Plate 80

PLATE 80

Encompassd by the frozen Net and by the rooted Tree

I walk weeping in pangs of a Mothers torment for her Children:

I walk in affliction: I am a worm, and no living soul!

A worm going to eternal torment! raisd up in a night

To an eternal night of pain, lost! lost! lost! for ever!      

Beside her Vala howld upon the winds in pride of beauty

Lamenting among the timbrels of the Warriors: among the Captives

In cruel holiness, and her lamenting songs were from Arnon

And Jordan to Euphrates. Jerusalem followd trembling

Her children in captivity. listening to Valas lamentation    

In the thick cloud & darkness. & the voice went forth from

The cloud. O rent in sunder from Jerusalem the Harlot daughter!

In an eternal condemnation in fierce burning flames

Of torment unendurable: and if once a Delusion be found

Woman must perish & the Heavens of Heavens remain no more     

My Father gave to me command to murder Albion

In unreviving Death; my Love, my Luvah orderd me in night

To murder Albion the King of Men. he fought in battles fierce

He conquerd Luvah my beloved: he took me and my Father

He slew them: I revived them to life in my warm bosom       

He saw them issue from my bosom, dark in Jealousy

He burnd before me: Luvah framd the Knife & Luvah gave

The Knife into his daughters hand! such thing was never known

Before in Albions land, that one should die a death never to be

    reviv'd!

For in our battles we the Slain men view with pity and love:   

We soon revive them in the secret of our tabernacles

But I Vala, Luvahs daughter, keep his body embalmd in moral laws

With spices of sweet odours of lovely jealous stupefaction:

Within my bosom, lest he arise to life & slay my Luvah

Pity me then O Lamb of God! O Jesus pity me!           

Come into Luvahs Tents, and seek not to revive the Dead!

So sang she: and the Spindle turnd furious as she sang:

The Children of Jerusalem the Souls of those who sleep

Were caught into the flax of her Distaff, & in her Cloud

To weave Jerusalem a body according to her will            

A Dragon form on Zion Hills most ancient promontory

The Spindle turnd in blood & fire: loud sound the trumpets

Of war: the cymbals play loud before the Captains

With Cambel & Gwendolen in dance and solemn song

The Cloud of Rahab vibrating with the Daughters of Albion     

Los saw terrified, melted with pity & divided in wrath

He sent them over the narrow seas in pity and love

Among the Four Forests of Albion which overspread all the Earth

They go forth & return swift as a flash of lightning.

Among the tribes of warriors: among the Stones of power!       

Against Jerusalem they rage thro all the Nations of Europe

Thro Italy & Grecia, to Lebanon & Persia & India.

The Serpent Temples thro the Earth, from the wide Plain of

    Salisbury

Resound with cries of Victims, shouts & songs & dying groans

And flames of dusky fire, to Amalek, Canaan and Moab[.]       

And Rahab like a dismal and indefinite hovering Cloud

Refusd to take a definite form. she hoverd over all the Earth

Calling the definite, sin: defacing every definite form;

Invisible, or Visible, stretch'd out in length or spread in

    breadth:

Over the Temples drinking groans of victims weeping in pity,   

And joying in the pity, howling over Jerusalems walls.

Hand slept on Skiddaws top: drawn by the love of beautiful

Cambel: his bright beaming Counterpart, divided from him

And her delusive light beamd fierce above the Mountain,

Soft: invisible: drinking his sighs in sweet intoxication:     

Drawing out fibre by fibre: returning to Albions Tree

At night: and in the morning to Skiddaw; she sent him over

Mountainous Wales into the Loom of Cathedron fibre by fibre:

He ran in tender nerves across Europe to Jerusalems Shade,

To weave Jerusalem a Body repugnant to the Lamb.           

Hyle on East Moor in rocky Derbyshire, rav'd to the Moon

For Gwendolen: she took up in bitter tears his anguishd heart,

That apparent to all in Eternity, glows like the Sun in the

    breast:

She hid it his his ribs & back: she hid his tongue with teeth

In terrible convulsions pitying & gratified drunk with pity    

Glowing with loveliness before him, becoming apparent

According to his changes: she roll'd his kidneys round

Into two irregular forms: and looking on Albions dread Tree,

She wove two vessels of seed, beautiful as Skiddaws snow;

Giving them bends of self interest & selfish natural virtue:     

She hid them in his loins; raving he ran among the rocks,

Compelld into a shape of Moral Virtue against the Lamb.

The invisible lovely one giving him a form according to

His Law a form against the Lamb of God opposd to Mercy

And playing in the thunderous Loom in sweet intoxication      

Filling cups of silver & crystal with shrieks & cries, with

    groans

And dolorous sobs: the wine of lovers in the Wine-press of Luvah

O sister Cambel said Gwendolen, as their long beaming light

Mingled above the Mountain[:] what shall we do to keel)

These awful forms in our soft bands: distracted with trembling  

(Erdman 236-38)

Plate 80
Works has a better image

Notes:

The principle speakers in the last Plate and in this one are Jerusalem/Vala; sometimes Blake takes the trouble to be explicit, such as in line 6:

Beside her Vala howld upon the winds in pride of beauty

And in line 9:

Jerusalem followed trembling...

In the third paragraph Vala sings at her spindle with a garbled account of the Fall.

(In Blake's early account Vala was the emanation of Luvah;)

when Albion came down from Eternity and fell asleep in Beulah, and Blakes says here that Vala (on 

orders from Luvah) seduced Albion to 'woman's love'.

B. also spoke of a battle between Vala's father, Luvah and Albion in which Albion killed Luvah, but  Vala revived him in the Spirit of Jealousy. [We often see this is fiction and real life when a woman incites a War between two men.  Battle is a form of War.]

In Plate 80 Blake sets forth again the difference between Eternal and corporeal battle:

such thing was never known

Before in Albions land, that one should die a death never to be

    reviv'd!

For in our battles we the Slain men view with pity and love:   

We soon revive them in the secret of our tabernacles

But I Vala, Luvahs daughter, keep his body embalmd in moral laws.

Note that in Plate 80 there are several varying views of Vala:

emanation of Luvah, daughter of Luvah, Luvah's emanation, seductress, her spindle brings out a fallen Jerusalem.

With spices of sweet odours of lovely jealous stupefaction:

.........

Pity me then O Lamb of God! O Jesus pity me!           

........

So sang she

Vala’s last words; henceforth her two daughters ‘take the con’.

Blake may have Mark 16:1 in mind with ‘sweet spices’.

There's considerable interest in the images running down the right border:

What appears to me as a serpent extends through the length, others call it a worm.

Three nude figures appears in close proximity to the 'animal':

The lower two are females, and interpreters have identified them with two sisters,  Cambel and Gwendolen, two of the daughters of Vala. 

(In successive plates these two daughters are Vala’s mouthpiece - See Paley 266.)

The upper figure (not easy to see for some of us)  is a male (most of what I see is the buttocks); the serpent/worm  goes through him to the upper female.  

The lower female is reaching up to the serpent/worm.  A leaf is organically connected to her.

The text shows Gwendolen turning Hyle into a monstrosity, while Cambel treated Hand likewise (These two men were among Blake’s pet peeves). 

Cambel, the lower figure has a hopeful note; the picture indicates that with the green grape rooted out of her knee.

Most of these notes are owed to Works, Paley’s Jerusalem or Erdman’s Illuminated Blake; There are further interpretations of these exotic images in those publications and elsewhere.