of when enquired deeply into; and all
These hills & valleys are accursed witnesses of Sin
I therefore condense them into solid rocks, stedfast!         
A foundation and certainty and demonstrative truth:
That Man be separate from Man, & here I plant my seat.

Cold snows drifted around him: ice coverd his loins around
He sat by Tyburns brook, and underneath his heel, shot up!
A deadly Tree, he nam'd it Moral Virtue, and the Law             
Of God who dwells in Chaos hidden from the human sight.

The Tree spread over him its cold shadows, (Albion groand)
They bent down, they felt the earth and again enrooting
Shot into many a Tree! an endless labyrinth of woe!

From willing sacrifice of Self, to sacrifice of (miscall'd)
     Enemies  
For Atonement: Albion began to erect twelve Altars,
Of rough unhewn rocks, before the Potters Furnace
He nam'd them Justice, and Truth. And Albions Sons
Must have become the first Victims, being the first

transgressors
But they fled to the mountains to seek ransom: building A

Strong 
Fortification against the Divine Humanity and Mercy,
In Shame & Jealousy to annihilate Jerusalem!
(Erdman 174)

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. Thefallen 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, wherefrequent public hangings took place (often including smallchildren). That was emphatically burned into his consciousnessand 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 tothe Law of Moses, with all its 'thou shalt nots'.The Tree grew and turned into a banyan, 'an endless labyrinth ofwoe'.

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.)

MENTAL THINGS

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The mental world in which the imagination lives is the world to which Blake invites us. In one of his first illuminated works, There is no Natural Religion, he teaches that the sense organs do not provide the totality of perception. The mind processes the input which the senses receive. Art and science which depend on presenting descriptions on the material world as perceived by the senses, without seeking the element of the Eternal which is revealed through Imagination, is to Blake bad art and science. The exterior world receives its meaning from the mind that perceives it - not the reverse. Thought for Blake is ever active: engaging in intellectual conflict which creates 'Mental forms" which build the 'Universe stupendous.'

There is No Natural Religion , Series b, Plate 2, (E 2)
"I . Mans perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception. he
percieves more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover."

A Vision of the Last Judgment , (E 565)
"The Last Judgment is an Overwhelming of Bad Art & Science.
Mental Things are alone Real what is Calld Corporeal Nobody Knows
of its Dwelling Place is in Fallacy & its Existence an
Imposture Where is the Existence Out of Mind or Thought Where is
it but in the Mind of a Fool. Some People flatter themselves
that there will be No Last Judgment & that Bad Art will be
adopted & mixed with Good Art That Error or Experiment will make
a Part of Truth & they Boast that it is its Foundation these
People flatter themselves I will not Flatter them Error is
Created Truth is Eternal Error or Creation will be Burned Up &
then & not till then Truth or Eternity will appear It is Burnt up
the Moment Men cease to behold it I assert for My self that I do
not behold the Outward Creation & that to me it is hindrance &
not Action it is as the Dirt upon my feet No part of Me. What it
will be Questiond When the Sun rises do you not see a round
Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea O no no I see an Innumerable
company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord
God Almighty I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any
more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight I look
thro it & not with it.

Milton , Plate 1, (E 95)
"Rouze up O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads
against the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the
Camp, the Court, & the University: who would if they could, for
ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War. Painters! on you I
call! Sculptors! Architects! Suffer not the fash[i]onable Fools
to depress your powers by the prices they pretend to give for
contemptible works or the expensive advertizing boasts that they
make of such works; believe Christ & his Apostles that there is a
Class of Men whose whole delight is in Destroying. We do not
want either Greek or Roman Models if we are but just & true to
our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall
live for ever; in Jesus our Lord."

Milton , PLATE 30 [33], (E 129)
"Lo the Eternal Great Humanity
To whom be Glory & Dominion Evermore Amen
Walks among all his awful Family seen in every face
As the breath of the Almighty. such are the words of man to man
In the great Wars of Eternity, in fury of Poetic Inspiration,
To build the Universe stupendous: Mental forms Creating"

Plate 27

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The length of the text in this plate is monumental. You could usually use 10 posts to show it all. Here we can only make a few scattered remards; I will only touch on somed words that might seem mysterious to the reader: Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion! I wonder if Blake wasn't expressing amazement at the idea: Jerusalem is a place in Palestine for most of us, but it meant something very differenent to Blake; for him it poetically connotes the better side of Abion (Mankind), the spiritual or Eternal side. In the same way Vala expressed the material, temporal side of Albion. The idea that Jerusalem was the 'Seat' of universal religion; it was the The Religion of Jesus! (This he said to the Jews.) Jerusalem was also a song at the beginning of Milton, a song that voters in the Labor party in England considered their national anthem. To study and enjoy Blake, or any meaningful poetry you have to be willing to entertain (in your imagination at least) multiple meanings or connotations of words. Jerusalem became the name of Blake's epic poem and prophecy. It goes on to relate the Old Testament patriarches to Druidism, and he equates the patriarches with oak groves. (That's poetry!!) What follows is a beautiful nature poem, reminiscent of the time when the boy went gamboling over the environs of London, filled with pleasant memories, among the boys was the lamb of God with Jerusalem, his bride: (exquisite!) with forgiveness for all. But it's interrupted by the 'mighty ruin' (the fallen Garden of Eden) with the 'fatal tree' of mystery (often thought of as an apple tree) that Adam and Eve disobediently ate, the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And here we have one of so many pointed and succinct oppositions between Innocence and Experience. It's the fate of all to begin in Innocence and proceed to Experience. Blake's work is poetic, philosophic and sermonic. Albion's Spectre brings forth Satan and cataclysm. Beginning on page 173, after a paragraph of woe we find "The Divine Vision still was seen" in the form of Jesus, who 'entered through the Gates of Birth' and passed through 'the Gates of Death' (pure gospel). Then Blake(?) confesses that he killed Jesus in his self-righteous pride and asks for the 'Spirit of his Love' and claims the Spectre as his own Selfhood (Satan) (Satan is not a person, but a State we may at any time enter.)

Text of PLATE 27 To the Jews. Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion! Can it be? Is it a Truth that the Learned have explored? Was Britain the Primitive Seat of the Patriarchal Religion? If it is true: my title-page is also True, that Jerusalem was & is the Emanation of the Giant Albion. It is True, and cannot be controverted. Ye are united O ye Inhabitants of Earth in One Religion. The Religion of Jesus: the most Ancient, the Eternal: & the Everlasting Gospel--The Wicked will turn it to Wickedness, the Righteous to Righteousness. Amen! Huzza! Selah! "All things Begin & End in Albions Ancient Druid Rocky Shore." Your Ancestors derived their origin from Abraham, Heber, Shem, and Noah, who were Druids: as the Druid Temples (which are the Patriarchal Pillars & Oak Groves) over the whole Earth witness to this day. You have a tradition, that Man anciently containd in his mighty limbs all things in Heaven & Earth: this you recieved from the Druids. "But now the Starry Heavens are fled from the mighty limbs of Albion" Albion was the Parent of the Druids; & in his Chaotic State of Sleep Satan & Adam & the whole World was Created by the Elohim. The fields from Islington to Marybone, To Primrose Hill and Saint Johns Wood: Were builded over with pillars of gold, And there Jerusalems pillars stood. Her Little-ones ran on the fields The Lamb of God among them seen And fair Jerusalem his Bride: Among the little meadows green. - 171 - Pancrass & Kentish-town repose Among her golden pillars high: Among her golden arches which Shine upon the starry sky. The Jews-harp-house & the Green Man; The Ponds where Boys to bathe delight: The fields of Cows by Willans farm: Shine in Jerusalems pleasant sight. She walks upon our meadows green: The Lamb of God walks by her side: And every English Child is seen, Children of Jesus & his Bride, Forgiving trespasses and sins Lest Babylon with cruel Og, With Moral & Self-righteous Law Should Crucify in Satans Synagogue! What are those golden Builders doing Near mournful ever-weeping Paddington Standing above that mighty Ruin Where Satan the first victory won. Where Albion slept beneath the Fatal Tree And the Druids golden Knife, Rioted in human gore, In Offerings of Human Life They groan'd aloud on London Stone They groand aloud on Tyburns Brook Albion gave his deadly groan, And all the Atlantic Mountains shook Albions Spectre from his Loins Tore forth in all the pomp of War! Satan his name: in flames of fire He stretch'd his Druid Pillars far. Jerusalem fell from Lambeth's Vale, Down thro Poplar & Old Bow; Thro Malden & acros the Sea, In War & howling death & woe. The Rhine was red with human blood: The Danube rolld a purple tide: On the Euphrates Satan stood: And over Asia stretch'd his pride. - 172 - He witherd up sweet Zions Hill, From every Nation of the Earth: He witherd up Jerusalems Gates, And in a dark Land gave her birth. He witherd up the Human Form, By laws of sacrifice for sin: Till it became a Mortal Worm: But O! translucent all within. The Divine Vision still was seen Still was the Human Form, Divine Weeping in weak & mortal clay O Jesus still the Form was thine. And thine the Human Face & thine The Human Hands & Feet & Breath Entering thro' the Gates of Birth And passing thro' the Gates of Death And O thou Lamb of God, whom I Slew in my dark self-righteous pride: Art thou return'd to Albions Land! And is Jerusalem thy Bride? Come to my arms & never more Depart; but dwell for ever here: Create my Spirit to thy Love: Subdue my Spectre to thy Fear, Spectre of Albion! warlike Fiend! In clouds of blood & ruin roll'd: I here reclaim thee as my own My Selfhood! Satan! armd in gold. Is this thy soft Family-Love Thy cruel Patriarchal pride Planting thy Family alone Destroying all the World beside. A mans worst enemies are those Of his own house & family; And he who makes his law a curse, By his own law shall surely die. In my Exchanges every Land Shall walk, & mine in every Land, Mutual shall build Jerusalem: Both heart in heart & hand in hand. - 173 - If Humility is Christianity; you O Jews are the true Christians; If your tradition that Man contained in his Limbs, all Animals, is True & they were separated from him by cruel Sacrifices: and when compulsory cruel Sacrifices had brought Humanity into a Feminine Tabernacle, in the loins of Abraham & David: the Lamb of God, the Saviour became apparent on Earth as the Prophets had foretold? The Return of Israel is a Return to Mental Sacrifice & War. Take up the Cross O Israel & follow Jesus.

FORM & LIGHT

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Blake's engraving of Death's Door for Blair's Grave Blake's watercolor of Death's Door from which the engraving was made (courtesy of Blake Archive). Click on image to see the perfection of Blake's line and the delicate use of color.Schiavonetti's engraving of Blake's image as published in Cromek's edition of Blair's Grave
Illustrations to the GraveeBooks@Adelaide
The University of Adelaide Library
W. J. T. Mitchell's chapter Blake's Composite Art in the anthology Blake's Visionary Forms Dramatic edited by Erdman and Grant, attempts to enlighten us on how the relationship of the two sides of Blake's genius, painting and poetry can best be understood. He sees the resolution of contraries including line and color in the images, to be the exercise which Blake continually repeats. Page 75 "In spite of his theoretical preference for outline and form, Blake often obscures his outlines with opaque pigments and heavy drapery. The resolution of this apparent contradiction between theory and practice lies in a fuller understanding of the theory. The subservience of light to form is, for Blake, a visual equivalent of an ideal condition: Jerusalem, PLATE 54, (E 203) In Great Eternity, every particular Form gives forth Emanates Its own peculiar Light, & the Form is the Divine Vision And the Light is his Garment The relation of form to light is defined as that of the individual and his Emanation, or of consciousness and the external world which it projects. With the fall, however, consciousness becomes egotism (male will) and the external world becomes an independent Nature (female will). Form and light become, in this world, sexual principles working in opposition. The resolution of this opposition is attained by a procedure rather similar to the one we observed in the relation of text and design, a dialectic of contraries. When female nature, for instance, assumes an independent existence, it becomes 'An outside shadowy surface super-added to the real Surface; Which is unchangeable' (Jerusalem, Plate 83, E 241); that is color freed from outline and obscuring it is the visual equivalent of nature's obfuscating the imagination. The veil or garment is often used as a metaphor for this idea of this idea of color, and disposition of drapery in Blake's pictures can be seen to follow the same principles as his treatment of color... Blake clothes many of his figures to exhibit their immersion into the fallen world of time and space... In the 'Death's Door' illustration to Blair's Grave Blake similarly contrasts the entry into death (i.e., the fallen world) with the 'awakening to Eternal life' by setting the clothed figure who enters the grave against the naked figure atop the grave." Jerusalem, Plate 83, (E 241) [Voice of Los] "That whatever is seen upon the Mundane Shell, the same Be seen upon the Fluctuating Earth woven by the Sisters And sometimes the Earth shall roll in the Abyss & sometimes Stand in the Center & sometimes stretch flat in the Expanse, According to the will of the lovely Daughters of Albion. Sometimes it shall assimilate with mighty Golgonooza: Touching its summits: & sometimes divided roll apart. As a beautiful Veil so these Females shall fold & unfold According to their will the outside surface of the Earth An outside shadowy Surface superadded to the real Surface; Which is unchangeable for ever & ever Amen: so be it! Separate Albions Sons gently from their Emanations, Weaving bowers of delight on the current of infant Thames Where the old Parent still retains his youth as I alas! Retain my youth eight thousand and five hundred years. The labourer of ages in the Valleys of Despair!" Near the conclusion of his chapter Mitchell states: "Significance is located in the dialectic between the permanence of outline and the mutability and momentary reality of color, just as in the poetry the continuity of consciousness is affirmed and realized in its ability persistently to give form to the changing manifestations of itself and the world it perceives." (Page 80)

Plate 19 of Jerusalem

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Plate 19

PLATE 19

His [Albion's] Children exil'd from his breast pass to and fro before him

His birds are silent on his hills, flocks die beneath his
branches
His tents are fall'n! his trumpets, and the sweet sound of his
harp
Are silent on his clouded hills, that belch forth storms & fire.
His milk of Cows, & honey of Bees, & fruit of golden harvest,
Is gather'd in the scorching heat, & in the driving rain:
Where once he sat he weary walks in misery and pain:
His Giant beauty and perfection fallen into dust:
Till from within his witherd breast grown narrow with his woes:
The corn is turn'd to thistles & the apples into poison:
The birds of song to murderous crows, his joys to bitter groans!
The voices of children in his tents, to cries of helpless
infants!
And self-exiled from the face of light & shine of morning,
In the dark world a narrow house! he wanders up and down,
Seeking for rest and finding none! and hidden far within,
His Eon weeping in the cold and desolated Earth.

All his Affections now appear withoutside: all his Sons,
Hand, Hyle & Coban, Guantok, Peachey, Brereton, Slayd & Hutton,
Scofeld, Kox, Kotope & Bowen; his Twelve Sons: Satanic Mill!
Who are the Spectres of the Twentyfour, each Double-form'd:
Revolve upon his mountains groaning in pain: beneath
The dark incessant sky, seeking for rest and finding none:
Raging against their Human natures, ravning to gormandize
The Human majesty and beauty of the Twentyfour.
Condensing them into solid rocks with cruelty and abborrence
Suspition & revenge, & the seven discases of the Soul
Settled around Albion and around Luvah in his secret cloud[.]
Willing the Friends endur'd, for Albions sake, and for
Jerusalem his Emanation shut within his bosom;
Which hardend against them more and more; as he builded onwards
On the Gulph of Death in self-righteousness, that roll'd
Before his awful feet, in pride of virtue for victory:
And Los was roofd in from Eternity in Albions Cliffs
Which stand upon the ends of Beulah, and withoutside, all
Appear'd a rocky form against the Divine Humanity.

Albions Circumference was clos'd: his Center began darkning
Into the Night of Beulah, and the Moon of Beulah rose
Clouded with storms: Los his strong Guard walkd round beneath the
Moon
And Albion fled inward among the currents of his rivers.
He found Jerusalem upon the River of his City soft repos'd
In the arms of Vala, assimilating in one with Vala
The Lilly of Havilah: and they sang soft thro' Lambeths vales,
In a sweet moony night & silence that they had created
With a blue sky spread over with wings and a mild moon,
Dividing & uniting into many female forms: Jerusalem
Trembling! then in one comingling in eternal tears,
Sighing to melt his Giant beauty, on the moony river.
(Erdman 163-65)

Notes:
This plate is an example of Albion's fundamental fallenness.
(Much of it is taken from Night 9 of The Four Zoas. Look
especially at Erdman 388-89))

"Where once he sat...." Our older readers will feel that
intensely. (cf Isaiah 40:31)

"All his Affections now appear without...."
His sons (listed here) are all the reprehensible figures in
Blake's corpus

"The corn is turned to thistes": here we find an echo of
Enion's Song, one of the most eloquent poems Blake ever
wrote (especially at Erdman at the end of 324:

"I am made to sow the thistle for wheat; the nettle for a
     nourishing dainty
I have planted a false oath in the earth, it has brought forth a
     poison tree
I have chosen the serpent for a councellor & the dog
For a schoolmaster to my children
I have blotted out from light & living the dove & nightingale    
And I have caused the earth worm to beg from door to door
I have taught the thief a secret path into the house of the just
I have taught pale artifice to spread his nets upon the morning
My heavens are brass my earth is iron my moon a clod of clay
My sun a pestilence burning at noon & a vapour of death in night 

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
And 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

PAGE 36 
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!"

(Erdman 324-25)

____________________________________________________________

BLAKE ON ART

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Laocoon as it appeared with restorations in Blake's day and his image with inscriptions

Blake's Laocoon was the continuation of his attempt to present his ideas on life, art, imagination and spirituality in a condensed and concentrated form. Believed to have been printed in 1826, existing in only two copies, it is a summation of the lessons he had learned through a long life of exercising his imagination in the continual practice of art.

In Volume 5 of the Blake Trust's series on Blake's Illuminated Books comments are made about Blake's Laocoon print. From The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 5: Milton, A Poem, Edited by Robert N. Essick and Joseph Viscomi:

"The distinguishing feature of the engraving is of course the wall of aphorisms, epigrams, and mini-narratives on subjects ranging from Jesus to economics. They express Blake's personal struggle as a visionary artist in a commercial age, and thus the struggle of all inspired artist to make art in countries devoted to money, moral law, war, and imitations." Page 231

"In his other treatises on art, including On Homer Poetry, A Descriptive Catalogue and the Public Address, Blake locates the primary obstacles to the creation of true and inspired art in the perverted taste of his day. Copies and translations were preferred to original engravings, blots and blurs were preferred to line, and unity and morality were preferred to works predicated on the unity of the imagination expressed in the part as much as the whole. In his epics, Blake examines the struggle between imagination and the moral law, forgiveness and the accusation of sin, annihilation and the assertion of selfhood. In Laocoon, Blake consolidates many of his ideas about art and society, now more polarized than ever before, and continues to pursue the problems of taste and perception. Whereas 'Art' manifests 'Jesus', 'War' and 'Dominion' manifest 'Money' and false moral virtue. Cultures like his own and those of Greece and Rome, so thoroughly permeated by false ideas of 'Good' and 'Evil', see with the natural eye only and are incapable of recognizing that their vision is limited." Page 232

A few succinct quotes from the Plate:

Laocoon , (E 273)
"Art Degraded Imagination Denied War Governed the Nations"

"Adam is only The Natural Man & not the Soul or Imagination"

"Christianity is Art & not Money
Money is its Curse"

"For every Pleasure Money Is Useless"

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

There are many answers to the question of why Blake chose to display his wisdom about art alongside his portrayal of the Laocoon statue. Suggested answers:
His way of working was combining words with pictures.
The statue at multiple levels represents struggle between contraries.
The reader/viewer would be challenged to reconcile the messages conveyed by the words and picture.
Blake could speak to rational and emotional mental processes simultaneously by combining verbal and visual means.
The long history of the Laocoon myth and statue and those who had interacted with them would enhance the message he wished to convey about art.
Or, he wanted to provoke his reader into working out his own way of integrating the role of art into the development of his imagination.

Plate 25

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 Text of Plate 25:

PLATE 25
And there was heard a great lamenting in Beulah: all the Regions
Of Beulah were moved as the tender bowels are moved: & they said:

Why did you take Vengeance O ye Sons of the mighty Albion?
Planting these Oaken Groves: Erecting these Dragon Temples
Injury the Lord heals but Vengeance cannot be healed:            
As the Sons of Albion have done to Luvah: so they have in him
Done to the Divine Lord & Saviour, who suffers with those that
     suffer:
For not one sparrow can suffer, & the whole Universe not suffer
     also,
In all its Regions, & its Father & Saviour not pity and weep.
But Vengeance is the destroyer of Grace & Repentance in the bosom
Of the Injurer: in which the Divine Lamb is cruelly slain:
Descend O Lamb of God & take away the imputation of Sin
By the Creation of States & the deliverance of Individuals
     Evermore Amen


Thus wept they in Beulah over the Four Regions of Albion
But many doubted & despaird & imputed Sin & Righteousness       
To Individuals & not to States, and these Slept in Ulro.

(Erdman 170-71)

Notes:

The scene is Ulro- a dangerous place. When Albion fell asleep, all
sorts of bad things happens, typified by the daughters of Beulah 
clothing Albion with a dreadful garment. The yarn that they used, going 
straight to his navel and around his backside, looks suspiciously like the
serpent (devil) who rules the world.

The Sun, the Moon, the Stars are part of Albion, everything material, temporal,
opposed to Albion's true nature, which is Eternal.
Erdman (304) refers to Albion as a victim of Druid sacrifice. He calls the
three maidens the three fates; he cites Plates 9, 14, 19, 22, 24 with similar
messages. (Look at them again.)
 
(The garment is the material person. The soul is the Eternal person.)
 
 The two bright stars: on his arm Jupiter or Mars and on his leg Venus. 
 
 Vala in the center holds up what Erdman calls an operating tent.
 
The three females could be thought of as Vala, Rahab  and Tirzah.

Vala has many identities (the Four Zoas was first called Vala, she was the

emanation of Luvah, and as the contrary of Jerusalem; Vala was always veiled,

Jerusalem always naked.

Tirzah is the religion of nature and materialism while Rahab represents the

religion of law, sin, and punishment; Jerusalem is the relgiion of Love and God. 
The last quote from Peter Berger's William Blake Poet and Mystic.
The others primarily from Erdmans Illuminated Blake.

CANTERBURY PILGRIMS IV

2012-01-13T06:26:00.007-05:00

British Museum
Section of Canterbury Pilgrims engraving used a frontispiece for prospectus

In Blake: A Biography, Peter Ackroyd helps us to understand what Blake had learned through enduring the difficulties of earning a living through art in the milieu of early nineteenth century London. Ackroyd shows also what Blake wanted to teach his contemporaries about the trade-offs of adopting industrialised models. Quotes from Ackroyd:

"He understood how 'taste' was created and in his own oblique manner connected 'Advertizments in Newspapers' with 'Gentlemen Critics' and 'English Connoisseurs' as well as with 'Picture traders' and 'Picture dealers; here he is attacking what was essentially a middle-class genteel interest in art, propagated by the newspapers and art dealers, a fashionable taste known for its liberality and correctness but one quite unable to understand or appreciate the work of a visionary such as Blake." p 292

"He realised that, if the division between invention and execution is made, an 'Idea' or 'Design' can simply be produced on an assembly line. Art is then turned into a 'Good for Nothing Commodity' manufactured by 'Ignorant Journeymen' for a society of equally ignorant consumers." p 293

"His public address to English engravers was, in essence, not new. John Lanseer had attacked the commercialisation of engraving (and in particular Boydell) in a series of public lectures, while artists such as William Sharp and Benjamin West had criticised the beginnings of what we would now term 'mass' production. But none of them had taken their analysis as far, or as deep, as Blake. It is another example of his clairvoyant understanding of his age that he is able to draw the connection between art, industrial economics and what would become the 'consumer societies' of modern civilisation in an analysis that was not otherwise formulated until the present century. It is as if his own sense of helplessness and despair had broken him open, and he could speak clearly about the world that had come close to destroying him; it was not madness at all, but a peculiar kind of lucidity which springs from those who have nothing left to lose. But he realized well what this encroaching industrial society was about to forfeit - all imitative techniques and mechanical perceptions 'turn that which is Soul & Life into a Mill or Machine' (E 575)...All this time Blake continued his work on his engraving of Chaucer's pilgrims, redolent of a more spiritual state of England and executed by him in a style that imitated the great 'Gothic' masters of the sixteenth century." p 294

Descriptive Catalogue,PAGE 21, (E 536)
"The Plowman is simplicity itself, with wisdom and strength
for its stamina. Chaucer has divided the ancient character of
Hercules between his Miller and his Plowman. Benevolence is the
plowman's great characteristic, he is thin with excessive labour,
and not with old age, as some have supposed.

'He would thresh and thereto dike and delve
For Christe's sake, for every poore wight,
Withouten hire, if it lay in his might.'

Visions of these eternal principles or characters of human
life appear to poets, in all ages; the Grecian gods were the
ancient Cherubim of Phoenicia; but the Greeks, and since them the
Moderns, have neglected to subdue the gods of Priam. These Gods
are visions of the eternal attributes, or divine names, which,
when erected into gods, become destructive to humanity.
They ought to be the servants, and not the masters of man, or of
society. They ought to be made to sacrifice to Man, and not man
compelled to sacrifice to them; for when separated from man or
humanity, who is Jesus the Saviour, the vine of eternity, they
are thieves and rebels, they are destroyers."
________________________________________________________________

More Resources for studying Blake's Canterbury Pilgrims

The painting itself belongs to the Glasgow Museum Pollock House. It was exhibited at the Tate Gallery in 2009 at which time they provided this press release. An illustrated biography of Blake by the Tate is available online. The section, Poverty & Paranoia, concerns the period when Blake worked on Canterbury Pilgrims.

Two copies of the print are in the British Museum. Learn more about Chaucer's Canterbury Tales at wikipedia.

The ideal way to view the print is at the Morgan Library website. You can zoom into the image for detail including identification of each character at the bottom of print.

An article titled Interpreting Blake's Canterbury Pilgrims by Warren Stevenson is available at http://digitalcommons.colby.edu/.

Hazard Adams has written a book named William Blake on his poetry and painting: a study of a descriptive catalogue.

plate 24

2012-01-12T03:30:00.000-05:00

In this Plate Albion continues the discourse:
What have I said? What have I done?
O all-powerful Human Words!
You recoil back upon me in the blood of the Lamb slain in his Children.

Two bleeding Contraries equally true, are his Witnesses against me
We reared mighty Stones: we danced naked around them:
Thinking to bring Love into light of day, to Jerusalems shame:
Displaying our Giant limbs to all the winds of heaven! Sudden
Shame siezd us, we could not look on one-another for abhorrence:
    the Blue
Of our immortal Veins & all their Hosts fled from our Limbs,
And wanderd distant in a dismal Night clouded & dark:
The Sun fled from the Britons forebead: the Moon from his mighty
    loins:
Scandinavia fled with all his mountains filld with groans,
O what is Life &
what is Man. O what is Death? Wherefore
Are you my Children, natives in the Grave to where I go
Or are you born to feed the hungry ravenings of Destruction
To be the sport of Accident! to waste in Wrath & Love, a weary
Life, in brooding cares & anxious labours, that prove but chaff.
O Jerusalem Jerusalem I have forsaken thy Courts
Thy Pillars of ivory & gold: thy Curtains of silk & fine
Linen: thy Pavements of precious stones: thy Walls of pearl
And gold, thy Gates of Thanksgiving thy Windows of Praise:
Thy Clouds of Blessing; thy Cherubims of Tender-mercy
Stretching their Wings sublime over the Little-ones of Albion
O Human Imagination O Divine Body I have Crucified
I have turned my back upon thee into the Wastes of Moral Law:
There Babylon is builded in the Waste, founded in Human
    desolation.
O Babylon thy Watchman stands over thee in the night
Thy severe judge all the day long proves thee O Babylon
With provings of destruction, with giving thee thy hearts desire.
But Albion is cast forth to the Potter his Children to the
    Builders
To build Babylon because they have forsaken Jerusalem
The Walls of Babylon are Souls of Men: her Gates the Groans
Of Nations: her Towers are the Miseries of once happy Families.
Her Streets are paved with Destruction, her Houses built with
    Death
Her Palaces with Hell & the Grave; her Synagogues with Torments
Of ever-hardening Despair squard & polishd with cruel skill

- 169 -Yet thou wast lovely as the summer cloud upon my hills
When Jerusalem was thy hearts desire in times of youth & love.
Thy Sons came to Jerusalem with gifts, she sent them away
With blessings on their hands & on their feet, blessings of gold,
And pearl & diamond: thy Daughters sang in her Courts:
They came up to Jerusalem; they walked before Albion
In the Exchanges of London every Nation walkd
And London walkd in every Nation mutual in love & harmony
Albion coverd the whole Earth, England encompassd the Nations,
Mutual each within others bosom in Visions of Regeneration;
Jerusalem coverd the Atlantic Mountains & the Erythrean,
From bright Japan & China to Hesperia France & England.
Mount Zion lifted his head in every Nation under heaven:
And the Mount of Olives was beheld over the whole Earth:
The footsteps of the Lamb of God were there: but now no more
No more shall I behold him, he is closd in Luvahs Sepulcher.
Yet why these smitings of Luvah, the gentlest mildest Zoa?
If God was Merciful this could not be: O Lamb of God
Thou art a delusion and Jerusalem is my Sin! O my Children
I have educated you in the crucifying cruelties of Demonstration
Till you have assum'd the Providence of God & slain your Father
Dost thou appear before me who liest dead in Luvahs Sepulcher
Dost thou forgive me! thou who wast Dead & art Alive?
Look not so Merciful upon me O thou Slain Lamb of God
I die! I die in thy arms tho Hope is banishd from me.

Thundring the Veil rushes from his hand Vegetating Knot by
Knot, Day by Day, Night by Night; loud roll the indignant
    Atlantic
Waves & the Erythrean, turning up the bottoms of the Deeps

(Erdman 169-70)

Notes:

In the first line, "O all-powerful Human Words!"
What might that ? the Word of God? I think, yes.
"His witnesses"? We've met that before.
Blake named Wesley and Whitefield.
"Mighty Stones" no doubt referring to the stones
of Stonehenge.
"Scandinavia fled" suggests the wicker man, a Druidic custom leading to the burning of children.,
In the next paragraph Albion asks the age old questions: 'what is Life?' and "what is Death?'
Simply put the only real life is the Eternal one, and the only real death is the denial of Eternity ('to waste in Wrath and Love, a weary Life in brooding cares and anxious labours, that prove but chaff').
At that point he addresses Jerusalem again, giving this list of the many wonderful things to be found in 'Jerusalem's courts'. Here we see a vivid contrast between the 'earthy' and eternal lives, which is close to Blake's purpose, not just in Jerusalem but in all the rest of his work.

The Picture:
(This discussion comes from Erdman p 303.)

At the top is what Erdman calls a 'moon ark' and rain, reminiscent of the Genesis story of the Flood. Within the moon is a dove with wings spread (See Genesis 6:7). A few lines down, across the plate and down the right border you may see a long row of female figures, which illustrates,
"Thundring the Veil rushes from his hand Vegetating Knot by
Knot, Day by Day, Night by Night;" the first one on the border enlarged as a seductive Vala. (It looks much like the figure in Milton, Plate 26).

Here is material from other authors:

Jerusalem Explained

Paley's Jerusalem

Re line 59: Perhaps an allusion to "Marlowe's despairing Faustus, "My God, my God, look not so fierce on me"

Erdmans Illuminated Blake
Page 303:
The picture at the top of the Plate (24) has rain, an inverted 'moon ark' with a dove within it; all these elements strongly suggest the biblical story of the Flood (Genesis 7-8).

To be continued.

CANTERBURY PILGRIMS III

2012-01-11T05:57:00.005-05:00

Preliminary Drawing for Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims
British Museum
Blake produced his painting and his engraving of Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims at a time when he was hard pressed by the changes taking place in the technical and economic facets of producing art. The prospects of profit motivated artists to compete for business, use short-cuts to mass produce, pander to popular taste, and use underhanded business practices.

Blake felt he had been cheated by the publisher/bookseller Cromek in the work he had done for the edition of Blair's The Grave which Cromek issued. He was deprived of the much need income from engraving his own designs for the book although he felt he had been promised the commission by Cromek. Subsequently Blake conceived of a large cabinet picture of the Canterbury Pilgrims which he would then engrave for sale to the public. Blake recalled mentioning the project to Cromek who then engaged Blake's friend Stothard to do the very same thing. With the backing of the publisher/bookseller Stothard's picture earned considerable money while Blake's did not.

Blake felt betrayed by Cromek and by Stothard who had been his friend since student days. Blake's anger is apparent in his Descriptive Catalogue, in the Chaucer Prospectuses, and in the Public Address which was never published or delivered. Tied in with Blake's resentment of Cormek and Stothard and his hostility toward them was his understanding of the changes in the role of art which were taking place because of the adoption of practices associated with the Industrial Revolution.

Public Address, (E 572)
PAGE 51
"In this Plate Mr B has resumed the style with which he set
out in life of which Heath & Stothard were the awkward imitators
at that time it is the style of Alb Durers Histries & the old
Engravers which cannot be imitated by any one who does not
understand Drawing & which according to Heath & Stothard Flaxman
& even Romney. Spoils an Engraver for Each of these Men have
repeatedly asserted this Absurdity to me in condemnation [P 52]
of my Work & approbation of Heaths lame imitation Stothard being
such a fool as to suppose that his blundering blurs can be made
out & delineated by any Engraver who knows how to cut dots &
lozenges equally well with those little prints which I engraved
after him five & twenty Years ago & by which he got his
reputation as a Draughtsman"

Public Address, (E 574)
PAGE 58
"In this manner the English Public have been imposed upon for
many Years under the impression that Engraving & Painting are
somewhat Else besides Drawing[.] Painting is Drawing on Canvas &
Engraving is Drawing on Copper & Nothing Else & he who pretends
to be either Painter or Engraver without being a Master of
Drawing is an Impostor. We may be Clever as Pugilists but as
Artists we are & have long been the Contempt of the Continent
Gravelot once said to My Master Basire
[you] English may be very clever in [your]
own opinions but [you] do not draw [the] draw

Resentment for Personal Injuries has had some share in this
Public Address But Love to My Art & Zeal for my Country a much
Greater."

Public Address, (E 576)
PAGE 62
"I have heard many People say Give me the Ideas. It is no
matter what Words you put them into & others say Give me the
Design it is no matter for the Execution. These People know
Nothing Of Art. Ideas cannot be Given
but in their minutely Appropriate Words nor Can a Design be made
without its minutely Appropriate Execution[.] The unorganized
Blots & Blurs of Rubens & Titian are not Art nor can their Method
ever express Ideas or Imaginations any more than Popes
Metaphysical jargon of Rhyming[.] Unappropriate Execution is the
Most nauseous affectation & foppery He who copies does
not Execute he only Imitates what is already Executed Execution
is only the result of Invention"

Blake turned inward following the episode involving the painting and engraving of Canterbury Pilgrims. The way which he had reacted to the failure and disappointment of his project was not congruent with his self image as one who knew that the Eternal world was reality, and that what happened in the natural world was transient states. It took Blake a long time to process the experience of rejection from those he depended upon and from the public to whom he appealed. The Public Address was a first step in which his anger exploded, but it was followed by the writing of Milton and Jerusalem in which he explored the dynamics of the presence of evil in the external and internal worlds.

Carl Jung experienced a similar psychological death when he broke with Freud. The experience was followed by a long period of introspection during which Jung explored the dark recesses of his unconscious and formulated his understanding of the dynamics of the psyche.

plate23

2012-01-10T03:38:00.000-05:00

Loud groand Albion from mountain to mountain & replied

PLATE 23 
Jerusalem! Jerusalem! deluding shadow of Albion!
Daughter of my phantasy! unlawful pleasure! Albions curse!
I came here with intention to annihilate thee! But
My soul is melted away, inwoven within the Veil
Hast thou again knitted the Veil of Vala, which I for thee       
Pitying rent in ancient times. I see it whole and more
Perfect, and shining with beauty! But thou! O wretched Father!

Jerusalem reply'd, like a voice heard from a sepulcher:
Father! once piteous! Is Pity. a Sin? Embalm'd in Vala's bosom
In an Eternal Death for. Albions sake, our best beloved.         
Thou art my Father & my Brother: Why hast thou hidden me,
Remote from the divine Vision: my Lord and Saviour.

Trembling stood Albion at her words in jealous dark despair:
He felt that Love and Pity are the same; a soft repose!
Inward complacency of Soul: a Self-annihilation!                 

I have erred! I am ashamed! and will never return more:
I have taught my children sacrifices of cruelty: what shall I
answer?
I will hide it from Eternals! I will give myself for my Children!
Which way soever I turn, I behold Humanity and Pity!

He recoil'd: he rush'd outwards; he bore the Veil whole away     
His fires redound from his Dragon Altars in Errors returning.
He drew the Veil of Moral Virtue, woven for Cruel Laws,
And cast it into the Atlantic Deep, to catch the Souls of the
Dead.
He stood between the Palm tree & the Oak of weeping
Which stand upon the edge of Beulah; and there Albion sunk       
Down in sick pallid languor! These were his last words,
relapsing!
Hoarse from his rocks, from caverns of Derbyshire & Wales
And Scotland, utter'd from the Circumference into Eternity.

Blasphemous Sons of Feminine delusion! God in the dreary Void
Dwells from Eternity, wide separated from the Human Soul         

But thou deluding Image by whom imbu'd the Veil I rent
Lo here is Valas Veil whole, for a Law, a Terror  & a Curse!
And therefore God takes vengeance on me: from my clay-cold bosom
My children wander trembling victims of his Moral justice.

His snows fall on me and cover me, while in the Veil I fold    
My dying limbs. Therefore O Manhood, if thou art aught
But a meer Phantasy, hear dying Albions Curse!
May God who dwells in this dark Ulro & voidness, vengeance take,
And draw thee down into this Abyss of sorrow and torture,
Like me thy Victim. O that Death & Annihilation were the same! 

(Erdman 168-9) 

Notes:

Line 1 "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! deluding shadow of Albion!"

Quoting from David Whitmarsh's Jerusalem Explained,

   "Albion believes he is substance and Jerusalem a shadow. In Blake’s narrative structure, however, as seen from the true substance of infinite regeneration, Albion is the shadow."

   David points out the infinite complexity of Blake's character, Albion:

   Albion is Mankind

   Albion is England

   Albion is the eternal equivalent of the above (we're in heaven).

   Albion behaves as a fallen creature (perhaps something like the Biblical Adam.

   Albion acts as Moses (another fallen creature)Jerusalem reply'd: In paragraph two we have Catherine (Blake) trying to maintin some

self respect in the face of William's careless brilliance, and pointing out how an inflation can carry us far from (the Eternal) God. The 'bad man' (the spectre has taken control of Blake's psyche. 

She obviously got to him because he confesses, expressing his humiliation.

"Trembling stood Albion at her words in jealous dark despair:
He felt that Love and Pity are the same; a soft repose!"

This might be perceived as an element of Blake autobiography;

You may know the story of Blake telling Catherine of his rejection

by a higher class lady, the pity she showed and his statement that

he loved her because she pitied him. Love and pity both have 

contraries, good and bad, spiritual and fallen, etc. Today pity

doesn't have the prestige it may have had in Blake's day. this

passage may also be traced to Shakespeare's Othello: "She loved

me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did

pity them (This contribution from page 166 of Morton Paley's 

Jerusalem.)

"He stood between the Palm tree & the Oak of weeping"

 FZ1-18.11-15 E310 has an earlier version:

"Now Man was come to the Palm tree & to the Oak of Weeping
Which stand upon the Edge of Beulah  he [Albion] sunk down
From the Supporting arms of the Eternal Saviour; who disposd
The pale limbs of his Eternal Individuality
Upon The Rock of Ages. Watching over him with Love & Care"

An eloquent statement of the fall, asleep in Beulah; might it be the moment when our journey through life departs from angelic innocence to materialism? 

"Therefore O Manhood, if thou art aught
But a meer Phantasy, hear dying Albions Curse!"

Albion perceives himself as dying (going to sleep in Beulah), and utters a 'final curse' (reminiscent of Job's wife).   

CANTERBURY PILGRIMS II

2012-01-09T07:07:00.006-05:00

From Wikimedia Commons
"Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims. Copper engraving by William Blake, with additions in watercolour by the artist Third state, 1810–20. In the collection of the Morgan Library"Blake's painting of Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims which measured three feet by one foot was followed by his engraving of the same design. During the year which Blake worked on this large, intricately detailed engraving he wrote two or three prospectuses which were printed commercially for prospective buyers. The copper plate for the Chaucer engraving and a copy of the print can now be found in the Yale University Art Gallery.

Chaucer Prospectus, Second, Composite Draft, (E 568)
"BLAKE'S CHAUCER

An Original Engraving by [William Blake] from
his Fresco Painting of [Chaucers Canterbury Pilgrims]
[Mr B having from early Youth cultivated the two Arts
Painting & Engraving & during a Period of Forty Years never
suspended his Labours on Copper for a single Day Submits with
Confidence to Public Patronage & requests the attention of the
Amateur in a Large Stroke Engraving] 3 feet 1 inch long
by one foot high
[Containing Thirty original high finishd whole Length,
Portraits on Horseback Of Chaucers Characters, where every
Character & every Expression, every Lineament of Head Hand &
Foot. every particular of Dress or Costume. where every Horse is
appropriate to his Rider & the Scene or Landscape with its
Villages Cottages Churches & the Inn in Southwark is minutely
labourd not by the hands of Journeymen but by the Original Artist
himself even to the Stuffs & Embroidery of the Garments. the hair
upon the Horses the Leaves upon the Trees. & the Stones & Gravel
upon the road; the Great Strength of Colouring & depth of work
peculiar to Mr B's Prints will be here found accompanied by a
Precision not to be seen but in the work of an Original
Artist]"

The arts like all of life in Blake's time were affected by the Industrial Revolution. Mechanisation led to new styles and tools for engraving which were less labor intensive. The use of mass production techniques removed the artist from more tedious aspects of the production. Believing as Blake did in Art as a product of the Imagination, he chose to distance himself from less than 'human' means of manufacture of art.

Michael Bedard comments on the the alternatives faced by the traditional artist as the machine age gained ground in his book William Blake: The Gates of Paradise:
Page 128
"Blake's lament was the lament of an artist and craftsman who see industry and machine methods destroying both art and craft in the interest of business and profit. His plea for the integrity of the individual artist who unites idea and execution in his work. 'Michelangelo's art depends on Michelangelo's execution altogether,' he wrote. Once the two are separated, design becomes a matter of a production line, and art is no more than a commodity."

Page 140
"In rejecting the ways of the world of commerce and the spread of machine methods into the world of art, Blake embraced the Illuminated Book with renewed passion. While industrial production prided itself on the the ability to make an endless stream of Identical copies, in Illuminated Printing each copy was unique. While industry prided itself on speed and efficiency, Blake's mode of production was deliberately slow and inefficient. While industrial production was grounded on the division of labor and the distinction between those who worked with their heads and those who worked with their hands, Blake's was an artisan's spirit. He took pride in the work of his hands and relentlessly pursued the unity of head and hands in the work of art."

Blake chose to make his engraving in the traditional way he had been taught as an apprentice with Basire. He studied Chaucer using the translation from middle English. He determined the style of clothing worn in the period. He painted types of horses which he felt were appropriate to each rider. Every detail of his engraving was determined by what he could learn about the 15th century which he was representing, and the information which Chaucer had included in his poem.

In creating his engraving for the Canterbury Tales Blake deliberately rejected the influences of the Industrial Age and embraced the ways of the artisan who brought all of his own skills to an artistry which was correct, honest and conveyed the author's intent.

Plate 97

2012-01-08T03:39:00.000-05:00

 In the post, Going Forth, Ellie Clayton used three plates illustrating Blake's

use of the four armaments he cited in Prelude to Milton, namely:

"Bring me my bow of burning gold..

Bring me my my arrows of desire 

Bring me my spear.....

Bring me my chariot of fire.."

(For Bible students this is evocative of Ephesians 6.)

My subject concerns the Finale Awakening (the Parousia or Second Coming

of Christ) associated with the Last Judgment.  Blake identified these two

things and made them NOW!. In the poem cited above the final outcome is:

"I will not cease from Mental Fight

Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant Land."

(Early in the 20th century liberal Christians preached, taught and sang the 

Coming of the Kingdom.) In the days of Jesus the only kingdom was Rome.  
In that context 'thy kingdom come' could be nothing less than revolutionary.  
But late 20 century theology had rejected the notion of 'the kingdom'. 
King George still had unpleasant connotations in America.

In fact Blake (especially early Blake) perceived the dichotomy between King and America. America in contrast to the Empire stood for Liberty; 
MHH ends with "A Song of Liberty: 
"Empire is no more! and now the lion and wolf shall cease". 
(The king would be the lion; his war would be the wolf!)

Some of the words of America (particularly Plate 6) found a place in The Four Zoas and predicted very similar language near the end of Jerusalem:

PLATE 6 (of America)
The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their
     stations;
The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up;
The bones of death, the cov'ring clay, the sinews shrunk & dry'd.
Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing! awakening!
Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds & bars are burst; 

Let the slave grinding at the mill, run out into the field:
Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air;
Let the inchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing,
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years;
Rise and look out, his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are
     open.     
And let his wife and children return from the opressors scourge;
They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream.
Singing. The Sun has left his blackness, & has found a fresher
     morning
And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night;
For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease."      
(Erdman 53)
************************************************************

Here's one of Ellie's quotes:  

Jerusalem     , Plate 95, (E 254)
"Her voice pierc'd Albions clay cold ear. he moved upon the Rock
The Breath Divine went forth upon the morning hills, Albion mov'd
Upon the Rock, he opend his eyelids in pain; in pain he mov'd
His stony members, he saw England. Ah! shall the Dead live again

The Breath Divine went forth over the morning hills Albion rose
In anger: the wrath of God breaking bright flaming on all sides around
His awful limbs: into the Heavens he walked clothed in flames
Loud thundring, with broad flashes of flaming lightning &     pillars
Of fire, speaking the Words of Eternity in Human Forms, in direful
Revolutions of Action & Passion, thro the Four Elements on all sides
Surrounding his awful Members. Thou seest the Sun in heavy clouds
Struggling to rise above the Mountains. in his burning hand
He takes his Bow, then chooses out his arrows of flaming gold
Murmuring the Bowstring breathes with ardor! clouds roll around the
Horns of the wide Bow, loud sounding winds sport on the mountain brows
Compelling Urizen to his Furrow; & Tharmas to his Sheepfold;
And Luvah to his Loom: Urthona he beheld mighty labouring at
His Anvil, in the Great Spectre Los unwearied labouring &     weeping..."

And she included this one:

PLATE 97
"Awake! Awake Jerusalem! O lovely Emanation of Albion
Awake and overspread all Nations as in Ancient Time
For lo! the Night of Death is past and the Eternal Day
Appears upon our Hills: Awake Jerusalem, and come away

So spake the Vision of Albion & in him so spake in my hearing
The Universal Father. Then Albion stretchd his hand into Infinitude.
And took his Bow. Fourfold the Vision for bright beaming Urizen
Layd his hand on the South & took a breathing Bow of carved Gold
Luvah his hand stretch'd to the East & bore a Silver Bow bright     shining
Tharmas Westward a Bow of Brass pure flaming richly wrought
Urthona Northward in thick storms a Bow of Iron terrible thundering.

And the Bow is a Male & Female & the Quiver of the Arrows of     Love,
Are the Children of this Bow: a Bow of Mercy & Loving-kindness:     laying
Open the hidden Heart in Wars of mutual Benevolence Wars of Love
And the Hand of Man grasps firm between the Male & Female Loves
And he Clothed himself in Bow & Arrows in awful state Fourfold
In the midst of his Twenty-eight Cities each with his Bow breathing"

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

Plate 95:  

Her voice pierced Albion's clay cold ear

he moved upon the Rock.

The Breath Divine went forth upon the morning hills, Albion mov'd
Upon the Rock, he opend his eyelids in pain; in pain he mov'd
His stony members, he saw England. Ah! shall the Dead live again

The Breath Divine went forth over the morning hills Albion rose 
In anger: the wrath of God breaking bright flaming on all sides
     around
His awful limbs: into the Heavens he walked clothed in flames
Loud thundring, with broad flashes of flaming lightning & pillars
Of fire, speaking the Words of Eternity in Human Forms, in
     direful
Revolutions of Action & Passion, thro the Four Elements on all
     sides  
Surrounding his awful Members. Thou seest the Sun in heavy clouds
Struggling to rise above the Mountains. in his burning hand
He takes his Bow, then chooses out his arrows of flaming gold
Murmuring the Bowstring breathes with ardor! clouds roll around
     the
Horns of the wide Bow, loud sounding winds sport on the mountain 
     brows
Compelling Urizen to his Furrow; & Tharmas to his Sheepfold;
And Luvah to his Loom: Urthona he beheld mighty labouring at
His Anvil, in the Great Spectre Los unwearied labouring & weeping
Therefore the Sons of Eden praise Urthonas Spectre in songs
Because he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble.        

As the Sun & Moon lead forward the Visions of Heaven & Earth
England who is Brittannia enterd Albions bosom rejoicing,
Rejoicing in his indignation! adoring his wrathful rebuke.
She who adores not your frowns will only loathe your smiles
(Erdman 254-5)

CANTERBURY PILGRIMS

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When Blake painted his illustration for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales for his Exhibition of 1809 he included a detailed description of the painting in his Catalogue. He lists the pilgrims in the procession as Chaucer had described them. Notice too that he points out the time of day and the starting point of the pilgrimage. He remarks that he has attempted to portray features of the landscape as they would have appeared in Chaucer's time, some 400 years before Blake's own time. In spite of the lapse of time Blake feels that 'the characters themselves for ever remain unaltered' and delineate 'the classes of men.'

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 532)
"NUMBER III.
Sir Jeffery Chaucer and the nine and twenty Pilgrims on
their journey to Canterbury.

THE time chosen is early morning, before sunrise, when the jolly
company are just quitting the Tabarde Inn. The Knight and Squire
with the Squire's Yeoman lead the Procession, next follow the
youthful Abbess, her nun and three priests; her greyhounds attend
her.

'Of small hounds had she that she fed
'With roast flesh, milk and wastel bread.'

Next follow the Friar and Monk; then the Tapiser, the Pardoner,
and the Somner and Manciple. After these "Our Host," who occupies
the center of the cavalcade; directs them to the Knight
as the person who would be likely to commence their task of each
telling a tale in their order. After the Host follow the
Shipman, the Haberdasher, the Dyer, the Franklin, the Physician,
the Plowman, the Lawyer, the poor Parson, the Merchant, the Wife
of Bath, the Miller, the Cook, the Oxford Scholar, Chaucer
himself, and the Reeve comes as Chaucer has described:

'And ever he rode hinderest of the rout.'

These last are issuing from the gateway of the Inn; the Cook and
the Wife of Bath are both taking their morning's draught of
comfort. Spectators stand at the gateway of the Inn, and are
composed of an old Man, a Woman and Children.
The Landscape is an eastward view of the country, from the
Tabarde Inn, in Southwark, as it may be supposed to have
appeared in Chaucer's time; interspersed with cottages and
villages; the first beams of the Sun are seen above the horizon;
some buildings and spires indicate the situation of the great
City; the Inn is a gothic building, which Thynne in his Glossary
says was the lodging of the Abbot of Hyde, by Winchester. On
the Inn is inscribed its title, and a proper advantage is taken
of this circumstance to describe the subject of the Picture.
The words written over the gateway of the Inn, are as follow:
"The Tabarde Inn, by Henry Baillie, the lodgynge-house for
Pilgrims, who journey to Saint Thomas's Shrine at Canterbury."
The characters of Chaucer's Pilgrims are the characters
which compose all ages and nations: as one age falls, another
rises, different to mortal sight, but to immortals only the same;
for we see the same characters repeated again and again, in
animals, vegetables, minerals, and in men; nothing new occurs in
identical existence; Accident ever varies, Substance can
never suffer change nor decay.
Of Chaucer's characters, as described in his Canterbury
Tales, some of the names or titles are altered by time, but the
characters themselves for ever remain unaltered, and
consequently they are the
physiognomies or lineaments of universal human life, beyond which
Nature never steps. Names alter, things never alter. I have
known multitudes of those who would have been monks in the age of
monkery, who in this deistical age are deists. As Newton
numbered the stars, and as Linneus numbered the plants, so
Chaucer numbered the classes of men."

There were many reasons that Blake put a lot of time and energy into his painting of the Canterbury Pilgrims, some of which we will explore in later posts. First we see it only as a careful rendition of a Gothic text.

Plate 26

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This short plate is a conclusive statement of what Blake tried to do in Chapter One of the poem:

SUCH VISIONS HAVE APPEARED TO ME
AS I MY ORDERED RACE HAVE WON
JERUSALEM IS NAMED LIBERTY
AMONG THE SONS OF ALBION The form of this poem is often thought of as formless; for example the last plates (but this one) have a colloquy stretching over about four of them.

Often there appears to be no resemblance in the mental dimension of pictures and text.

Here at the end of Chapter Two Blake rises to prose; he tells us in factual terms what he has done with the 'visions that appeared to him'. (You may remember that the 'Visions' had deserted Blake for the 20 years preceding a new liberty that came to him in 1804. His output in the earlier years became a source with which he improved on the ideas of "The Unholy Bible" and The Four Zoas. In fact he glorified them with the heavenly wisdom that you and I may strive for with our devotions.

In Chapter One Blake was trying to reach ordinary people (is it succeeding for us?). The successive chapters were addressed To the Jews, To the Deists, and To the Christians. I like to think that To the Christians was especially to those Christian poets who had received him gladly in his last years.

READING BLAKE

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From Jerusalem, Plate 64
Used on cover of The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake

The resources on the internet have made studying Blake easier. When Larry began reading Blake in the 1980's he was dependant on books for his sources. His 'bible' was Geoffrey Keynes' Blake: Complete Writings first published by the Oxford University Press in 1966 (a revision of his 1925 work). The authoritative text for the works of Blake is now David V Erdman's The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake published in 1965 and revised in 1988. We are not completely dependant on printed copy now because of access to electronic text. Erdman's text is available to download from the internet as a text file named eE. If you download the file to your computer you will have a searchable copy of all that Blake wrote.

Blake's text is also available through the Blake Digital Text Project of the University of Georgia. Access to individual books and writings is facilitated by the use of an index. Page and line numbers are provided in this format. Search of the complete text is available through the concordance.

In his acknowledgement of the generosity of David Erdman making available his edition of Blake's works, Nelson Hilton, the editor of the digital project, quotes the second paragraph from Blake's 1796 letter to George Cumberland.

Letters, (E 700)

"Lambeth 23 Decembr 1796 a Merry Christmas
Dear Cumberland
I have lately had some pricks of conscience on account of
not acknowledging your friendship to me [before]
immediately on the reciet of your. beautiful book. I have
likewise had by me all the summer 6 Plates which you desired me
to get made for you. they have laid on my shelf. without speaking
to tell me whose they were or that they were [there] at
all & it was some time (when I found them) before I could divine
whence they came or whither they were bound or whether they were
to lie there to eternity. I have now sent them to you to be
transmuted, thou real Alchymist!
Go on Go on. such works as yours Nature & Providence the
Eternal Parents demand from their children how few produce them
in such perfection how Nature smiles on them. how Providence
rewards them. How all your Brethren say, The sound of his harp
& his flute heard from his secret forest chears us to the labours
of life. & we plow & reap forgetting our labour
Let us see you sometimes as well as sometimes hear from you
& let us often See your Works
Compliments to Mr Cumberland & Family
Yours in head & heart
WILL BLAKE"

It is not Blake's writings or pictures that so many labor to present; it is the truth incorporated in his words and images which point to the perennial realities of eternity expressed in time.

Plate 22

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[Then Vala answerd spreading her scarlet Veil over Albion]
PLATE 22 Albion thy fear has made me tremble; thy terrors have surrounded me Thy Sons have naild me on the Gates piercing my hands & feet: Till Skofields Nimrod the mighty Huntsman Jehovah came, With Cush his Son & took me down. He in a golden Ark, Bears me before his Armies tho my shadow hovers here The flesh of multitudes fed & nouris[h]d me in my childhood My morn & evening food were prepard in Battles of Men Great is the cry of the Hounds of Nimrod along the Valley Of Vision, they scent the odor of War in the Valley of Vision. 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 Where shall I hide from thy dread countenance & searching eyes I have looked into the secret Soul of him I loved And in the dark recesses found Sin & can never return. Albion again utterd his voice beneath the silent Moon I brought Love into light of day to pride in chaste beauty I brought Love into light & fancied Innocence is no moreThen spoke Jerusalem O Albion! my Father Albion Why wilt thou number every little fibre of my Soul Spreading them out before the Sun like stalks of flax to dry? The Infant Joy is beautiful, but its anatomy Horrible ghast & deadly! nought shalt thou find in it But dark despair & everlasting brooding melancholy! Then Albion turnd his face toward Jerusalem & spoke Hide thou Jerusalem in impalpable voidness, not to be Touchd by the hand nor seen with the eye: O Jerusalem Would thou wert not & that thy place might never be found But come O Vala with knife & cup: drain my blood To the last drop! then hide me in thy Scarlet Tabernacle (21:44 warshipped] perhaps a scribal error for "worshipped"; but see textual note.)
For I see Luvah whom I slew. I behold him in my Spectre As I behold Jerusalem in thee O Vala dark and cold Jerusalem then stretchd her hand toward the Moon & spoke Why should Punishment Weave the Veil with Iron Wheels of War When Forgiveness might it Weave with Wings of Cherubim Loud groand Albion from mountain to mountain & replied
(Erdman 167-8) [continue with Plate 23]

Notes:

This plate has a colloquy among Vala, Albion, and Jerusalem; first Vala:

"Thy Sons have naild me on the Gates": is this a reference to the
crucifixion? Isn't it strange that he put these words in the mouth of Vala?
The answer might be that Vala is many things; originally she was the emanation
of Luvah; it's he rather than she who stand most often for Christ.

In line 3 Jerhovah is identified with two disreputable characters, which very
adequately reminds us that Blake didn't think much of the Old Testament God
(who brings "a thump on the head" compared to the Son's healing balm.)

"the Valley of Vision": the Bible has many valleys, but the most appropriate
is the valley of gehenna,, where the followers of Moloch sacrificed their
children. (and of course there is the 'valley of the shadow of death'.)

Albion now spoke two lines:
"I brought Love into light of day....."

Then Jerusalem comes in; she takes Albion to task for lapsing from Eternity
into the most crass materiality (joy is beautiful, but its anatomy horrible).

If you're still interested, look at the rest of the conversation (at least
the rest of it on this plate).

Notes on the Picture:
1. Upper: much like plates 18 and 20 two figures; one veiled, one naked,
suggesting Vala and Jerusalem; two figures in close proximity, but not
connected.

2. Blake showed three of the "Iron Wheels of War", said to be partially
immersed in water. (See Copy E).

And the two figures, now connected; you might say two double figures; to the
left Vala: fallen and redeemed; to the right Jerusalem: redeemed and fallen.

Erdman pointed out "three birds in the margin beside Albion's lament".

"And he pointed out the description of the Wheels at Plate 18:8-10:

Became as Three Immense Wheels, turning upon one-anotherInto Non-Entity, and their thunders hoarse appall the DeadTo murder their own Souls, to build a Kingdom among the Dead"

(Erdman 163)

GOING FORTH

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Image from Blake's Watercolours for
the Poems of Thomas Gray
View in Blake Archive

One of the final poetic images of Jerusalem is that of the bow and the arrows. The activity of being sent into the Eternal dimension can be seen in the bow with its 'murmuring' string. 'Arrows of Love, Are the Children of this Bow: a Bow of Mercy & Loving-kindness' sent forth as a continuation of the activity of the bow which propels them.

Blake's Visionary Forms Dramatic edited by David V Erdman and John E Grant, includes an article by Edward J Rose. On Page 460 in a note Rose states:

"The 'Arrows of Intellect' that the fourfold bowstring 'breathes with ardour' are the armaments that he employs in the intellectual battles that are waged in the 'Mental Fight' of visionary art. Visionary arrows penetrate the opacity of man and 'Open the hidden Heart in Wars of mutual Benevolence, Wars of Love'".

On these three plates of Jerusalem, Blake develops his multifaceted image to propel his reader into a visionary experience of being a 'murmuring bow-string' and a 'flaming arrow'.

Jerusalem , Plate 95, (E 254)
"Her voice pierc'd Albions clay cold ear. he moved upon the Rock
The Breath Divine went forth upon the morning hills, Albion mov'd
Upon the Rock, he opend his eyelids in pain; in pain he mov'd
His stony members, he saw England. Ah! shall the Dead live again

The Breath Divine went forth over the morning hills Albion rose
In anger: the wrath of God breaking bright flaming on all sides around
His awful limbs: into the Heavens he walked clothed in flames
Loud thundring, with broad flashes of flaming lightning & pillars
Of fire, speaking the Words of Eternity in Human Forms, in direful
Revolutions of Action & Passion, thro the Four Elements on all sides
Surrounding his awful Members. Thou seest the Sun in heavy clouds
Struggling to rise above the Mountains. in his burning hand
He takes his Bow, then chooses out his arrows of flaming gold
Murmuring the Bowstring breathes with ardor! clouds roll around the
Horns of the wide Bow, loud sounding winds sport on the mountain brows
Compelling Urizen to his Furrow; & Tharmas to his Sheepfold;
And Luvah to his Loom: Urthona he beheld mighty labouring at
His Anvil, in the Great Spectre Los unwearied labouring & weeping
...
PLATE 97
Awake! Awake Jerusalem! O lovely Emanation of Albion
Awake and overspread all Nations as in Ancient Time
For lo! the Night of Death is past and the Eternal Day
Appears upon our Hills: Awake Jerusalem, and come away

So spake the Vision of Albion & in him so spake in my hearing
The Universal Father. Then Albion stretchd his hand into Infinitude.
And took his Bow. Fourfold the Vision for bright beaming Urizen
Layd his hand on the South & took a breathing Bow of carved Gold
Luvah his hand stretch'd to the East & bore a Silver Bow bright shining
Tharmas Westward a Bow of Brass pure flaming richly wrought
Urthona Northward in thick storms a Bow of Iron terrible thundering.

And the Bow is a Male & Female & the Quiver of the Arrows of Love,
Are the Children of this Bow: a Bow of Mercy & Loving-kindness: laying
Open the hidden Heart in Wars of mutual Benevolence Wars of Love
And the Hand of Man grasps firm between the Male & Female Loves
And he Clothed himself in Bow & Arrows in awful state Fourfold
In the midst of his Twenty-eight Cities each with his Bow breathing
PLATE 98
Then each an Arrow flaming from his Quiver fitted carefully
They drew fourfold the unreprovable String, bending thro the wide Heavens
The horned Bow Fourfold, loud sounding flew the flaming Arrow fourfold

Murmuring the Bow-string breathes with ardor. Clouds roll round the horns
Of the wide Bow, loud sounding Winds sport on the Mountains brows:
The Druid Spectre was Annihilate loud thundring rejoicing terrific vanishing"

Plate 21

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wikipedia collection

Then Albion broke silence and with groans reply'd

PLATE 21
O Vala! O Jerusalem! do you delight in my groans
You O lovely forms, you have prepared my death-cup:
The disease of Shame covers me from bead to feet: I have no hope
Every boil upon my body is a separate & deadly Sin.
Doubt first assaild me, then Shame took possession of me         
Shame divides Families. Shame hath divided Albion in sunder!
First fled my Sons, & then my Daughters, then my Wild Animations
My Cattle next, last ev'n the Dog of my Gate. the Forests fled
The Corn-fields, & the breathing Gardens outside separated
The Sea; the Stars: the Sun: the Moon: drivn forth by my disease 
All is Eternal Death unless you can weave a chaste
Body over an unchaste Mind! Vala! O that thou wert pure!
That the deep wound of Sin might be clos'd up with the Needle,
And with the Loom: to cover Gwendolen and Ragan with costly Robes
Of Natural Virtue, for their Spiritual forms without a Veil      
Wither in Luvahs Sepulcher. I thrust him from my presence
And all my Children followd his loud howlings into the Deep.
Jerusalem! dissembler Jerusalem! I look into thy bosom:
I discover thy secret places: Cordella! I behold
Thee whom I thought pure as the heavens in innocence & fear:     
Thy Tabernacle taken down, thy secret Cherubim disclosed
Art thou broken? Ah me Sabrina, running by my side:
In childhood what wert thou? unutterable anguish! Conwenna
Thy cradled infancy is most piteous. O hide, O hide!
Their secret gardens were made paths to the traveller:           
I knew not of their secret loves with those I hated most,
Nor that their every thought was Sin & secret appetite
Hyle sees in fear, he howls in fury over them, Hand sees
In jealous fear: in stern accusation with cruel stripes
He drives them thro' the Streets of Babylon before my face:      
Because they taught Luvah to rise into my clouded heavens
Battersea and Chelsea mourn for Cambel & Gwendolen!
Hackney and Holloway sicken for Estrild & Ignoge!
Because the Peak, Malvern & Cheviot Reason in Cruelty
Penmaenmawr & Dhinas-bran Demonstrate in Unbelief                
Manchester & Liverpool are in tortures of Doubt & Despair
Malden & Colchester Demonstrate: I hear my Childrens voices     
I see their piteous faces gleam out upon the cruel winds
From Lincoln & Norwich, from Edinburgh & Monmouth:
I see them distant from my bosom scoured along the roads         
Then lost in clouds; I hear their tender voices! clouds divide

I see them die beneath the whips of the Captains! they are taken
In solemn pomp into Chaldea across the bredths of Europe
Six months they lie  embalmd in Silent death: warshipped        
Carried in Arks of Oak before the armies in the spring           
Bursting their Arks they rise again to life: they play before
The Armies: I hear their loud cymbals & their deadly cries
Are the Dead cruel? are those who are infolded in moral Law
Revengeful? O that Death & Annihilation were the same!

Then Vala answerd spreading her scarlet Veil over Albion 

 Notes:

  This plate gives us Albion's statement, to be followed by Vala's answer. If you haven't read this blog before, I can tell you that Albion was Blake's term for England, or more generally Everyman (including of course you and me). Vala is Blake's name for the earthly, material (and materialistic) woman, or more properly the earthly Albion's wife (emanation!), the 'contrary' of Jerusalem, the Eternal wife or emanation of Albion.

With 'You O lovely forms' Blake means especially Vala. (It's as if a man is denouncing his wife and his mistress, but his denunciations are directed primarily at the mistress.)

 "Every boil upon my body": this sounds very much like The Book of Job. (The picture above is one of the plates of Blake's Illustrations  of the Book of Job.)

What follows (the cattle, the cornfield, the sun, the moon, etc.) is a remarkable record of the earlier catastrophe when Albion fell asleep in Beulah (and slept too long!); Blake called it the Fall, and it points toward the same thing ahead for us all (the Rise, or Recovery).  

"Gwendolen and Ragan" consult the concordance.

"Jerusalem! dissembler Jerusalem!": here he changes his reproaches to Jerusalem (bride of Christ, but fallen; do you know any fallen brides of Christ?)

Much more interpretation is needed.  You could research it, just like I could.

Thanks for reading this!

BLAKE & SOURCES

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Marriage of Heaven & Hell
Plate 21
Library of Congress
Rosenwald Collection

Blake was hungry to assimilate ideas into his ever expanding system of thought as Peter Ackroyd tells us in Blake, A Biography:

"In his eclectic assumption of Taylor's Neoplatonism, in fact, we can observe the movement of Blake's mind; he picked up separate ideas, or fragments of knowledge, as he needed them. He was a synthesiser and a systematiser, like so many of his generation, but it was his own synthesis designed to establish his own system of belief. He was likely to adopt an idea he designed or read in a periodical or pamphlet with the same frequency that he borrowed notions from Swedenborg or Paracelsus. He was, above everything else, an artist and not an orthodox 'thinker': he was attracted to images or phrases as a means of interpretation, and never espoused a complete or coherently organised body of knowledge." (Page 90)

Blake's comments on Swedenborg in Marriage of Heaven & Hell point out the breadth of influences upon him and the critical evaluations he made of his sources.

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 21, (E 42)
"I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of
themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident
insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning:
Thus Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new; tho' it
is only the Contents or Index of already publish'd books
A man carried a monkey about for a shew, & because he was a
little wiser than the monkey, grew vain, and conciev'd himself as much
wiser than seven men. It is so with Swedenborg; he shews the
folly of churches & exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all
are religious. & himself the single
PLATE 22
One on earth that ever broke a net.
Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new
truth: Now hear another: he has written all the old falshoods.
And now hear the reason. He conversed with Angels who are
all religious, & conversed not with Devils who all hate religion,
for he was incapable thro' his conceited notions.
Thus Swedenborgs writings are a recapitulation of all
superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime, but no further.
Have now another plain fact: Any man of mechanical talents
may from the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen, produce ten
thousand volumes of equal value with Swedenborg's.
and from those of Dante or Shakespear, an infinite number.
But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows
better than his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine."

Plate 20

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PLATE 20
But when they saw Albion fall'n upon mild Lambeths vale:
Astonish'd! Terrified! they hover'd over his Giant limbs.Then thus Jerusalem spoke, while Vala wove the veil of tears:
Weeping in pleadings of Love, in the web of despair.
Wherefore hast thou shut me into the winter of human life
And clos'd up the sweet regions of youth and virgin innocence:
Where we live, forgetting error, not pondering on evil:
Among my lambs & brooks of water, among my warbling birds:
Where we delight in innocence before the face of the Lamb:
Going in and out before him in his love and sweet affection.
Vala replied weeping & trembling, hiding in her veil.
When winter rends the hungry family and the snow falls:
Upon the ways of men hiding the paths of man and beast,
Then mourns the wanderer: then he repents his wanderings & eyes
The distant forest; then the slave groans in the dungeon of
stone.
The captive in the mill of the stranger, sold for scanty hire.
They view their former life: they number moments over and over;
Stringing them on their remembrance as on a thread of sorrow.
Thou art my sister and my daughter! thy shame is mine also!
Ask me not of my griefs! thou knowest all my griefs.
Jerusalem answer'd with soft tears over the valleys.
O Vala what is Sin? that thou shudderest and weepest
At sight of thy once lov'd Jerusalem! What is Sin but a little
Error & fault that is soon forgiven; but mercy is not a Sin
Nor pity nor love nor kind forgiveness! O! if I have Sinned
Forgive & pity me! O! unfold thy Veil in mercy & love!
Slay not my little ones, beloved Virgin daughter of Babylon
Slay not my infant loves & graces, beautiful daughter of Moab
I cannot put off the human form I strive but strive in vain
When Albion rent thy beautiful net of gold and silver twine;
Thou hadst woven it with art, thou hadst caught me in the bands
Of love; thou refusedst to let me go: Albion beheld thy beauty
Beautiful thro' our Love's comeliness, beautiful thro' pity.
The Veil shone with thy brightness in the eyes of Albion,
Because it inclosd pity & love; because we lov'd one-another!
Albion lov'd thee! he rent thy Veil! he embrac'd thee! he lov'd
thee!Astonish'd at his beauty & perfection, thou forgavest his furious
love:
I redounded from Albions bosom in my virgin loveliness.
The Lamb of God reciev'd me in his arms he smil'd upon us:
- 165 -
He made me his Bride & Wife: he gave thee to Albion.
Then was a time of love: O why is it passed away!
Then Albion broke silence and with groans reply'd
PLATE 21
O Vala! O Jerusalem! do you delight in my groans
You O lovely forms, you have prepared my death-cup:
The disease of Shame covers me from bead to feet: I have no hope
Every boil upon my body is a separate & deadly Sin.

Notes:

 Looking over the text en toto you may notice that beginning with Vala's statement in Plate 18 there's a continuous sequence in the story to the end of Chapter One (To the Public).

     Plate 20 appears to be primarily a statement that Jerusalem made to Vala: "Then thus Jerusalem spoke...." Jerusalem is saying that Vala, her material counterpart has robbed Albion of his hold on Eternity.  The consequence (according to the Sacred Story) was the Visit to Earth of the Saviour; his compassion and passion led to universal redemption (such was Blake's faith IMO).
      

       --------------------------------------------

NATIVITY ODE 5

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Repost from December 2010

In December 2009 I posted four time on the nativity using Blake's illustrations to Milton's On the Morning of Christ's Nativity. The fifth illustration of the series "The Flight of Molock" faithfully presents these lines from Milton's ode:

XXIII
And sullen Moloch fled,
Hath left in shadows dread
His burning Idol all of blackest hue;
In vain with Cymbals' ring
They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue,Moloch, the second of Blake's Seven Eyes of God, called the executioner, required child sacrifice. Blake presents the theme of sacrificing children by showing the infant Jesus emerging from a 'fiery furnace.' Daniel tells of three men who emerged from such a furnace unscathed having met in the furnace a fourth who appeared as the 'Son of God.'

On plate 31 (E 177) of Jerusalem Blake tells us that:
"And the appearance of a Man was seen in the Furnaces;
Saving those who have sinned from the punishment of the Law,
(In pity of the punisher whose state is eternal death,)
And keeping them from Sin by the mild counsels of his love."

Two women (cf.1st Kings 3:16ff) are touching the child emerging from the furnace. One appears to be Jerusalem, the other Vala or Rahab. Both turn away from the child as they reach out to touch him. In The Mental Traveller we read of a babe whom none could touch:

The Mental Traveller, (E 484)
"Till from the fire on the hearth
A little Female Babe does spring

And she is all of solid fire
And gems & gold that none his hand
Dares stretch to touch her Baby form
Or wrap her in his swaddling-band"

Blake and Milton have supplemented the picture of the child who was laid in the manger as provided by Luke.

Imitation of Spencer

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Beginning at Erdman Page 408 Miscellaneous were printed in 1783 when
Blake was ca 26; some were written when he was as young as 
13. Obviously during Blake's early years he became a great admirer 
of the 16th century British Poet Edmund Spenser,  best known for  
The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating 
the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I.
 
The young Blake's poem was of course derivative, a hint of the ways
that the mature Blake dealt with all his sources, very freely.
 *****************************************************************

                 AN
      IMITATION OF SPEN[S]ER.                                   

Golden Apollo, that thro' heaven wide
  Scatter'st the rays of light, and truth's beams!
In lucent words my darkling verses dight,
  And wash my earthy mind in thy clear streams,
  That wisdom may descend in fairy dreams:         
All while the jocund hours in thy train
Scatter their fancies at thy poet's feet;
  And when thou yields to night thy wide domain,                
Let rays of truth enlight his sleeping brain.

For brutish Pan in vain might thee assay          
  With tinkling sounds to dash thy nervous verse,
Sound without sense; yet in his rude affray,
  (For ignorance is Folly's leesing nurse,                      
  And love of Folly needs none other curse;)                    
Midas the praise hath gain'd of lengthen'd eares,                
  For which himself might deem him neer the worse

  To sit in council with his modern peers,
And judge of tinkling rhimes, and elegances terse.

And thou, Mercurius, that with winged brow
  Dost mount aloft into the yielding sky,      
And thro' Heav'n's halls thy airy flight dost throw,
Entering with holy feet to where on high
Jove weighs the counsel of futurity;
  Then, laden with eternal fate, dost go
Down, like a falling star, from autumn sky,        
And o'er the surface of the silent deep dost fly.

  If thou arrivest at the sandy shore,
Where nought but envious hissing adders dwell,
  Thy golden rod, thrown on the dusty floor,
Can charm to harmony with potent spell;       
Such is sweet Eloquence, that does dispel
  Envy and Hate, that thirst for human gore:
And cause in sweet society to dwell
Vile savage minds that lurk in lonely cell.

  O Mercury, assist my lab'ring sense,           
That round the circle of the world wou'd fly!
  As the wing'd eagle scorns the tow'ry fence
Of Alpine bills round his high aery,
And searches thro' the corners of the sky,
  Sports in the clouds to hear the thunder's sound,   
And see the winged lightnings as they fly,                      
  Then, bosom'd in an amber cloud, around
Plumes his wide wings, and seeks Sol's palace high.

  And thou, O warrior maid, invincible,                         
Arm'd with the terrors of Almighty Jove!           
  Pallas, Minerva, maiden terrible,
Lov'st thou to walk the peaceful solemn grove,
  In solemn gloom of branches interwove?
Or bear'st thy Egis o'er the burning field,
  Where, like the sea, the waves of battle move?   
Or have thy soft piteous eyes beheld

The weary wanderer thro' the desert rove? Or

does th' afflicted man thy heav'nly bosom move?
**************************************************** 
Notes:
Golden Apollo: in Greek mythology Apollo was said to 
have golden hair. 
"That wisdom may descend in fairy dreams": well this is
certainly where Blake lived; he calls it here "fairy dreams",
but later 'heavenly visions'.  Blake lived for the Visions;
they came freely until ca 1782, departed until 1802.
   Thus we have the three periods of Blake's creative life: the
inspiration of youth, the disillusionment of middle age, and
the rebirth in ca 43. 

"brutish Pan" is an apt metaphor for what was to come for
Blake: tinkling sound without sense. 
 
With the paragraph on Mercurius Blake gave a florid (Elizabethan?)
account of the coming and departure of the Sun, making a day. 

Then he touches on the 'wing'd eagle'.
 Finally Pallas, a name for Athena; if you're acquainted with 
Blake's famous tempera, The Sea of Time and Space, you may
remember that some interpreters identified the lady on the shore, 
beckoning to the wayfarer to take the southern path above as
Athena.

NATIVITY ODE 4

2011-12-28T05:49:00.006-05:00

Repost from December 2009

Blake in his characteristic way, sees the birth of Christ as part of a larger picture. The Bible, John Milton, the history of religion, cosmology, and his own myth; each play a role in Blake's response to Jesus' birthday.

"On the Morning of Christ's Nativity"

The Blake Archive provides this in its introduction to "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity:"

"Blake's interest in the 'Nativity Ode' began some years before his execution of these water colors. His illuminated book, Europe a Prophecy (1794), clearly shows the influence of Milton's ode. By 1809, Blake may have taken a renewed interest in the poem because of his increasingly Christocentric theological views. His harsh criticism of classical civilization resonates with two of the 'Nativity' designs, 'The Old Dragon' and 'The Overthrow of Apollo and the Pagan Gods' (objects 3 and 4). Modern critics have been hard pressed to find Blake dissenting from Milton's own iconography and perspectives in the ode."

Milton, Nativity Ode

From Europe a Prohecy (E61,2.12):

"Ah! I am drown'd in shady woe, and visionary joy.

And who shall bind the infinite with an eternal band?
To compass it with swaddling bands? and who shall cherish it
With milk and honey?                                       
I see it smile & I roll inward & my voice is past.

She ceast & rolld her shady clouds
Into the secret place.

PLATE 3
              A PROPHECY

The deep of winter came;                              
What time the secret child,
Descended thro' the orient gates of the eternal day:
War ceas'd, & all the troops like shadows fled to their abodes."

Plate 18

2011-12-27T05:48:00.000-05:00

what we have here is a puzzling picture that properly belongs at this line: (For Vala produc'd the Bodies. Jerusalem gave the Souls). Erdman rereferred to it as a complex emblem of division and union. What I see is a couple (two couples in fact): above two cherubic figures meeting together in a kiss. And below much larger figures whose contact is confined to their toes. (Heaven is above; earth is below) That's the essence of the meaning of the text. The two larger reclining figures are Vala on the left, clothed in her vale, and naked Jerusalem on the right. (mortal people have garments; the immortals are naked. PLATE 18 From every-one of the Four Regions of Human Majesty, There is an Outside spread Without, & an Outside spread Within Beyond the Outline of Identity both ways, which meet in One: An orbed Void of doubt, despair, hunger, & thirst & sorrow. Here the Twelve Sons of Albion, join'd in dark Assembly, - 162 - Jealous of Jerusalems children, asham'd of her little-ones(For Vala produc'd the Bodies. Jerusalem gave the Souls) Became as Three Immense Wheels, turning upon one-another Into Non-Entity, and their thunders hoarse appall the Dead To murder their own Souls, to build a Kingdom among the Dead Cast! Cast ye Jerusalem forth! The Shadow of delusions! The Harlot daughter! Mother of pity and dishonourable forgiveness Our Father Albions sin and shame! But father now no more! Nor sons! nor hateful peace & love, nor soft complacencies With transgressors meeting in brotherhood around the table, Or in the porch or garden. No more the sinful delights Of age and youth and boy and girl and animal and herb, And river and mountain, and city & village, and house & family. Beneath the Oak & Palm, beneath the Vine and Fig-tree. In self-denial!--But War and deadly contention, Between Father and Son, and light and love! All bold asperities Of Haters met in deadly strife, rending the house & garden The unforgiving porches, the tables of enmity, and beds And chambers of trembling & suspition, hatreds of age & youth And boy & girl, & animal & herb, & river & mountain And city & village, and house & family. That the Perfect, May live in glory, redeem'd by Sacrifice of the Lamb And of his children, before sinful Jerusalem. To build Babylon the City of Vala, the Goddess Virgin-Mother. She is our Mother! Nature! Jerusalem is our Harlot-Sister Return'd with Children of pollution, to defile our House, With Sin and Shame. Cast! Cast her into the Potters field. Her little-ones, She must slay upon our Altars: and her aged Parents must be carried into captivity, to redeem her Soul To be for a Shame & a Curse, and to be our Slaves for everSo cry Hand & Hyle the eldest of the fathers of Albions Little-ones; to destroy the Divine Saviour; the Friend of Sinners, Building Castles in desolated places, and strong Fortifications. Soon Hand mightily devour'd & absorb'd Albions Twelve Sons. Out from his bosom a mighty Polypus, vegetating in darkness, And Hyle & Coban were his two chosen ones, for Emissaries In War: forth from his bosom they went and return'd. Like Wheels from a great Wheel reflected in the Deep. Hoarse turn'd the Starry Wheels, rending a way in Albions Loins Beyond the Night of Beulah. In a dark & unknown Night, Outstretch'd his Giant beauty on the ground in pain & tears:

NATIVITY ODE 2

2011-12-26T20:04:00.003-05:00

Repost from December 2009

Chorus of Angels

Since the first image we form of ourselves is that of a body, we may formulate the idea that at some point the spirit enters the body and begins to express itself through the body. But as Blake explains here, it is the bodies which are made for the spirits which pre-exist.

As Albion represents the Universal Man, Jerusalem represents the Universal Woman: the 'vast family wondrous in beauty and love.' Albion is fourfold, Jerusalem is unified: the expression of the Divine Vision within the Universal Man.

In this passage, Blake presents the idea that redemption begins when 'the Lamb of God' becomes visible within the Unified Spiritual Body which is Jerusalem. The song of the angels, sung when the birth of Jesus was announced to the shepherds, is echoed in Blake's verses at this point.

GOSPEL OF LUKE
2:8-12 - "There were some shepherds living in the same part of the country, keeping guard throughout the night over their flocks in the open fields. Suddenly an angel of the Lord stood by their side, the splendour of the Lord blazed around them, and they were terror-stricken. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid! Listen, I bring you glorious news of great joy which is for all the people. This very day, in David's town, a Saviour has been born for you. He is Christ, the Lord. Let this prove it to you: you will find a baby, wrapped up and lying in a manger.'
2:13-14 - And in a flash there appeared with the angel a vast host of the armies of Heaven, praising God, saying, 'Glory to God in the highest Heaven! Peace upon earth among men of goodwill!'"

Four Zoas: Night the Eighth, Page 103 (E376):

"Enitharmon wove in tears Singing Songs of Lamentations
And pitying comfort as she sighd forth on the wind the spectres
And wove them bodies calling them her belovd sons and daughters
Employing the daughters in her looms & Los employd the Sons
In Golgonoozas Furnaces among the Anvils of time & space
Thus forming a Vast family wondrous in beauty & love
And they appeard a Universal female form created
From those who were dead in Ulro from the Spectres of the dead

PAGE 104 (FIRST PORTION)
And Enitharmon namd the Female Jerusa[le]m the holy
Wondring she saw the Lamb of God within Jerusalems Veil
The divine Vision seen within the inmost deep recess
Of fair Jerusalems bosom in a gently beaming fire

Then sang the Sons of Eden round the Lamb of God & said
Glory Glory Glory to the holy Lamb of God
Who now beginneth to put off the dark Satanic body
Now we behold redemption Now we know that life Eternal
Depends alone upon the Universal hand & not in us"

GOSPEL OF LUKE
2:25-32 - "In Jerusalem was a man by the name of Simeon. He was an upright man, devoted to the service of God, living in expectation of the 'salvation of Israel'. His heart was open to the Holy Spirit, and it had been revealed to him that he would not die before he saw the Lord's Christ. He had been led by the Spirit to go into the Temple, and when Jesus' parents brought the child in to have done to him what the Law required, he took him up in his arms, blessed God, and said - 'At last, Lord, you can dismiss your servant in peace, as you promised! For with my own eyes I have seen your salvation which you have made ready for every people - a light to show truth to the Gentiles and bring glory to your people Israel.'"

Plate 5

2011-12-26T14:06:00.000-05:00

There are 100 plates in Blake’s JerusalemBlake’s Jerusalem has 100 plates; they may be published from the Library of Congress or from the Yale archives. Here is Plate 5.Here’s the text of this plate:PLATE 5 The banks of the Thames are clouded! the ancient porches of Albion are Darken'd! they are drawn thro' unbounded space, scatter'd upon The Void in incoherent despair! Cambridge & Oxford & London, Are driven among the starry Wheels, rent away and dissipated, In Chasms & Abysses of sorrow, enlarg'd without dimension, terrible[.] Albions mountains run with blood, the cries of war & of tumult Resound into the unbounded night, every Human perfection Of mountain & river & city, are small & wither'd & darken'd Cam is a little stream! Ely is almost swallowd up! Lincoln & Norwich stand trembling on the brink of Udan-Adan! Wales and Scotland shrink themselves to the west and to the north! Mourning for fear of the warriors in the Vale of Entuthon-Benython Jerusalem is scatterd abroad like a cloud of smoke thro' non-entity: Moab & Ammon & Amalek & Canaan & Egypt & Aram Recieve her little-ones for sacrifices and the delights of cruelty Trembling I sit day and night, my friends are astonish'd at me. Yet they forgive my wanderings, I rest not from my great task! To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity Ever expanding in the Bosom of God. the Human Imagination O Saviour pour upon me thy Spirit of meekness & love: Annihilate the Selfhood in me, be thou all my life! Guide thou my hand which trembles exceedingly upon the rock of ages, While I write of the building of Golgonooza, & of the terrors of Entuthon: Of Hand & Hyle & Coban, of Kwantok, Peachey, Brereton, Slayd & Hutton: Of the terrible sons & daughters of Albion. and their Generations. Scofield! Kox, Kotope and Bowen, revolve most mightily upon The Furnace of Los: before the eastern gate bending their fury. They war, to destroy the Furnaces, to desolate Golgonooza: And to devour the Sleeping Humanity of Albion in rage & hunger. They revolve into the Furnaces Southward & are driven forth Northward Divided into Male and Female forms time after time. From these Twelve all the Families of England spread abroad. The Male is a Furnace of beryll; the Female is a golden Loom; I behold them and their rushing fires overwhelm my Soul, In Londons darkness; and my tears fall day and night, Upon the Emanations of Albions Sons! the Daughters of Albion Names anciently rememberd, but now contemn'd as fictions! Although in every bosom they controll our Vegetative powers. These are united into Tirzah and her Sisters, on Mount Gilead, Cambel & Gwendolen & Conwenna & Cordella & Ignoge. And these united into Rahab in the Covering Cherub on Euphrates Gwiniverra & Gwinefred, & Gonorill & Sabrina beautiful, Estrild, Mehetabel & Ragan, lovely Daughters of Albion They are the beautiful Emanations of the Twelve Sons of Albion The Starry Wheels revolv'd heavily over the Furnaces; Drawing Jerusalem in anguish of maternal love, Eastward a pillar of a cloud with Vala upon the mountains Howling in pain, redounding from the arms of Beulahs Daughters, Out from the Furnaces of Los above the head of Los. A pillar of smoke writhing afar into Non-Entity, redounding Till the cloud reaches afar outstretch'd among the Starry Wheels Which revolve heavily in the mighty Void above the Furnaces O what avail the loves & tears of Beulahs lovely Daughters They hold the Immortal Form in gentle bands & tender tears But all within is open'd into the deeps of Entuthon Benython A dark and unknown night, indefinite, unmeasurable, without end. Abstract Philosophy warring in enmity against Imagination (Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus. blessed for ever). And there Jerusalem wanders with Vala upon the mountains, Attracted by the revolutions of those Wheels the Cloud of smoke Immense, and Jerusalem & Vala weeping in the Cloud Wander away into the Chaotic Void, lamenting with her Shadow Among the Daughters of Albion, among the Starry Wheels; Lamenting for her children, for the sons & daughters of Albion Los heard her lamentations in the deeps afar! his tears fall Incessant before the Furnaces, and his Emanation divided in pain, Eastward toward the Starry Wheels. But Westward, a black Horror,Notes on Plate 5

Plate 17

2011-12-25T02:45:00.000-05:00

PLATE 17
His Spectre divides & Los in fury compells it to divide:
To labour in the fire, in the water, in the earth, in the air,
To follow the Daughters of Albion as the hound follows the scent
Of the wild inhabitant of the forest, to drive them from his own:
To make a way for the Children of Los to come from the Furnaces  
But Los himself against Albions Sons his fury bends, for he
Dare not approach the Daughters openly lest he be consumed
In the fires of their beauty & perfection & be Vegetated beneath
Their Looms, in a Generation of death & resurrection to
     forgetfulness
They wooe Los continually to subdue his strength: he continually 
Shews them his Spectre: sending him abroad over the four points
     of heaven
In the fierce desires of beauty & in the tortures of repulse! He
     is
The Spectre of the Living pursuing the Emanations of the Dead.
Shuddring they flee: they hide in the Druid Temples in cold
     chastity:
Subdued by the Spectre of the Living & terrified by undisguisd
     desire.   
  
For Los said: Tho my Spectre is divided: as I am a Living Man
I must compell him to obey me wholly: that Enitharmon may not
Be lost: & lest he should devour Enitharmon: Ah me!
Piteous image of my soft desires & loves: O Enitharmon!
I will compell my Spectre to obey: I will restore to thee thy
     Children. 
No one bruises or starves himself to make himself fit for 
     labour! 
  
Tormented with sweet desire for these beauties of Albion
They would never love my power if they did not seek to destroy
Enitharmon: Vala would never have sought & loved Albion
If she had not sought to destroy Jerusalem; such is that false   
And Generating Love: a pretence of love to destroy love:

Cruel hipocrisy unlike the lovely delusions of Beulah:
And cruel forms, unlike the merciful  forms of Beulahs Night
  
They know not why they love nor wherefore they sicken & die
Calling that Holy Love: which is Envy Revenge & Cruelty          
Which separated the stars from the mountains: the mountains from
     Man
And left Man, a little grovelling Root, outside of Himself.
Negations are not Contraries: Contraries mutually Exist:
But Negations Exist Not: Exceptions & Objections & Unbeliefs
Exist not: nor shall they ever be Organized for ever & ever:     
If thou separate from me, thou art a Negation: a meer
Reasoning & Derogation from Me, an Objecting & cruel Spite
And Malice & Envy: but my Emanation, Alas! will become
My Contrary: O thou Negation, I will continually compell
Thee to be invisible to any but whom I please, & when            
And where & how I please, and never! never! shalt thou be
     Organized
But as a distorted & reversed Reflexion in the Darkness
And in the Non Entity: nor shall that which is above
Ever descend into thee: but thou shalt be a Non Entity for ever
And if any enter into thee, thou shalt be an Unquenchable Fire
And he shall be a never dying Worm, mutually tormented by
Those that thou tormentest, a Hell & Despair for ever & ever.
  
So Los in secret with himself communed & Enitharmon heard
In her darkness & was comforted: yet still she divided away
In gnawing pain from Los's bosom in the deadly Night;            
First as a red Globe of blood trembling beneath his bosom[.]
Suspended over her he hung: he infolded her in his garments
Of wool: he hid her from the Spectre, in shame & confusion of
Face; in terrors & pains of Hell & Eternal Death, the
Trembling Globe shot forth Self-living & Los howld over it:      
Feeding it with his groans & tears day & night without ceasing:
And the Spectrous Darkness from his back divided in temptations,
And in grinding agonies in threats! stiflings! & direful
     strugglings.
  
Go thou to Skofield: ask him if he is Bath or if he is Canterbury
Tell him to be no more dubious: demand explicit words            
Tell him: I will dash him into shivers, where & at what time
I please: tell Hand & Skofield they are my ministers of evil
To those I hate: for I can hate also as well as they!

**************************************
Notes:
        Los obviously now has control of his Spectre (something all of us
should endeavor to do). What does that mean?  To me it means that
your Errors of thought, word, and deed are replaced by the 
Creative Dimension of your life.
      
The Hound of line 3 reminds me of the Hound of Heaven, by Francis
Thompson (who influenced J.R.R. Tolkien; Thompson quoted: 
"To see a world in a grain of sand,
        And a Heaven in a wild flower,
        Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
        And eternity in an hour;"
  ********************
  "Vala would never have sought & loved Albion
If she had not sought to destroy Jerusalem; such is that false   
And Generating Love: a pretence of love to destroy love:"
 Here Blake refers to the Fall, the terrible power of the uronic Vala.
  
The Plate closes with Blake's defiance of Skofield and Hand, two of 
Blake's deadly enemies. (Scofield, you may remember, was the drunk 
soldier who tried to get Blake hung for sedition.)

NATIVITY ODE 1

2011-12-24T06:16:00.004-05:00

Repost from December 2009

Returning to "The Morning of Christ's Nativity" by John Milton, for which Blake made two sets of five watercolor illustrations, there is a lot more to observe. Blake's pictures like Milton's poetry did not focus only on the supplanting of Apollo and heathen gods. The first and last pictures, like the beginning and ending of Milton's poetry present a more conventional portrait of the birth of the child based on accounts in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew.

Here is Blake's first illustration for On the Morning of Christ's Nativity.

Blake of course, added distinctive features to his illustrations. In her book Blake's Vision of the Poetry of Milton, Bette Charlene Werner, on page 119 and following, points out some things that speak of Blake's own philosophy. Quoting from her book:

> "With the angelic figure of Peace and the recumbent form of Nature the artist suggests the union of heaven and earth in the Word made flesh.
> the Huntington version of the design emphasizes the divinity, not only of Christ, but also by implication of man.
> The Child is pictured springing forth in unfettered freedom. The figure suggests at once the "Heav'n-born-childe" of Milton's ode and the preexistent soul whose material birth Blake describes in "Infant Sorrow" (E27, SoE48):
"My mother groand! my father wept.
Into the dangerous world I lept."
The Blessed Infant, ablaze with the radiance of spiritual existence, is the light that puts the inferior flame of the sun to shame.
> According to Blake "everything that lives is holy for the source of life / Descends to be a weeping babe." (E323) That understanding may explain his portrayal of Nature here, not as one whose ugliness requires a covering, but as a figure whose naked beauty is still apparent beneath the translucent covering of snow. The veiled form of Nature in this illustration is, like the Vala of Blake's own mythology, an embodiment of the vale of tears and the veil of materiality.
> Like Milton, Blake sees in the Incarnation not only the humility of Christ, emptying himself of his Godhead, but the glorification of man. He identifies Jesus, the Divine Humanity, with Imagination and insists: "Man is All Imagination God is Man & exists in us & we in him." (E664) This understanding makes the Nativity not only the fulfillment of God's becoming man, but a promise of salvation through the spiritual union of all men in in the One Man who is Jesus, the Savior."
End of Quotes

Milton's On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Plate 16

2011-12-23T03:19:00.000-05:00

16

PLATE 16
Hampstead Highgate Finchley Hendon Muswell hill: rage loud
Before Bromions iron Tongs & glowing Poker
Hertfordshire glows with fierce Vegetation! in the Forests
The Oak frowns terrible, the Beech & Ash & Elm enroot
Among the Spiritual fires; loud the Corn fields thunder along  
The Soldiers fife; the Harlots shriek; the Virgins dismal groan
The Parents fear: the Brothers jealousy: the Sisters curse
Beneath the Storms of Theotormon & the thundring Bellows
Heaves in the hand of Palamabron who in Londons darkness
Before the Anvil, watches the bellowing flames: thundering       
The Hammer loud rages in Rintrahs strong grasp swinging loud

Round from heaven to earth down falling with heavy blow
Dead on the Anvil, where the red hot wedge groans in pain
He quenches it in the black trough of his Forge; Londons River
Feeds the dread Forge, trembling & shuddering along the Valleys 

Humber & Trent roll dreadful before the Seventh Furnace
And Tweed & Tyne anxious give up their Souls for Albions sake
Lincolnshire Derbyshire Nottinghamshire Leicestershire
From Oxfordshire to Norfolk on the Lake of Udan Adan
Labour within the Furnaces, walking among the Fires              
With Ladles huge & iron Pokers over the Island white.

Scotland pours out his Sons to labour at the Furnaces
Wales gives his Daughters to the Looms; England: nursing Mothers
Gives to the Children of Albion & to the Children of Jerusalem
From the blue Mundane Shell even to the Earth of Vegetation      
Throughout the whole Creation which groans to be deliverd.
Albion groans in the deep slumbers of Death upon his Rock.

Here Los fixd down the Fifty-two Counties of England & Wales
The Thirty-six of Scotland, & the Thirty-four of Ireland
With mighty power, when they fled out at Jerusalems Gates     
Away from the Conflict of Luvah & Urizen, fixing the Gates
In the Twelve Counties of Wales & thence Gates looking every way
To the Four Points: conduct to England & Scotland & Ireland
And thence to all the Kingdoms & Nations & Families of the Earth
The Gate of Reuben in Carmarthenshire: the Gate of Simeon in  
Cardiganshire: & the Gate of Levi in Montgomeryshire
The Gate of Judah Merionethshire: the Gate of Dan Flintshire
The Gate of Napthali, Radnorshire: the Gate of Gad Pembrokeshire
The Gate of Asher, Carnarvonshire the Gate of Issachar
Brecknokshire
The Gate of Zebulun, in Anglesea & Sodor. so is Wales divided. 
The Gate of Joseph, Denbighshire: the Gate of Benjamin
Glamorganshire
For the protection of the Twelve Emanations of Albions Sons

And the Forty Counties of England are thus divided in the Gates
Of Reuben Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex. Simeon Lincoln, York
Lancashire
Levi. Middlesex Kent Surrey. Judah Somerset Glouster Wiltshire.  
Dan. Cornwal Devon Dorset, Napthali, Warwick Leicester Worcester
Gad. Oxford Bucks Harford. Asher, Sussex Hampshire Berkshire
Issachar, Northampton Rutland Nottgham. Zebulun Bedford Huntgn
Camb
Joseph Stafford Shrops Heref. Benjamin, Derby Cheshire Monmouth
And Cumberland Northumberland Westmoreland & Durham are         
Divided in the Gates of Reuben, Judah Dan & Joseph

And the Thirty-six Counties of Scotland, divided in the Gates
Of Reuben Kincard Haddntn Forfar, Simeon Ayr Argyll Banff

Levi Edinburh Roxbro Ross. Judah, Abrdeen Berwik Dumfries
Dan Bute Caitnes Clakmanan. Napthali Nairn Invernes Linlithgo    
Gad Peebles Perth Renfru. Asher Sutherlan Sterling Wigtoun
Issachar Selkirk Dumbartn Glasgo. Zebulun Orkney Shetland Skye
Joseph Elgin Lanerk Kinros. Benjamin Kromarty Murra Kirkubriht
Governing all by the sweet delights of secret amorous glances
In Enitharmons Halls builded by Los & his mighty Children        

All things acted on Earth are seen in the bright Sculptures of
Los's Halls & every Age renews its powers from these Works
With every pathetic story possible to happen from Hate or
Wayward Love & every sorrow & distress is carved here
Every Affinity of Parents Marriages & Friendships are here       
In all their various combinations wrought with wondrous Art
All that can happen to Man in his pilgrimage of seventy years
Such is the Divine Written Law of Horeb & Sinai:
And such the Holy Gospel of Mount Olivet & Calvary:
(Erdman 167-8)

Notes:
In the first paragraph I've highlighted Bromion, Theotormon, Palamabron, and Rintrah. These 
four characters are the sons of Los and Enitharmon.  Los, you recall, was a blacksmith, and here
we find his four sons are employed with him in his smithy. (Of course the oldest son was Orc.)

Look now at a series of the shires of England. Bewildering?  Look at a wide selection of
'Blake's Geography", and study the subject to your hearts content.  Our interest here is what
did he mean with this list of British physical geography?

The plate ends with a much more significant geography: "Such is the Divine Written Law of Horeb
and Sinai: And such the Holy Gospel of Mount Olivet & Calvary; he  has closed with some holy places. If you want to know more Bible and more  Blake, track down those places. Does the closing sentence pretty much  summarize what he was writing about?  

NATIVITY ODE 6

2011-12-22T04:56:00.005-05:00

Repost from December 2009

Generation to Blake was a gift from God to prevent the part of eternity that separated from the whole, from falling into nonentity. Each birth is a reenactment of that mercy which gives a new opportunity for a return to the wholeness of eternity.

The entry into the physical world of the immortal spirit, is what the images of nativity attempt to portray. Incorporation of the spiritual in the physical is a movement that sets off a process of evolving awareness of incarnation: the unity of body and spirit.

In Blake's words, the Nativity is concerned with the 'mortal birth.' Blake's primary interest was in the birth to immortality. Blake added TO TIRZAH to Songs of Experience in later copies of songs as his affirmation of the raising of the spiritual body. But just as 'generation is the image of regeneration', birth is the image of rebirth, and the child is the image of the new man.

Here is a passage from Jung in which consciousness itself is the child which is born daily, or moment by moment out of the inner depths.

"Consciousness does not create itself-it wells up from unknown depths. In childhood it awakens gradually, and all through life it wakes each morning out of the depths of sleep from an unconscious condition. It is like a child that is born daily out of the primordial womb of the unconscious. . . . It is not only influenced by the unconscious but continually emerges out of it in the form of numberless spontaneous ideas and sudden flashes of thought." ["The Psychology of Eastern Meditation," CW 11, par. 935.]

The consciousness that Blake tried to convey was that of being a part of the one body; and being open to a direct connection to the world which is unseen but always present: Eternity.

Songs of Innocence and Experience, Song 52 (E30)

TO TIRZAH

"Whate'er is Born of Mortal Birth,
Must be consumed with the Earth
To rise from Generation free;
Then what have I to do with thee?

The Sexes sprung from Shame & Pride
Blow'd in the morn: in evening died
But Mercy changd Death into Sleep;
The Sexes rose to work & weep.

Thou Mother of my Mortal part.
With cruelty didst mould my Heart.
And with false self-decieving tears,
Didst bind my Nostrils Eyes & Ears.

Didst close my Tongue in senseless clay
And me to Mortal Life betray:
The Death of Jesus set me free,
Then what have I to do with thee?"

[text on illustration: It is Raised a Spiritual Body]

Jerusalem, Plate 7 (E149)

"And the Religion of Generation which was meant for the
destruction
Of Jerusalem, become her covering, till the time of the End.
O holy Generation! [Image] of regeneration!
O point of mutual forgiveness between Enemies!
Birthplace of the Lamb of God incomprehensible!"

NATIVITY ODE 3

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John Milton's poem Ode On the Morning of Christ's Nativity was illustrated twice by Blake: once in 1809 for Rev Thomas and once in 1815 for Thomas Butts. The third plate in the series, the old dragon, shows marked variation between the two series. Two of the passages in Milton's poem which are illustrated by Blake's pictures are from Book XVII and XVIII:

XVII
"With such a horrid clang
As on mount Sinai rang
While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake:
The aged Earth agast [ 160 ]
With terrour of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the center shake,
When at the worlds last session,
The dreadfull Judge in middle Air shall spread his throne."

XVIII
"And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is,
But now begins; for from this happy day
Th' old Dragon under ground,
In straiter limits bound,
Not half so far casts his usurped sway,
And wrath to see his Kingdom fail,
Swindges the scaly Horrour of his foulded tail."

In the picture for Butts, Blake seems to have used motifs from his own mythology to illustrate the underground dragon of Milton. The seven headed man holding the scepter and the sword is more clearly the seven Eyes of God through which humanity passes in the progression through history. Satan is portrayed in a transitional form between man and serpent. Going clockwise in the underground group (excluding Satan), upper left appears Enion/Tharmas, Urizen/Ahania follows, then Luvah/Vala, lower left would be Urthona/Los/Enitharmon. The transition from the underground serpent to the stars overhead is apparent.

The dominant theme of the picture is the contrast between the scene of peace and promise portrayed in the nativity scene above and the disorder and struggle represented by the characters underground.

As Milton says: "And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is,
But now begins"

The Thomas picture is also available in Wikimedia. For the most detail of both pictures visit the Blake Archive.

Plate 15

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PLATE 15
And Hand & Hyle rooted into Jerusalem by a fibre
Of strong revenge & Skofeld Vegetated by Reubens 
Gate

In every Nation of the Earth till the Twelve Sons 
of Albion
Enrooted into every Nation: a mighty Polypus 
growing
From Albion over the whole Earth: such is my awful 
Vision.   

I see the Four-fold Man. The Humanity in deadly 
sleep
And its fallen Emanation. The Spectre & its cruel 
Shadow.
I see the Past, Present & Future, existing all at once
Before me; O Divine Spirit sustain me on thy wings!
That I may awake Albion from His long & cold repose.             
For Bacon & Newton sheathd in dismal steel, their 
terrors hang
Like iron scourges over Albion, Reasonings like vast Serpents
Infold around my limbs, bruising my minute articulations

I turn my eyes to the Schools & Universities of Europe
And there behold the Loom of Locke whose Woof rages

dire 
Washd by the Water-wheels of Newton. black the cloth
In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation; cruel Works
Of many Wheels I View, wheel without wheel, with cogs

tyrannic
Moving by compulsion each other: not as those in Eden:

which

Wheel within Wheel in freedom revolve in harmony &

peace. 

I see in deadly fear in London Los raging round his Anvil
Of death: forming an Ax of gold: the Four Sons of Los
Stand round him cutting the Fibres from Albions hills
That Albions Sons may roll apart over the Nations
While Reuben enroots his brethren in the narrow Canaanite    
From the Limit Noah to the Limit Abram in whose Loins
Reuben in his Twelve-fold majesty & beauty shall take refuge
As Abraham flees from Chaldea shaking his goary locks
But first Albion must sleep, divided from the Nations

I see Albion sitting upon his Rock in the first Winter           
And thence I see the Chaos of Satan & the World of Adam
When the Divine Hand went forth on Albion in the mid Winter
And at the place of Death when Albion sat in Eternal Death
Among the Furnaces of Los in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom

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

Notes:

The picture could be seen as 'Albion sitting upon his Rock' (near the end of the text).
The polypus is somewhere between a jellyfish and a polyp (typical of Blake to use a term with multiple connotations.
Hand, Hyle and Skofeld represent three scurrilous characters.
One would need to be a serious Bible scholar to be familiar with Reuben's Gate . Blake referred to Reuben 42 times.

"I see the Four-fold Man", this passage is exceedingly meaningful; the rest of the text summarizes Blake's value structure, his myth, system, many, many of his Visions.

SACRIFICIAL LOVE

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John 1
[14] And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Milton, Plate 21 [23], (E 115)
"There is in Eden a sweet River, of milk & liquid pearl,
Namd Ololon; on whose mild banks dwelt those who Milton drove
Down into Ulro: and they wept in long resounding song
For seven days of eternity, and the rivers living banks
The mountains wailld! & every plant that grew, in solemn sighs lamented.

When Luvahs bulls each morning drag the sulphur Sun out of the Deep
Harnessd with starry harness black & shining kept by black slaves
That work all night at the starry harness. Strong and vigorous
They drag the unwilling Orb: at this time all the Family
Of Eden heard the lamentation, and Providence began.
But when the clarions of day sounded they drownd the lamentations

And when night came all was silent in Ololon: & all refusd to lament
In the still night fearing lest they should others molest.

Seven mornings Los heard them, as the poor bird within the shell
Hears its impatient parent bird; and Enitharmon heard them:
But saw them not, for the blue Mundane Shell inclosd them in.

And they lamented that they had in wrath & fury & fire
Driven Milton into the Ulro; for now they knew too late
That it was Milton the Awakener: they had not heard the Bard,
Whose song calld Milton to the attempt; and Los heard these laments.
He heard them call in prayer all the Divine Family;
And he beheld the Cloud of Milton stretching over Europe.

But all the Family Divine collected as Four Suns
In the Four Points of heaven East, West & North & South
Enlarging and enlarging till their Disks approachd each other;
And when they touch'd closed together Southward in One Sun
Over Ololon: and as One Man, who weeps over his brother,
In a dark tomb, so all the Family Divine. wept over Ololon.

Saying, Milton goes to Eternal Death! so saying, they groan'd in spirit
And were troubled! and again the Divine Family groaned in spirit!

And Ololon said, Let us descend also, and let us give
Ourselves to death in Ulro among the Transgressors.
Is Virtue a Punisher? O no! how is this wondrous thing?
This World beneath, unseen before: this refuge from the wars
Of Great Eternity! unnatural refuge! unknown by us till now!
Or are these the pangs of repentance? let us enter into them"

Milton, Plate 43 [50]
New York Public Library
'To go forth to the Great Harvest'

plate 14

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PLATE 14
One hair nor particle of dust, not one can pass away.

He views the Cherub at the Tree of Life, also the Serpent,
Orc the first born coild in the south: the Dragon Urizen:
Tharmas the Vegetated Tongue even the Devouring Tongue:
A threefold region, a false brain: a false heart:
And false bowels: altogether composing the False Tongue,
Beneath Beulah: as a watry flame revolving every way
And as dark roots and stems: a Forest of affliction, growing
In seas of sorrow. Los also views the Four Females:
Ahania, and Enion, and Vala, and Enitharmon lovely.
And from them all the lovely beaming Daughters of Albion,
Ahania & Enion & Vala, are three evanescent shades:
Enitharmon is a vegetated mortal Wife of Los:
His Emanation, yet his Wife till the sleep of death is past.

Such are the Buildings of Los! & such are the Woofs of
Enitharmon!

And Los beheld his Sons, and he beheld his Daughters:
Every one a translucent Wonder: a Universe within,
Increasing inwards, into length and breadth, and heighth:
Starry & glorious: and they every one in their bright loins:
Have a beautiful golden gate which opens into the vegetative
world:
And every one a gate of rubies & all sorts of precious stones
In their translucent hearts, which opens into the vegetative
world:
And every one a gate of iron dreadful and wonderful,
In their translucent heads, which opens into the vegetative world
And every one has the three regions Childhood: Manhood: & Age:
But the gate of the tongue: the western gate in them is clos'd,
Having a wall builded against it: and thereby the gates
Eastward & Southward & Northward, are incircled with flaming
fires.
And the North is Breadth, the South is Heighth & Depth:
The East is Inwards: & the West is Outwards every way.

And Los beheld the mild Emanation Jerusalem eastward bending
Her revolutions toward the Starry Wheels in maternal anguish
Like a pale cloud arising from the arms of Beulahs Daughters:
In Entuthon Benythons deep Vales beneath Golgonooza.

Notes:
Cherub at the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:24:)
²⁴So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Los also viewed the threefold region: Orc, Urizen and Tharmas (Los of course makes the fourth), also the four emanations, and his sons and daughters, all the materialist shades of Eternity. And he has set out to build the environs of Golgonooza, a mortals attempt to 'build the kingdom', a kind of shadowy approximation of Jerusalem (the City of God).

NINE SPHERES

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The Deity from Whom Proceed the Nine
Spheres
Illustration 100 for Dante's Divine Comedy
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK

William Blake: poet and mystic, Pierre Berger

"It is to the world of the invisible that we now find ourselves transported, a world which existed before our material world, and which will exist always; the only one whose existence is real, though we are not aware of it, seeing only its shadow projected in time and space, and taking that shadow for substance. This world is organized like ours : it has its circles, its cosmography, its hierarchy of powers. Blake could have given an exact description of it, as the visionaries and the Gnostics did of theirs. Perhaps he did so. But in what remains of the Prophetical Books, we find only fragments of description, ' Here a little and there a little.' It is only by joining the fragments, by comparing them, by interpreting or by explaining some through others, that any definite idea of his conception of this universe and its inhabitants is reached. Even then, the description is not complete. There are many blanks to be filled, many contradictions and doubtful interpretations."

Four Zoas, Night II, (E 323)
"Night passd & Enitharmon eer the dawn returnd in bliss
She sang Oer Los reviving him to Life his groans were terrible
But thus she sang. I sieze the sphery harp I strike the strings

At the first Sound the Golden sun arises from the Deep
And shakes his awful hair
The Eccho wakes the moon to unbind her silver locks
The golden sun bears on my song
And nine bright spheres of harmony rise round the fiery King

The joy of woman is the Death of her most best beloved
Who dies for Love of her
In torments of fierce jealousy & pangs of adoration.
The Lovers night bears on my song
And the nine Spheres rejoice beneath my powerful controll

They sing unceasing to the notes of my immortal hand
The solemn silent moon
Reverberates the living harmony upon my limbs
The birds & beasts rejoice & play
And every one seeks for his mate to prove his inmost joy

Furious & terrible they sport & rend the nether deeps
The deep lifts up his rugged head
And lost in infinite hum[m]ing wings vanishes with a cry
The fading cry is ever dying
The living voice is ever living in its inmost joy

Arise you little glancing wings & sing your infant joy
Arise & drink your bliss
For every thing that lives is holy for the source of life
Descends to be a weeping babe"

Plate Thirteen

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Plate 13 is continuous word for word from Plate12, and

continues without a break in Plate 14; it left little room

for the pictorial.

Repeating the end of Plate 13 (for consistency):

Fourfold the Sons of Los in their divisions: and fourfold,
The great City of Golgonooza: fourfold toward the north
And toward the south fourfold, & fourfold toward the east & west
Each within other toward the four points: that toward
Eden, and that toward the World of Generation,
And that toward Beulah, and that toward Ulro:
Ulro is the space of the terrible starry wheels of Albions sons:
But that toward Eden is walled up, till time of renovation:
Yet it is perfect in its building, ornaments & perfection.

And the Four Points are thus beheld in Great Eternity
West, the Circumference: South, the Zenith: North,
The Nadir: East, the Center, unapproachable for ever.
These are the four Faces towards the Four Worlds of Humanity
In every Man. Ezekiel saw them by Chebars flood.
And the Eyes are the South, and the Nostrils are the East.
And the Tongue is the West, and the Ear is the North.

And the North Gate of Golgonooza toward Generation;
Has four sculpturd Bulls terrible before the Gate of iron.
And iron, the Bulls: and that which looks toward Ulro,
Clay bak'd & enamel'd, eternal glowing as four furnaces:
Turning upon the Wheels of Albions sons with enormous power.
And that toward Beulah four, gold, silver, brass, & iron:

PLATE 13
And that toward Eden, four, form'd of gold, silver, brass, &
iron.

The South, a golden Gate, has four Lions terrible, living!
That toward Generation, four, of iron carv'd wondrous:
That toward Ulro, four, clay bak'd, laborious workmanship
That toward Eden, four; immortal gold, silver, brass & iron.

The Western Gate fourfold, is closd: having four Cherubim
Its guards, living, the work of elemental hands, laborious task!
Like Men, hermaphroditic, each winged with eight wings
That towards Generation, iron; that toward Beulah, stone;
That toward Ulro, clay: that toward Eden, metals.
But all clos'd up till the last day, when the graves shall yield
their dead

The Eastern Gate, fourfold: terrible & deadly its ornaments:
Taking their forms from the Wheels of Albions sons; as cogs
Are formd in a wheel, to fit the cogs of the adverse wheel.

That toward Eden, eternal ice, frozen in seven folds
Of forms of death: and that toward Beulah, stone:
The seven diseases of the earth are carved terrible.

And that toward Ulro, forms of war: seven enormities:
And that toward Generation, seven generative forms.

And every part of the City is fourfold; & every inhabitant,
fourfold.
And every pot & vessel & garment & utensil of the houses,
And every house, fourfold; but the third Gate in every one
Is closd as with a threefold curtain of ivory & fine linen &
ermine.
And Luban stands in middle of the City. a moat of fire,
Surrounds Luban, Los's Palace & the golden Looms of Cathedron.

And sixty-four thousand Genii, guard the Eastern Gate:
And sixty-four thousand Gnomes, guard the Northern Gate:
And sixty-four thousand Nymphs, guard the Western Gate:
And sixty-four thousand Fairies, guard the Southern Gate:

Around Golgonooza lies the land of death eternal; a Land
Of pain and misery and despair and ever brooding melancholy:
In all the Twenty-seven Heavens, numberd from Adam to Luther;
From the blue Mundane Shell, reaching to the Vegetative Earth.

The Vegetative Universe, opens like a flower from the Earths
center:
In which is Eternity. It expands in Stars to the Mundane Shell
And there it meets Eternity again, both within and without,
And the abstract Voids between the Stars are the Satanic Wheels.

There is the Cave; the Rock; the Tree; the Lake of Udan Adan;
The Forest, and the Marsh, and the Pits of bitumen deadly:
The Rocks of solid fire: the Ice valleys: the Plains
Of burning sand: the rivers, cataract & Lakes of Fire:
The Islands of the fiery Lakes: the Trees of Malice: Revenge:
And black Anxiety; and the Cities of the Salamandrine men:
(But whatever is visible to the Generated Man,
Is a Creation of mercy & love, from the Satanic Void.)
The land of darkness flamed but no light, & no repose:
The land of snows of trembling, & of iron hail incessant:
The land of earthquakes: and the land of woven labyrinths:
The land of snares & traps & wheels & pit-falls & dire mills:
The Voids, the Solids, & the land of clouds & regions of waters:
With their inhabitants: in the Twenty-seven Heavens beneath
Beulah:
Self-righteousnesses conglomerating against the Divine Vision:
A Concave Earth wondrous, Chasmal, Abyssal, Incoherent!
Forming the Mundane Shell: above; beneath: on all sides
surrounding
Golgonooza: Los walks round the walls night and day.

He views the City of Golgonooza, & its smaller Cities:
The Looms & Mills & Prisons & Work-houses of Og & Anak:
The Amalekite: the Canaanite: the Moabite: the Egyptian:
And all that has existed in the space of six thousand years:
Permanent, & not lost not lost nor vanishd, & every little act,

Word, work, & wish, that has existed, all remaining still
In those Churches ever consuming & ever building by the Spectres
Of all the inhabitants of Earth wailing to be Created:
Shadowy to those who dwell not in them, meer possibilities:
But to those who enter into them they seem the only substances
For every thing exists & not one sigh nor smile nor tear,

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

Here is Plate 13, the text and the picture.

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

This is Plate 13:

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

Notes:

Blake always leaned toward Fourfold:

This from 'Blake's City of Golgonooza

in Jerusalem: Metaphor and Mandala'

by JAMES BOGAN

Jerusalem is organized around four principal cities; they are

London,

Babylon,

Gogonooza, and

Jerusalem.

Three of them are familiar enough, but the

arcane city of Golgonooza is likely to seem, to an unsuspecting reader,

as unapproachable as some legendary Forbidden City. Access to the

luminous spaces of Blake's unique, yet traditional, city can be facili-

tated in two ways: First, the nature of Golgonooza will be clarified by

comparison to the other major cities of the poem; and second, a guided

tour into the city will be given in a detailed reading of the mandala-map

left by Blake on plates 12 and 13 of Jerusalem.

When Blake encounters what Kenneth Johnston calls the effects of "a

religion based on mystery, an economy based on militarism, in short the

British Empire, as he saw it,"2 the poet is in Babylon. Babylon, for

Blake, is enslavement by material necessity. It is the world of ex-

perience, cut off from the insight of innocence. Anyone in Babylon is

in captivity, like the Jews under Nebuchadnezzar. While they were

exiled from their home and temple, those in Blake's Babylon are exiled

from inspiration and the forgiveness of sin. In Revelation a long list of

the "merchandise of Babylon" concludes with: "slaves, and souls of

men" (18:12-13). This condition of slavery characterizes Babylon......

In contrast to the death-centered world of Babylon is the life-sustain-

ing city of Golgonooza. Notice the difference in its furnishings:

"The stones [of Golgonooza] are pity, and the bricks well-

wrought affections

Enamel'd with love & kindness, & the tiles graven gold,

Labour of merciful hands: the beams and rafters are forgiveness:

The mortar & cement of the work tears of honesty: the nails

And screws & iron braces are well wrought blandishments

And well contrived words, firm fixing, never forgotten.

Always comforting the remembrance: the floors humility:

The cielings, devotion: the hearths thanksgiving." (J 12)

Golgonooza, an antidote to Babylon, is a human habitation. It is home-

ly. While it is often referred to as the "City of Art,"4 it should be re-

membered that its foundation is consciously deployed human warmth

and love. It is a spiritual place that exists in London surrounded by the

miseries of Babylon.

Jerusalem is "a City, yet a Woman" in Blake's epics (FZ ix: 222. See

fig. 3). Etymologically, Jerusalem means the "height of peace," and it

is in the root of the word, more than any coordinates on a map, where it

is to be found.

Golgonooza is a place within Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the

Eternal City whereas Golgonooza is within Time, being built by Los

towards Eternity. The positive qualities of Golgonooza are congruent

with those of Jerusalem. The style of metaphor used to describe Gol-

gonooza is continued with Jerusalem. "Gates of Thanksgiving . . .

Windows of Praise . . . Clouds of Blessing, Cherubims of Tender-

mercy" (J 24) are the means by which Blake recognizes "the city of the

living God, heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:22).

Structurally Blake wrote Jerusalem in four chapters: to the public,

to the Jews, to the Deists, and to the Christians. There were four kinds

of vision, etc.

He thought fourly. If we study the four gates, we will undoubtedly

profit. (This note came more or less in toto from Bogan's article,

which appears at Colby Library Quarterly, June 1981; it's very

worthwhile reading.

THE TIME RETURNS

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Blake's familiar hymn from plate 1 of Milton uses the symbols of Jerusalem to represent the ideal spiritual condition, and England to represent the fallen, material condition.

Milton, Plate 1, (E 95)
"And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land."

In Galatians Paul uses the symbols of Abraham's two sons to represent the same dichotomy of spirit and flesh: one by a freewoman and one by a bondwoman. Paul presents this as allegory of the two covenants; the one of bondage the other of freedom. He calls the condition of freedom Jerusalem but specifies that he speaks of the Jerusalem which is above: the mother of all.

The same desire that Blake has for building Jerusalem in England is expressed as Paul's desire that Christ be formed in those he addresses as little children. Paul calls the children of the freewoman the children of promise.

Galations 4
[ 19] My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
[20] I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.
[21] Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
[22] For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
[23] But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
[24] Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
[25] For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
[26] But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
[27] For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
[28] Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
[29] But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
[30] Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
[31] So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

Blake on plate 77 of Jerusalem seems to have written a continuation of the poem in Milton. In it Blake has Jerusalem call to her sister England to awake. He again recalls the ancient time of joy and love which can return if the Lamb of God but be received.

Jerusalem, PLATE 77, (E 231)
"England! awake! awake! awake!
Jerusalem thy Sister calls!
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death?
And close her from thy ancient walls.

Thy hills & valleys felt her feet,
Gently upon their bosoms move:
Thy gates beheld sweet Zions ways;
Then was a time of joy and love.

And now the time returns again:
Our souls exult & Londons towers,
Recieve the Lamb of God to dwell
In Englands green & pleasant bowers. "

Image from Blake's illustrations for Milton's Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity
Painted for Thomas Butts in 1815

Plate 12

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Here's Blake's Jerusalem, Plate 12; Erdman 154-5:(Erdman tells us that this plate may be thought of as singlepages. In his Illuminated Blake (page291) he describes theswan with five fish, one near it and the others running downthe right margin. You may also see two open mouthed eels.Erdman also describes here the lower picture of Plate 11.)
PLATE 12 text
Why wilt thou give to her a Body whose life is but a Shade?.
Her joy and love, a shade: a shade of sweet repose:
But animated and vegetated, she is a devouring worm:
What shall we do for thee O lovely mild Jerusalem?

And Los said. I behold the finger of God in terrors!
Albion is dead! his Emanation is divided from him!
But I am living! yet I feel my Emanation also dividing
Such thing was never known! O pity me, thou all-piteous-one!
What shall I do! or how exist, divided from Enitharmon?
Yet why despair! I saw the finger of God go forth
Upon my Furnaces, from within the Wheels of Albions Sons:
Fixing their Systems, permanent: by mathematic power
Giving a body to Falshood that it may be cast off for ever.
With Demonstrative Science piercing Apollyon with his own bow!
God is within, & without! he is even in the depths of Hell!

Such were the lamentations of the Labourers in the Furnaces!

And they appeard within & without incircling on both sides
The Starry Wheels of Albions Sons, with Spaces for Jerusalem:
And for Vala the shadow of Jerusalem: the ever mourning shade:
On both sides, within & without beaming gloriously!

Terrified at the sublime Wonder, Los stood before his Furnaces.
And they stood around, terrified with admiration at Erins Spaces
For the Spaces reachd from the starry heighth, to the starry
    depth;
And they builded Golgonooza: terrible eternal labour!What are those golden builders doing? where was the burying-place
Of soft Ethinthus? near Tyburns fatal Tree? is that
Mild Zions hills most ancient promontory; near mournful
Ever weeping Paddington? is that Calvary and Golgotha?
Becoming a building of pity and compassion? Lo!
The stones are pity, and the bricks, well wrought affections:
Enameld with love & kindness, & the tiles engraven gold
Labour of merciful hands: the beams & rafters are forgiveness:
The mortar & cement of the work, tears of honesty: the nails,
And the screws & iron braces, are well wrought blandishments,
And well contrived words, firm fixing, never forgotten,
Always comforting the remembrance: the floors, humility,
The cielings, devotion: the hearths, thanksgiving:
Prepare the furniture O Lambeth in thy pitying looms!
The curtains, woven tears & sighs, wrought into lovely forms
For comfort. there the secret furniture of Jerusalems chamber
Is wrought: Lambeth! the Bride the Lambs Wife loveth thee:
Thou art one with her & knowest not of self in thy supreme joy.

- 155 -

Go on, builders in hope: tho Jerusalem wanders far away,
Without the gate of Los: among the dark Satanic wheels.

Fourfold the Sons of Los in their divisions: and fourfold,
The great City of Golgonooza: fourfold toward the north
And toward the south fourfold, & fourfold toward the east & west
Each within other toward the four points: that toward
Eden, and that toward the World of Generation,
And that toward Beulah, and that toward Ulro:
Ulro is the space of the terrible starry wheels of Albions sons:
But that toward Eden is walled up, till time of renovation:
Yet it is perfect in its building, ornaments & perfection.

And the Four Points are thus beheld in Great Eternity
West, the Circumference: South, the Zenith: North,
The Nadir: East, the Center, unapproachable for ever.
These are the four Faces towards the Four Worlds of Humanity
In every Man. Ezekiel saw them by Chebars flood.
And the Eyes are the South, and the Nostrils are the East.
And the Tongue is the West, and the Ear is the North.

And the North Gate of Golgonooza toward Generation;
Has four sculpturd Bulls terrible before the Gate of iron.
And iron, the Bulls: and that which looks toward Ulro,
Clay bak'd & enamel'd, eternal glowing as four furnaces:
Turning upon the Wheels of Albions sons with enormous power.
And that toward Beulah four, gold, silver, brass, & iron:

Notes:
On the right border of the plate we see three figures:
the top one, which at first looked to me like a big Parrot, but closer
examination suggests Vala in her veil; Paley saw a lady with bat
wings primping, as before a mirror; Following line 3 of the text (the
devouring tongue) as a 'devouring worm;
the middle one seems to be flying and applying a compass to a
globe; (is that Newton?);
the lower one seems to be turning the globe. A strange object
protrubes from the bottom of the globe; might that represent the
beginning of a golden thread?

altogether we may say that the pics represent Vala; the text begins:
'Why wilt thou give to her a Body whose life is but a Shade?'
Vala represents the purely material, transient life (but a shade!)

Speaking of Los Blake said,
'...With Demonstrative Science piercing Apollyon with his own bow!'
Apollyon is 'the angel of the bottomless pit' (Revelation 9:1).
He appeared in Pilgrims Progress blocking Pilgrim's way. See Plate
20 of Blake's Illustrations to the Pilgrims Progress , or here!

ENGRAVED COPPER

2011-12-11T05:41:00.012-05:00

The engraved copper plates for Blake's illuminated books have all been lost except for a small scrap of one plate. However the plates from which he printed the Illustrations to the Book of Job are preserved in the British Museum. John Linnell who initiated the project of having Blake engrave his illustrations to Job was Blake's partner in printing and publishing the 22 plates of the book.

When Blake engraved Job, he was 66 years old and his health was failing, but he produced what many consider his masterpiece. The weakening of his body did not seem to affect the acuity of his eye, the steadiness of his hand or the concentration of his mind; all of which were required for such precise and sustained work.

The plates were given to the British Museum by H. Linnell, a presumed descendant of John Linnell, in 1919.

These two images from the British Museum show the engraved plate and the printed image of picture seven of the series.

The inscriptions on the plate are from this passage in Job.

Job 2
[7] So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.
[8] And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.
[9] Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.
[10] But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.
[11] Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.
[12] And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.
[13] So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.

Edinger (Encounter with the Self, A Jungian Commentary on William Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job) sees the three friends or comforters as repressed aspects of Job's psyche which surface with the breakdown of the ego. Blake's images in the border suggest the grief of Job at the upper corners, and the failure of the guardian shepherds to keep watch in the lower corners.

This website allows one conveniently to view all the illustrations for Job.

Plate 11

2011-12-10T06:57:00.000-05:00

PLATE 11
To labours mighty, with vast strength, with his mighty chains,
In pulsations of time, & extensions of space, like Urns of Beulah
With great labour upon his anvils, & in his ladles the Ore
He lifted, pouring it into the clay ground prepar'd with art;
Striving with Systems to deliver Individuals from those Systems;
That whenever any Spectre began to devour the Dead,
He might feel the pain as if a man gnawd his own tender nerves.

Then Erin came forth from the Furnaces, & all the Daughters of Beulah
Came from the Furnaces, by Los's mighty power for Jerusalems
Sake: walking up and down among the Spaces of Erin:
And the Sons and Daughters of Los came forth in perfection
    lovely!
And the Spaces of Erin reach'd from the starry heighth, to the
    starry depth.Los wept with exceeding joy & all wept with joy together!They feard they never more should see their Father, who
Was built in from Eternity, in the Cliffs of Albion.

But when the joy of meeting was exhausted in loving embrace;
Again they lament. O what shall we do for lovely Jerusalem?
To protect the Emanations of Albions mighty ones from cruelty?
Sabrina & Ignoge begin to sharpen their beamy spears
Of light and love: their little children stand with arrows of
    gold:
Ragan is wholly cruel Scofield is bound in iron armour!
He shoots beneath Jerusalems walls to undermine her foundations!
A shadow animated by thy tears O mournful Jerusalem (Erdman 154) Blake Archive Jerusalem Plate 11

Notes: Two pictures and the text express 'exceeding joy'. The upper picture has a tree in each of the upper corners. The willow implies woe and the oak implies ambition (according to Erdman on page 290 of The Illuminated Blake).

"Horace in Ode 20 of Book 2 prophesying his poetic immortality. feels himself turning into a snowy swan"; in Blakes design for poems by William Gray...pictures a stout naked youth excepting from the sky a lyre" mounted on a singing swan. (This is the Title Page of Blake's Designs.)

In Ovid's Metaphoses Cygnus, son of Neptune, slain in battle became a swan. All these references imply the strong personal dimension of this material in Blake's design.He was changing, like we all do, swan, eagle, serpent, you name it (them).

In the second paragraph of the text we learn that Erin was the first to come out of the furnace (the spaces of Erin occurred in Plates 9, 11, and 48), followed by the Daughters of Beulah. Coming out of the furnace seems to mean escaping from Ulro, to achieve generation, then regeneration, then Beulah, then Eternity (IMO).

This is a happy Plate and might have been placed near the end of Jerusalem.

BLAKE & LINNELL

2011-12-09T05:57:00.007-05:00

In 1818 the 61 year old William Blake met the 26 year old John Linnell through the son of his friend George Cumberland. The two became friends and collaborators in artistic pursuits. Linnell was important in making the final decade of Blake's life pleasant and productive.

In 1821 Linnell painted a miniature portrait of Blake in watercolor on ivory which is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. The Notes from an Exhibition at the Fitzwilliam in 2001 include a quote from John Linnell’s Autobiographical Notes, (f.57-58)

This image from the portrait extracted from William Blake, his life, character and genius (1893) Story, Alfred Thomas and is available from wikimedia.

Miniature in watercolor on ivory as seen at the Fitzwilliam.

Linnell on Blake

“I soon encountered Blake’s peculiarities and [was] somewhat taken aback by the boldness of some of his assertions. I never saw anything the least like madness, for I never opposed him spitefully, as many did - but being really anxious to fathom, if possible, the amount of truth which might be in his most startling assertions, I generally met with a sufficiently rational explanation in the most really friendly and conciliatory tone. Even when John Varley, to whom I introduced to Blake, and who readily devoured all the marvellous in Blake’s most extravagant utterances - even to Varley, Blake would occasionally explain unasked how he believed that both Varley and I could see the same visions as he saw - making it evident to me, that Blake claimed the possession of some powers, only in a greater degree, that all men possessed, and which they undervalued in themselves but lost through love of sordid pursuits - pride, vanity, and the unrighteous mammon” John Linnell’s Autobiographical notes, f.57-58

This letter from Blake to Linnell's wife shows something of the camaraderie and playfulness which existed among the friends.

Letters, (E 774)
To Mrs Linnell, Collinss Farm North End, Hampstead

Tuesday 11 October 1825
Dear Madam
I have had the Pleasure to see Mr Linnell set off safe in a
very comfortable Coach. & I may say I accompanied him part of the
way on his journey in the Coach for we both got in together &
with another Passenger enterd into Conversation when at length we
found that we were all three proceeding on our Journey. but as I
had not paid & did not wish to pay for or take so long a Ride.
we with some difficulty made the Coachman understand that one of
his Passengers was unwilling to Go. when he obligingly permitted
me to get out to my great joy. hence I am now enabled to tell you
that I hope to see you on Sunday morning as usual which I could
not have done if they had taken me to Gloucester
I am D.r Madam yours Sincerely
WILLIAM BLAKE

Plate 10

2011-12-08T06:37:00.002-05:00

Into the Furnaces & into the valleys of the Anvils of Death
And into the mountains of the Anvils & of the heavy Hammers
Till he should bring the Sons & Daughters of Jerusalem to be
The Sons & Daughters of Los that he might protect them from
Albions dread Spectres; storming, loud, thunderous & mighty
The Bellows & the Hammers move compell'd by Los's hand.And this is the manner of the Sons of Albion in their strength
They take the Two Contraries which are calld Qualities, with
    which

Every Substance is clothed, they name them Good & Evil
From them they make an Abstract, which is a Negation
Not only of the Substance from which it is derived
A murderer of its own Body: but also a murderer
Of every Divine Member: it is the Reasoning Power
An Abstract objecting power, that Negatives every thing
This is the Spectre of Man: the Holy Reasoning Power
And in its Holiness is closed the Abomination of Desolation

Therefore Los stands in London building Golgonooza
Compelling his Spectre to labours mighty; trembling in fear
The Spectre weeps, but Los unmovd by tears or threats remains

I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Mans
I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create

So Los, in fury & strength: in indignation & burning wrath
Shuddring the Spectre howls. his howlings terrify the night
He stamps around the Anvil, beating blows of stern despair
He curses Heaven & Earth, Day & Night & Sun & Moon
He curses Forest Spring & River, Desart & sandy Waste
Cities & Nations, Families & Peoples, Tongues & Laws
Driven to desperation by Los's terrors & threatning fears Los cries, Obey my voice & never deviate from my will
And I will be merciful to thee: be thou invisible to all
To whom I make thee invisible, but chief to my own Children
O Spectre of Urthona: Reason not against their dear approach
Nor them obstruct with thy temptations of doubt & despair
O Shame O strong & mighty Shame I break thy brazen fetters
If thou refuse, thy present torments will seem southern breezes
To what thou shalt endure if thou obey not my great will.The Spectre answer'd. Art thou not ashamd of those thy Sins
That thou callest thy Children? lo the Law of God commands
That they be offered upon his Altar: O cruelty & torment
For thine are also mine! I have kept silent hitherto,
Concerning my chief delight: but thou hast broken silence
Now I will speak my mind! Where is my lovely Enitharmon
O thou my enemy, where is my Great Sin? She is also thine
I said: Now is my grief at worst: incapable of being
Surpassed: but every moment it accumulates more & more It continues accumulating to eternity! the joys of God advance
For he is Righteous: he is not a Being of Pity & Compassion
He cannot feel Distress: he feeds on Sacrifice & Offering:
Delighting in cries & tears & clothed in Holiness & solitude
But my griefs advance also, for ever & ever without end
O that I could cease to be! Despair! I am Despair
Created to be the great example of horror & agony: also my
Prayer is vain I called for compassion: compassion mockd
Mercy & pity threw the grave stone over me & with lead
And iron, bound it over me for ever: Life lives on my
Consuming: & the Almighty hath made me his Contrary
To be all evil, all reversed & for ever dead: knowing
And seeing life, yet living not; how can I then behold
And not tremble; how can I be beheld & not abhorrd

So spoke the Spectre shuddring, & dark tears ran down his shadowy
    face
Which Los wiped off, but comfort none could give! or beam of hope
Yet ceasd he not from labouring at the roarings of his Forge
With iron & brass Building Golgonooza in great contendings
Till his Sons & Daughters came forth from the Furnaces
At the sublime Labours for Los. compelld the invisible Spectre
(Erdman 152-4)(Blake Archive Plate 10)

Notes:Very little pictorially here; Erdman, in his Illustrated Blake, felt that this may have been inserted late, when Blake had too much to say textually, so it's justs words, and we're forced to consider exclusively the text:

"Into the Furnaces" occurs 6 times in Blake, 4 of them in Jerusalem:

"They revolve into the Furnaces Southward" (Jeru 5)"Luvah was cast into the Furnaces of affliction (Jeru 7)
This one at Jeru 10"So Albion spoke & threw himself into the Furnaces of affliction" (Jeru 96)
The stem of all these passages can be found in Daniel.

GOLDEN COMPASS

2011-12-07T06:43:00.006-05:00

Blake originally used this image as the frontispiece of Europe a Prophecy. However he reused the copper plate to make additional prints which are known by the title 'Ancient of Days'. Two passages which appear to be sources for the image are from the Bible and from Paradise Lost.

Europe a Prophecy
New York Public Library

S. Foster Damon, in A Blake Dictionary gives this description of the process of creation as Blake understood it:
"Creation is not the beginning of existence, for all things are eternal: it is a consequence of the fall toward 'Eternal Death' (separation from Eternity)...
The process of Creation is one of dividing up the original Unity. Beginning with the separation of light from darkness, it proceeds through the six Days of Creation, culminating in the separation of man from God. After that the sexes are divided in the creation of Eve; Good and Evil, in the eating of the fruit; man and happiness in the expulsion from the Garden; soul and body, in the first murder; man from his brother in the confusion of tongues at Babel." (Page 94)

This print in the Whitworth Gallery, University of Manchester, is thought to be the last print of this image made by Blake

Proverbs 8
[22] The LORD possessed me [Wisdom] in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.
[23] I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
[24] When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.
[25] Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:
[26] While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
[27] When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:

John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 7
"and in his hand
He took the golden Compasses, prepar'd
In Gods Eternal store, to circumscribe
This Universe, and all created things:
One foot he center'd, and the other turn'd
Round through the vast profunditie obscure,
And said, thus farr extend, thus farr thy bounds,
This be thy just Circumference, O World.
Thus God the Heav'n created, thus the Earth,"

Auguries of Innocence, (E 495)

"Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day"

Two Spectres

2011-12-06T03:13:00.001-05:00

There are two of Everything: a pro and a con, a good and an evil. What about this creature? We've spent years whipping the Spectre; a long time ago I came to realize that everything unpleasant, distructive, horrid came from the Spectre.

And yet...
The Spectre! is there such a thing as a good and a bad spectre? There you have it. What is good and bad? Spectrous distinctions! In the final resolution of our lives there's no longer a good and a bad.

To put it differently one dies, the other survives.

But how can we tell who's what? With 244 occurrences of the spectre in Blake how can we discriminate?

Studying the book of Milton is perhaps the best way. But The Four Zoas, a sort of preliminary to the larger Prophecies, may give a clue:

"The dread Sleep of Ulro is past. But Satan Og & Sihon Build Mills of resistless wheels to unwind the soft threads & revealNaked of their clothing the poor
spectres before the accusing heavens" (4Z; Erdman 376)

What's this? the poor spectres. I thought they were all bad; but after "The dread Sleep of Ulro is past" things are very different.

Or look at 372:
"Then Enitharmon ..... wove the Spectres
Bodies of Vegetation Singing lulling Cadences to drive away
Despair from the poor wandering spectres and Los loved them
With a parental love for the Divine hand was upon him"

But in 367-8 we read
"But then the Spectre enterd Los's bosom ....
Obdurate Los felt Pity Enitharmon told the tale
Of Urthona.
Los embracd the Spectre first as a brotherThen as another Self; astonishd humanizing & in tears
In Self abasement Giving up his Domineering lust
Thou never canst embrace sweet Enitharmon terrible Demon.
TillThou art united with thy Spectre Consummating by pains & labours
That mortal body &amp, by Self annihilation back returning To Life Eternal be assurd I am thy real Self
Tho thus divided from thee & the Slave of Every passionOf thy fierce Soul Unbar the Gates of Memory look upon me
Not as another but as thy real Self I am thy SpectreThou didst subdue me in old times by thy Immortal Strength When I was a ravning hungring & thirsting cruel lust & murder
Tho horrible & Ghastly to thine Eyes
tho buried beneathThe ruins of the Universe.
hear what inspird I speak & be silent
If we unite in one[,] another better world will be Opend within your heart & loins & wondrous brainThreefold as it was in Eternity & this the fourth Universe Will be Renewd by the three & consummated in Mental fires..."

But this is not the critical Moment.
We might best look at MILTON:
Here is Milton at Erdman 139:

"In the Eastern porch of Satans Universe Milton stood & said
Satan! my Spectre! I know my power thee to annihilateAnd be a greater in thy place, & be thy Tabernacle
A covering for thee to do thy will, till one greater comes
And smites me as I smote thee & becomes my covering.Such are the Laws of thy false Heavns! but Laws of Eternity
Are not such: know thou: I come to Self AnnihilationSuch are the Laws of Eternity that each shall mutually Annihilate himself for others good, as I for thee".

That, my friends, is the secret of life, the Law of Love. Your Spectre is an idiot; but to truly live you have to 'kiss the idiot'. It's the worldly, materialistic selfish that you and I are, that makes up most of what we are or have become. When Blake had his life changing experience, he stopped hating and loved the poor feeble suffering spectre within.

The Sceptre is Satan; Satan is a State; our inner sceptre/satan are the things we do and then hate for doing.

The penultimate verse of My Spectre Around me Night and Day is:
"Let us agree to give up Love
And root up the infernal grove;
Then we shall return & see
The worlds of happy Eternity,"

The dumb barking dog is acting furiously hoping for some recognition, any attention; such is our spectre.

LAW OF MOSES

2011-12-05T04:58:00.003-05:00

To finish a series of posts on Blake's pictures related to Moses, we look at an image not of Moses but of the result of enforcing the law which Moses received from Jehovah. The son of the Israelitish woman is being stoned to death by the righteous men executing punishment for the commission of blasphemy.

Image from Wikipedia commons
Original in Tate Collection

Leviticus 24
[10] And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp;
[11] And the Israelitish woman's son blasphemed the name of the LORD, and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses: (and his mother's name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan:)

[ 23] And Moses spake to the children of Israel, that they should bring forth him that had cursed out of the camp, and stone him with stones. And the children of Israel did as the LORD commanded Moses.

Feelings of a need for vengeance arise from the need for self protection. In fear and insecurity an individual may desire to eradicate the threat before one is attacked. The desire for personal vengeance is projected onto one's God whose image reflects the levels of psychic development one has attained. One's personal need for vengeance is reinforced by the idea that this behavior is approved and encouraged by God.

The stoning of the blasphemer is an example of the religion of Moses. The forgiveness of the woman taken in adultery who under the law deserved stoning, is the contrary example of the religion of Jesus. The practice of the religion of Jesus leaves no room for vengeance. Anything short of forgiveness, brotherhood and love is the religion of Satan because it involves becoming 'Satans' holy Trinity The Accuser The Judge & The Executioner.'

Jerusalem, Plate 52, (E 201)
"Man must & will have Some Religion; if he has not the Religion
of Jesus, he will have the Religion of Satan, & will erect the
Synagogue of Satan. calling the Prince of this World, God; and
destroying all who do not worship Satan under the Name of God.
Will any one say: Where are those who worship Satan under the
Name of God! Where are they? Listen! Every Religion that Preaches
Vengeance for Sins the Religion of the Enemy & Avenger; and not
the Forgiver of Sin, and their God is Satan, Named by the Divine
Name Your Religion O Deists: Deism, is the Worship of the God
of this World by the means of what you call Natural Religion and
Natural Philosophy, and of Natural Morality or
Self-Righteousness, the Selfish Virtues of the Natural Heart."

Jerusalem, Plate 25, (E 170)
"Why did you take Vengeance O ye Sons of the mighty Albion?
Planting these Oaken Groves: Erecting these Dragon Temples
Injury the Lord heals but Vengeance cannot be healed:
As the Sons of Albion have done to Luvah: so they have in him
Done to the Divine Lord & Saviour, who suffers with those that suffer:
For not one sparrow can suffer, & the whole Universe not suffer also,
In all its Regions, & its Father & Saviour not pity and weep.
But Vengeance is the destroyer of Grace & Repentance in the bosom

Of the Injurer: in which the Divine Lamb is cruelly slain:"

Ghost of Abel, (E 272)
"Abel-- Are these the Sacrifices of Eternity O Jehovah, a Broken Spirit
And a Contrite Heart. O I cannot Forgive! the Accuser hath
Enterd into Me as into his House & I loathe thy Tabernacles
As thou hast said so is it come to pass: My desire is unto Cain
And He doth rule over Me: therefore My Soul in fumes of Blood
Cries for Vengeance: Sacrifice on Sacrifice Blood on Blood"

Ghost of Abel, (E 272)
"The Elohim of the Heathen Swore Vengeance for Sin! Then Thou stoodst
Forth O Elohim Jehovah! in the midst of the darkness of the Oath! All Clothed
In Thy Covenant of the Forgiveness of Sins: Death O Holy! Is this Brotherhood
The Elohim saw their Oath Eternal Fire; they rolled apart trembling over The
Mercy Seat: each in his station fixt in the Firmament by Peace Brotherhood and Love."

Plate 9

2011-12-04T05:17:00.002-05:00

Text:
PLATE 9
Condens'd his Emanations into hard opake substances;
And his infant thoughts & desires, into cold, dark, cliffs of
death.
His hammer of gold he siezd; and his anvil of adamant.
He siez'd the bars of condens'd thoughts, to forge them:
Into the sword of war: into the bow and arrow:
Into the thundering cannon and into the murdering gun
I saw the limbs form'd for exercise, contemn'd: & the beauty of
Eternity, look'd upon as deformity & loveliness as a dry tree:
I saw disease forming a Body of Death around the Lamb
Of God, to destroy Jerusalem, & to devour the body of Albion
By war and stratagem to win the labour of the husbandman:
Awkwardness arm'd in steel: folly in a helmet of gold:
Weakness with horns & talons: ignorance with a rav'ning beak!
Every Emanative joy forbidden as a Crime:
And the Emanations buried alive in the earth with pomp of
religion:
Inspiration deny'd; Genius forbidden by laws of punishment:
I saw terrified; I took the sighs & tears, & bitter groans:
I lifted them into my Furnaces; to form the spiritual sword.
That lays open the hidden heart: I drew forth the pang
Of sorrow red hot: I workd it on my resolute anvil:
I heated it in the flames of Hand, & Hyle, & Coban
Nine times; Gwendolen & Cambel & Gwineverra
Are melted into the gold, the silver, the liquid ruby,
The crysolite, the topaz, the jacinth, & every precious stone,
Loud roar my Furnaces and loud my hammer is heard:
I labour day and night, I behold the soft affections
Condense beneath my hammer into forms of cruelty
But still I labour in hope, tho' still my tears flow down.
That he who will not defend Truth, may be compelld to defend
A Lie: that he may be snared and caught and snared and taken
That Enthusiasm and Life may not cease: arise Spectre arise!
Thus they contended among the Furnaces with groans & tears;
Groaning the Spectre heavd the bellows, obeying Los's frowns;
Till the Spaces of Erin were perfected in the furnaces
Of affliction, and Los drew them forth, compelling the harsh
Spectre

***********************************************
Notes:
Much could be said about this picture:
a. Along the right border we see the inevitable tree and beneath it a figure resembling the piper who piped his song about a lamb; the context of course suggests it's the shepherd. (Do shepherds pipe? indeed, yes!)

b. The shepherd is piping to a herd of sheep; they are interpolated between lines 16 and 18.
The middle part shows the (equally) inevitable serpent, his tail coinciding with the roots of the tree. (Remember the story of Arc: we read in Plate 14:"He views the Cherub at the Tree of Life, also the Serpent, Orc the first born coild in the south"Blake associates Orc with Revolution, with the serpent climbing up the Tree of Mystery, the Dragon, and many other pointers to Ulro in its various forms.

c. The bottom picture: Oh my! What little I can get from this picture is owing to Erdman's Illuminated Blake (page 288): he suggested we look at Job 12; in that light it's much like Job's friends at the left, Job's wife prostated, Job, who has everything upside down. The falling stars hark back to Tyger: "when the stars threw down their spears..." (Erdman 25)Another view might be Albion, gone to sleep, sending his four zoas into Ulro.It all fits together, like all Blake's work. You pick!

BURIAL OF MOSES

2011-12-03T05:43:00.003-05:00

Deuteronomy 32
[48] And the LORD spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying,
[49] Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession:
[50] And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people:
[51] Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel.
[52] Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.

Representing a stage in the psychic/spiritual development of mankind, Moses gains dominance and then fades as he is replaced by the next stage. The death of Moses represents a transition in psychic/spiritual development. Moses brought release from bondage to Druiadic thought, he introduced a covenant with God based on a code of conduct, he brought his people to the verge of the Promised Land. The land of Promise, however, turned out to be not Eden (the realization of Eternity) but Canaan (a degraded materialism.)

Jude
[9] Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil
he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a
railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

Michael and Satan struggled not over Moses but over the body of Moses. The body of work which remained from the life of Moses became the material from which further prophecy would evolve. Michael would direct Moses' work toward the realization which would take place through Jesus; Satan would direct his work toward another bondage of struggle for religious repression, political dominance, and isolation from individual consciousness of the God within.

The struggle between wrath and pity was not resolved in Moses or through Moses. Blake used the Bard's Song in Milton to exemplify the struggle between wrath and pity which remained to be solved by prophetic vision. The soul of man was/is divided by pity (which tolerates weakness) thereby being incompatible with wrath (which is moved to destroy failure.) The contraries take many forms. The work in Los' furnaces is the repeated resolution of the dichotomies as they appear in multiple forms as an individual travels through states or as societies travel through the Eyes of God.

Blake means for us to get an impression of struggle between Michael and Satan in this passage from the Bard's Song in Milton. Various qualities and behaviors appear in each character but nevertheless we can see wrath and pity contending, being split apart and being sent back to fight another round.

Milton , Plate 8, (E 102)
"They Plow'd in tears! incessant pourd Jehovahs rain, & Molechs
Thick fires contending with the rain, thunder'd above rolling
Terrible over their heads; Satan wept over Palamabron
Theotormon & Bromion contended on the side of Satan
Pitying his youth and beauty; trembling at eternal death:
Michael contended against Satan in the rolling thunder
Thulloh the friend of Satan also reprovd him; faint their
reproof.

But Rintrah who is of the reprobate: of those form'd to destruction
In indignation. for Satans soft dissimulation of friendship!
Flam'd above all the plowed furrows, angry red and furious,
Till Michael sat down in the furrow weary dissolv'd in tears
Satan who drave the team beside him, stood angry & red
He smote Thulloh & slew him, & he stood terrible over Michael
Urging him to arise: he wept! Enitharmon saw his tears
But Los hid Thulloh from her sight, lest she should die of grief
She wept: she trembled! she kissed Satan; she wept over Michael
She form'd a Space for Satan & Michael & for the poor infected[.]
Trembling she wept over the Space, & clos'd it with a tender Moon

Los secret buried Thulloh, weeping disconsolate over the moony Space"

Complete text of Plate 8 of Milton from the Blake Archive.

The Devil Rebuked (The Burial of Moses), c. 1805
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
Image in the Blake Archive (click to enlarge for detail)

Here is more on the difficult transition to higher consciousness represented by the struggle between Michael and Satan from Fearful Symmetry by Northrop Frye:
Page 366
"Canaan, therefore, is Egypt all over again, and the crossing of the Jordan is entry into Egypt or Ulro, the mundane shell or cave of the mind. The Jordan is in the Bible more or less what the Styx or Lethe is in Classical Mythology. The fact that Moses never entered Canaan thus has a twofold significance. His death outside the Promised Land means that what he represents, the spirit of the Hebrew law or vision of Jehovah, was not good enough; but his death outside of the fallen Canaan means that he was redeemed and not rejected by Jesus, which is why he appears with Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration."
Page 391
"The Biblical symbolism in which the crisis of vision is presented centers on the figure of Moses. Moses is the Hebrew historical cycle which began as Orc in Egypt, attained its vision of Jehovah, and ran its natural course. When Moses comes within sight of the Promised Land he represents Hebrew culture at a crisis corresponding to that of Deism. This is later referred to as a dispute between Michael, the guardian angel of Israel, and Satan over Moses' body. Satan was trying to drag him into the fallen Canaan; Michael was trying to take him to the real Promised Land, the Eden where Elijah, according to the old tradition, also awaits the apocalypse. Both sides won, and separated Hebrew civilization into the literal law of the Pharisees and the letter of the law spiritualized by Jesus."

Blake characterized the periods through man travels in his evolution as the Eyes of God.