THE JOURNEY

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For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise
Frontispiece

Blake published The Gates of Paradise twice: once For Children, once For The Sexes. The second version provides the same pictures with added statements.

On the Frontispiece is an image of a caterpillar on a leaf above another leaf upon which rests a chrysalis bearing the face of a sleeping infant. Blake has set the stage for two versions of the answer to the question, "What is Man!", which forms the caption for the picture. When he issued the plate for a second time he added: "The Suns Light when he unfolds it/Depends on the Organ that beholds it." Thus he reinforced the idea that there are alternate ways of understanding the nature of man.

The version of the poem, For The Sexes, adds Keys to the gates at the end of the 18 plates. The Key to the Frontispiece is, "The Catterpiller on the Leaf/ Reminds thee of thy Mothers Grief." Being born of woman is Natural birth, birth into the Natural world by the Natural man. The Gates of Paradise proposes to lead the reader through a rebirth which is available to the sleeping infant bound in the chrysalis if he emerges from the Natural to the Spiritual.

THE KEYS, (E 268)

     "The Catterpiller on the Leaf
     Reminds thee of thy Mothers Grief

          of the GATES

1    My Eternal Man set in Repose
     The Female from his darkness rose
     And She found me beneath a Tree                     
     A Mandrake & in her Veil hid me
     Serpent Reasonings us entice
     Of Good & Evil: Virtue & Vice
2    Doubt Self Jealous Watry folly
3    Struggling thro Earths Melancholy                  
4    Naked in Air in Shame & Fear 
5    Blind in Fire with shield & spear 
     Two Horn'd Reasoning Cloven Fiction 
     In Doubt which is Self contradiction
     A dark Hermaphrodite We stood             
     Rational Truth Root of Evil & Good
     Round me flew the Flaming Sword
     Round her snowy Whirlwinds roard
     Freezing her Veil the Mundane Shell
6    I rent the Veil where the Dead dwell   
     When weary Man enters his Cave
     He meets his Saviour in the Grave
     Some find a Female Garment there
     And some a Male, woven with care
     Lest the Sexual Garments sweet           
     Should grow a devouring Winding sheet
7    One Dies! Alas! the Living & Dead 
     One is slain & One is fled
8    In Vain-glory hatcht & nurst
     By double Spectres Self Accurst                        
     My Son! my Son! thou treatest me
     But as I have instructed thee
9    On the shadows of the Moon 
     Climbing thro Nights highest noon
10   In Times Ocean falling drownd                           
     In Aged Ignorance profound
11   Holy & cold I clipd the Wings 
     Of all Sublunary Things
12   And in depths of my Dungeons
     Closed the Father & the Sons                           
13   But when once I did descry 
     The Immortal Man that cannot Die
14   Thro evening shades I haste away 
     To close the Labours of my Day
15   The Door of Death I open found                             
     And the Worm Weaving in the Ground
16   Thou'rt my Mother from the Womb 
     Wife, Sister, Daughter to the Tomb 
     Weaving to Dreams the Sexual strife
     And weeping over the Web of Life"                         

Thel, Plate 3, (E 5)
"Then if thou art the food of worms. O virgin of the skies,       
How great thy use. how great thy blessing; every thing that lives,
Lives not alone, nor for itself: fear not and I will call
The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice.
Come forth worm of the silent valley, to thy pensive queen.

The helpless worm arose, and sat upon the Lillys leaf,           
And the bright Cloud saild on, to find his partner in the vale."

Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 133, (E 401)
"And Many Eternal Men sat at the golden feast to see 
The female form now separate They shudderd at the horrible thing
Not born for the sport and amusement of Man but born to drink up all his powers
They wept to see their shadows they said to one another this is Sin
This is the Generative world they rememberd the Days of old

And One of the Eternals spoke All was silent at the feast 

Man is a Worm wearied with joy he seeks the caves of sleep
Among the Flowers of Beulah in his Selfish cold repose
Forsaking Brotherhood & Universal love in selfish clay
Folding the pure wings of his mind seeking the places dark"

Job 7
[17] What is man, that thou dost make so much of him,
and that thou dost set thy mind upon him,

Psalms 8
[4] what is man that thou art mindful of him,
and the son of man that thou dost care for him?

John 19
[5] So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Behold the man!"