Plate 25

 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.