Europe a Prophecy Plate 8

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Plate 8

"Arise O Rintrah eldest born: second to none but Orc:
O lion Rintrah raise thy fury from thy forests black:
Bring Palamabron horned priest, skipping upon the mountains:
And silent Elynittria the silver bowed queen:
Rintrah where hast thou hid thy bride!
Weeps she in desart shades?
Alas my Rintrah! bring the lovely jealous Ocalythron.
Arise my son! bring all thy brethren O thou king of fire.
Prince of the sun I see thee with thy innumerable race:
Thick as the summer stars:
But each ramping his golden mane shakes,
And thine eyes rejoice because of strength O Rintrah furious king."
(Erdman 62)

About the Text

Rintrah, "the just wrath of the prophet",
appears first at the beginning of MHH:
 "Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep"?????"
"Rintrah is said to be the "eldest born" of Enitharmon.
Palamabron is Rintrah's brother; as Rintrah connotes wrath,
Palamabron connotes pity.
Several other of Blake's characters grace this text:
"Ocalythron (see 'Milton,' extra page 8, line 19) is the portion
of God's jealousy that narrowed the sun into a globe, as
we usually see it, and hid the visionary sun — the sun of the mind.
Elynitria did the same to the moon, giving us the natural
sight and taking the imaginative sight away through that
jealousy which narrowed all creation, forbade the tree of life
in Eden, and always 'gains feminine applause.' — See the
verses to ' Nobodaddy.' Elynitria' s guard is Palamabron.
In the early part of 'Milton' much is to be read about
Palamabron, and a little in 'Jerusalem.'
But Rintrah is here called Prince of the Sun. This is
Urizen's title when in his right place. But 'feminine
delusion' has broken loose over the world. In the book of
' Urizen' we are told about the origin of the 'net of religion,'
which is the result of Urizen' s feminine mood, —
his pity — and in Night V. and following in ' Vala.' "
Prince of the sun: this phrase appears nowhere else in Blake's poetry.

About the Image

The old man is identified by various artists in various ways;
(Erdman's Iluminated Blake p. 166) 
as King Tiriel and as Albion's Guardian Angel in America a Prophecy. 

He's facing the West and seems to be warding off something (fear, revolution, famine, plague?)
A gowned woman kneels and hugs the old man's legs; she seems 
to be begging for help.