FRIGHTFUL DEEP [16]

British Library
Four Zoas Manuscript
Page 16

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 16, (E 309)
"They melt the bones of Vala, & the bones of Luvah into wedges
The innumerable sons & daughters of Luvah closd in furnaces
Melt into furrows. winter blows his bellows: ice & Snow
Tend the dire anvils. Mountains mourn & Rivers faint & fail

There is no City nor Corn-field nor Orchard! all is Rock & Sand  
There is no Sun nor Moon nor Star. but rugged wintry rocks
Justling together in the void suspended by inward fires
Impatience now no longer can endure. Distracted Luvah

Bursting forth from the loins of Enitharmon, Thou fierce Terror
Go howl in vain, Smite Smite his fetters Smite O wintry hammers  
Smite Spectre of Urthona, mock the fiend who drew us down
From heavens of joy into this Deep. Now rage but rage in vain

Thus Sang the Demons of the Deep. the Clarions of War blew loud
The Feast redounds & Crownd with roses & the circling vine
The Enormous Bride & Bridegroom sat, beside them Urizen          
With faded radiance sighd, forgetful of the flowing wine
And of Ahania his Pure Bride but She was distant far

But Los & Enitharmon sat in discontent & scorn
Craving the more the more enjoying, drawing out sweet bliss
From all the turning wheels of heaven & the chariots of the Slain

At distance Far in Night repelld. in direful hunger craving
Summers & Winters round revolving in the frightful deep." 

The demons of the deep inhabit a scene of chaos. Los and Enitharmon, still their giant rather than earthly forms, observe the melting away, justling together, the smiting, and the rage; not with disgust, but with pleasure. Blake for a second time mentions the 'discontent & scorn' of Los and Enitharmon. Perhaps he is intimating that these are the two characteristics which create the chaotic conditions in the void.

Harold Bloom points out that Orc is the fierce Terror who bursts forth from the loins of Enitharmon. Another portent of the coming disintegration is the appearance of the Spectre of Urthona.

Milton Percival on Page 104 of William Blake's Circle of Destiny made a statement which can be applied to this page of the Four Zoas. This passage from Percival seems apropos for understanding the threat that the appearance of Urthona in sprectral form would pose. Percival links the transition period when there is a possibility either to rise or fall, with the characteristics of the Spectre whose doubt freezes him in the error which is leading to destruction. The suggestion is that Los and Enitharmon could still have stopped the fall by refusing to take pleasure in the suffering around them.

Percival: "When, however, the mind sinks into doubt, which is a disintegrating force, it falls (unless it is saved in Beulah) into the chaos and darkness and death of Ulro. In this state the Spectre has no body. By this Blake means not what we think of as a disembodied spirit but a creature of doubt and negation, impotent to emanate any emotional fabric wherein its troubled spirit may find rest. In the history of the race periods of this kind come between two ages, one dead the other powerless to be born. Lacking any positive faith or satisfying body of belief, the Spectre is little more than a thirst for 'existence,' an insatiable mental hunger. If man were dependent on his rational mind alone, he would have been lost forever when he first descended into Ulro; but he has an element of the imagination (Los) which cannot be utterly extinguished, and this comes to the rescue. Laboriously and imperfectly Los creates a succession of creeds and codes and beliefs wherein the disembodied Spectre can find temporary respite from his dark void of doubt and despair."

Blake may have intended for his image at the bottom of the page to show Enion holding her two infants as they observed the disintegration occurring in the void. At the center are two disconnected feet in the process of walking. 

---

Five times Blake mentions the feast which proved to be a pivotal moment in the Fall:  
(E 307)
"The Earth spread forth her table wide. the Night a silver cup
Fill'd with the wine of anguish waited at the golden feast
But the bright Sun was not as yet"

(E 308)
"And wintry woes succeed; successive driven into the Void
Where Enion craves: successive drawn into the golden feast

And Los & Enitharmon sat in discontent & scorn"   

(E 308)
"And Spirits of Flaming fire on high, govern'd the mighty Song.   

And This the Song! sung at The Feast of Los & Enitharmon"

(E 310)
"This was the Lamentation of Enion round the golden Feast
Eternity groand and was troubled at the image of Eternal Death"

(E 313)
"Urizen rose from the bright Feast like a star thro' the evening sky
Exulting at the voice that calld him from the Feast of envy" 

 .

Dante 18

The Self Murderers

Here's part of Dante's Inferno associated with Plate 25 of Blake's Illustrations of Dante's Inferno.

"Inferno: Canto XIII

Not yet had Nessus reached the other side,
  When we had put ourselves within a wood,
  That was not marked by any path whatever.

Not foliage green, but of a dusky colour,
  Not branches smooth, but gnarled and intertangled,
  Not apple-trees were there, but thorns with poison.

Such tangled thickets have not, nor so dense,
  Those savage wild beasts, that in hatred hold
  'Twixt Cecina and Corneto the tilled places.

There do the hideous Harpies make their nests,
  Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades,
  With sad announcement of impending doom;

Broad wings have they, and necks and faces human,
  And feet with claws, and their great bellies fledged;
  They make laments upon the wondrous trees.

And the good Master: "Ere thou enter farther,
  Know that thou art within the second round,"
  Thus he began to say, "and shalt be, till

Thou comest out upon the horrible sand;
  Therefore look well around, and thou shalt see
  Things that will credence give unto my speech."

I heard on all sides lamentations uttered,
  And person none beheld I who might make them,
  Whence, utterly bewildered, I stood still.

I think he thought that I perhaps might think
  So many voices issued through those trunks
  From people who concealed themselves from us;

Therefore the Master said: "If thou break off
  Some little spray from any of these trees,
  The thoughts thou hast will wholly be made vain."

Then stretched I forth my hand a little forward,
  And plucked a branchlet off from a great thorn;
  And the trunk cried, "Why dost thou mangle me?"

After it had become embrowned with blood,
  It recommenced its cry: "Why dost thou rend me?
  Hast thou no spirit of pity whatsoever?

Men once we were, and now are changed to trees;
  Indeed, thy hand should be more pitiful,
  Even if the souls of serpents we had been."

As out of a green brand, that is on fire
  At one of the ends, and from the other drips
  And hisses with the wind that is escaping;

So from that splinter issued forth together
  Both words and blood; whereat I let the tip
  Fall, and stood like a man who is afraid.

"Had he been able sooner to believe,"
  My Sage made answer, "O thou wounded soul,
  What only in my verses he has seen,

Not upon thee had he stretched forth his hand;
  Whereas the thing incredible has caused me
  To put him to an act which grieveth me.

But tell him who thou wast, so that by way
  Of some amends thy fame he may refresh
  Up in the world, to which he can return."

And the trunk said: "So thy sweet words allure me,
  I cannot silent be; and you be vexed not,
  That I a little to discourse am tempted.

I am the one who both keys had in keeping
  Of Frederick's heart, and turned them to and fro
  So softly in unlocking and in locking,
My spirit, in disdainful exultation,
  Thinking by dying to escape disdain,
  Made me unjust against myself, the just.

I, by the roots unwonted of this wood,
  Do swear to you that never broke I faith
  Unto my lord, who was so worthy of honour;

And to the world if one of you return,
  Let him my memory comfort, which is lying
  Still prostrate from the blow that envy dealt it."

Waited awhile, and then: "Since he is silent,
To tell us in what way the soul is bound
  Within these knots; and tell us, if thou canst,
  If any from such members e'er is freed."

Then blew the trunk amain, and afterward
  The wind was into such a voice converted:
  "With brevity shall be replied to you.

When the exasperated soul abandons
  The body whence it rent itself away,
  Minos consigns it to the seventh abyss.

It falls into the forest, and no part
  Is chosen for it; but where Fortune hurls it,
  There like a grain of spelt it germinates.

It springs a sapling, and a forest tree;
  The Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves,
  Do pain create, and for the pain an outlet.

Like others for our spoils shall we return;
  But not that any one may them revest,
  For 'tis not just to have what one casts off.

Here we shall drag them, and along the dismal
  Forest our bodies shall suspended be,
  Each to the thorn of his molested shade."

We were attentive still unto the trunk,
  Thinking that more it yet might wish to tell us,
  When by a tumult we were overtaken,

In the same way as he is who perceives
  The boar and chase approaching to his stand,
  Who hears the crashing of the beasts and branches;

And two behold! upon our left-hand side,
  Naked and scratched, fleeing so furiously,
  That of the forest, every fan they broke.

Behind them was the forest full of black
  She-mastiffs, ravenous, and swift of foot
  As greyhounds, who are issuing from the chain.

On him who had crouched down they set their teeth,
  And him they lacerated piece by piece,
  Thereafter bore away those aching members.

Thereat my Escort took me by the hand,
  And led me to the bush, that all in vain
  Was weeping from its bloody lacerations.

"O Jacopo," it said, "of Sant' Andrea,
  What helped it thee of me to make a screen?
  What blame have I in thy nefarious life?"

When near him had the Master stayed his steps,
  He said: "Who wast thou, that through wounds so many
  Art blowing out with blood thy dolorous speech?"

And he to us: "O souls, that hither come
  To look upon the shameful massacre
  That has so rent away from me my leaves,

Gather them up beneath the dismal bush;
  I of that city was which to the Baptist
  Changed its first patron, wherefore he for this

Forever with his art will make it sad.
  And were it not that on the pass of Arno
  Some glimpses of him are remaining still,

Those citizens, who afterwards rebuilt it
  Upon the ashes left by Attila,
  In vain had caused their labour to be done.

Of my own house I made myself a gibbet."

For description of the picture go here.
Wikipedia..

The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides, c. 1824–27.William Blake, 

Paper artwork by the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake (1757–1827). The work was completed between 1824 and 1827 and illustrates a passage from the Inferno canticle of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1265–1321). The work is part of a series which was to be the last set of watercolours he worked on before his death in August 1827. 

Blake was commissioned in 1824 by his friend, the painter John Linnell (1792–1882), to create a series of illustrations based on Dante's poem. Blake was then in his late sixties, yet by legend drafted 100 watercolours on the subject "during a fortnight's illness in bed".^[2] Few of them were actually coloured, and only seven gilded.^[3] He sets this work in a scene from one of the circles of hell depicted in the Inferno (Circle VII, Ring II, Canto XIII), in which Dante and the Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BCE) travel through a forest haunted by harpies—mythological winged and malign fat-bellied death-spirits who bear features of human heads and female breasts.

Classical bust of Dante's travelling companion Virgil from the entrance to his tomb inNaples, Italy

The harpies in Dante's version feed from the leaves of oak trees which entomb suicides. At the time Canto XIII (or The Wood of Suicides) was written, suicide was considered by the church as at least equivalent to murder, and a contravention of the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill". Many theologians believed it to be a deeper sin than murder, as it constituted a rejection of God's gift of life.^[4] Dante describes a tortured wood infested with harpies, where the act of suicide is punished by encasing the offender in a tree, thus denying eternal life and damning the soul to an eternity as a member of the restless living dead, and prey to the harpies.^[5]Blake's painting shows Dante and Virgil walking through a haunted forest at a moment when Dante tears a leaf from a bleeding tree. He drops it in shock on hearing the disembodied words, "Wherefore tear'st me thus? Is there no touch of mercy in thy breast?".^[1]

In Dante's poem, the tree contains the body of Pietro della Vigna (1190–1249), an Italian jurist and diplomat, and chancellor and secretary to theEmperor Frederick II (1194–1250). Pietro was a learned man who rose to become a close advisor to the emperor. However, his success was envied by other members of Frederick II's court, and charges that he was wealthier than the emperor and was an agent of the pope were brought against him. Frederick threw Pietro in prison, and had his eyes ripped out. In response, Pietro killed himself by beating his head against the dungeon wall. He is one of four named suicides mentioned in Canto XIII,^[6] and represents the notion of a "heroic" suicide.^[7]

Describing the scene, Dante wrote:

Here the repellent harpies make their nests,

Who drove the Trojans from the Strophades

With dire announcements of the coming woe.

They have broad wings, a human neck and face,

Clawed feet and swollen, feathered bellies; they caw

Their lamentations in the eerie trees.^[5]

Harpies in the Forest of Suicides, an 1861engraving by Gustave Doré, illustrates the same canto of the Inferno.

Although Pietro does not reveal his identity to the travellers in Dante's episode, he does moralise on the act of suicide, asking (as paraphrased by the historian Wallace Fowlie) if it is better to submit to chastisement and misfortune or take one's own life.^[6] In Canto XIII, Pietro says, "I am he that held both keys of Frederick's heart / To lock and to unlock / and well I knew / To turn them with so exquisite an art.^[8]

Dante Alighieri and Virgil enter the wood, William Blake. From Inferno Canto II 139–141'.

Blake shows a number of contorted human figures embedded in the oak trees in the foreground. To the right, a male figure is seated and wears a crown. A female form is hung upside-down and transformed into a tree on Dante and Virgil's left. This figure may have been inspired by Dante's reference to La Meretrice, or Envy, to whom Pietro attributed his fall.^[1] Examining Blake's use of camouflage in the work, the art historian Kathleen Lundeen observes, "The trees appear to be superimposed over the figures as if the two images in the previous illustration has been pulled together into a single focus. Through the art of camouflage, Blake gives us an image in flux, one which is in a perpetual state of transmutation. Now we see trees, now we see people."^[9]

Three large harpies perch on branches spanning the pair of travellers, and these creatures are depicted by Blake as monstrous bird–human hybrids, in the words of the art historian Kevin Hutchings, "functioning as iconographic indictments of the act of suicide and its violent negation of the divine human form".^[10]

The harpies' faces are human-like except for their pointed beaks, while their bodies are owl-shaped and equipped with claws, sharp wings and female breasts. Blake renders them in a manner faithful to Dante's description in 13:14–16: "Broad are their pennons, of the human form / Their neck and countenance, armed with talons keen / These sit and wail on the dreary mystic wood."^[11]

In March 1918, The Wood of the Self-Murderers was sold by Linnell's estate, through Christie's, for £7,665 to the British National Art Collections Fund. The Art Collections Fund presented the painting to the Tate in 1919.^[12]

LOS WAS BORN [15]

British Library
Four Zoas Manuscript
Page 15

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 15, (E 309)

"The Horse is of more value than the Man. The Tyger fierce
Laughs at the Human form. the Lion mocks & thirsts for blood
They cry O Spider spread thy web! Enlarge thy bones & fill'd
With marrow. sinews & flesh Exalt thyself attain a voice

Call to thy dark armd hosts, for all the sons of Men muster together       
To desolate their cities! Man shall be no more! Awake O Hosts
The bow string sang upon the hills! Luvah & Vala ride
Triumphant in the bloody sky. & the Human form is no more  

The listning Stars heard, & the first beam of the morning started back
He cried out to his Father, depart! depart! but sudden Siez'd 
And clad in steel. & his Horse proudly neighd; he smelt the battle
Afar off, Rushing back, reddning with rage the Mighty Father

Siezd his bright Sheephook studded with gems & gold, he Swung it round
His head shrill sounding in the sky, down rushd the Sun with noise
Of war, The Mountains fled away they sought a place beneath      
Vala remaind in desarts of dark solitude. nor Sun nor Moon

By night nor day to comfort her, she labourd in thick smoke
Tharmas endurd not, he fled howling. then a barren waste sunk�
Conglobing in the dark confusion, Mean time Los was born
And Thou O Enitharmon! Hark I hear the hammers of Los" 

In this passage simultaneous activities are occurring at various levels of mental processing. At the elemental level where things are valued for their utility, there are preparations for war. At the Eternal level or order, rearrangements are occurring which will create a reordering of experience. At the level of humanity, Los and Enitharmon are born as a male and a female.

The process Blake is describing is not unlike the process we read about in the first chapter of the Bible. In the creation story in the Book of Genesis, God's first acted to create Heaven and Earth. Next he created light. These were preliminary thoughts (or imaginings) which took place before he executed the orders which brought forth the elements (the waters, the firmament, the dry land, and the sun, moon and stars) from which he made all livings things. Creation is the setting into motion of the intentions which would unwind to reveal God's will.

The image at the bottom of the page is of a figure who is both linking heaven and earth and parting them from each other. Blake's understanding of the relationship of God and Man is that 'throughout Eternity' there is a link by which they are not two, but one, working together as the Human Form Divine. By changing the perspective as he writes, Blake gives us an experience of the process of the changing of perspective which he wants us to experience in our Humanity and in our Divinity. 

Genesis 1
[1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
[2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
[3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
[4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
[5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
[6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
[7] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
[8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
[9] And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
[10] And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
[11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
[12] And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[13] And the evening and the morning were the third day.
[14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
[15] And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
[16] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
[17] And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
[18] And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
[19] And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
[20] And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
[21] And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
[23] And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
[24] And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
[25] And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
[28] And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
[29] And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
[30] And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
[31] And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Order of Days of Creation:
First - light
Second - firmament, divided waters
Third - dry land, growing things
Fourth - sun, moon and stars
Fifth - animals
Sixth - man

Dante 16

The Minotaur

In Dante  XII:

I have erewhile seen horsemen moving camp,
  Begin the storming, and their muster make,
  And sometimes starting off for their escape;

Vaunt-couriers have I seen upon your land,
  O Aretines, and foragers go forth,
  Tournaments stricken, and the joustings run,

Sometimes with trumpets and sometimes with bells,
  With kettle-drums, and signals of the castles,
  And with our own, and with outlandish things,

But never yet with bagpipe so uncouth
  Did I see horsemen move, nor infantry,
  Nor ship by any sign of land or star.

We went upon our way with the ten demons;
  Ah, savage company! but in the church
  With saints, and in the tavern with the gluttons!

Ever upon the pitch was my intent,
  To see the whole condition of that Bolgia,
  And of the people who therein were burned.

Even as the dolphins, when they make a sign
  To mariners by arching of the back,
  That they should counsel take to save their vessel,

Thus sometimes, to alleviate his pain,
  One of the sinners would display his back,
  And in less time conceal it than it lightens.

As on the brink of water in a ditch
  The frogs stand only with their muzzles out,
  So that they hide their feet and other bulk,

So upon every side the sinners stood;
  But ever as Barbariccia near them came,
  Thus underneath the boiling they withdrew.

I saw, and still my heart doth shudder at it,
  One waiting thus, even as it comes to pass
  One frog remains, and down another dives;

And Graffiacan, who most confronted him,
  Grappled him by his tresses smeared with pitch,
  And drew him up, so that he seemed an otter.

I knew, before, the names of all of them,
  So had I noted them when they were chosen,
  And when they called each other, listened how.

"O Rubicante, see that thou do lay
  Thy claws upon him, so that thou mayst flay him,"
  Cried all together the accursed ones.

And I: "My Master, see to it, if thou canst,
  That thou mayst know who is the luckless wight,
  Thus come into his adversaries' hands."

Near to the side of him my Leader drew,
  Asked of him whence he was; and he replied:
  "I in the kingdom of Navarre was born;

My mother placed me servant to a lord,
  For she had borne me to a ribald knave,
  Destroyer of himself and of his things.

Then I domestic was of good King Thibault;
  I set me there to practise barratry,
  For which I pay the reckoning in this heat."

And Ciriatto, from whose mouth projected,
  On either side, a tusk, as in a boar,
  Caused him to feel how one of them could rip.

The Malebranche ("Evil Claws"[1]) are the demons in the Inferno ofDante's Divine Comedy who guard Bolgia Five of the Eighth Circle (Malebolge). They figure in Cantos XXI, XXII, and XXIII. Vulgar and quarrelsome, their duty is to force the corrupt politicians (barrators) to stay under the surface of a boiling lake of pitch.

When Dante and Virgil meet them, the leader of the Malebranche, Malacoda ("Evil Tail"[1]), assigns a troop to escort the poets safely to the next bridge. Many of the bridges were destroyed in the earthquake that happened at the death of Christ, which Malacoda describes, enabling the time this takes place to be calculated. The troop hook and torment one of the barrators (identified by early commentators as Ciampolo), who names some Italian grafters and then tricks the Malebranche in order to escape back into the pitch. The demons are dishonest and malicious: the promise of safe conduct the poets have received turns out to have limited value (and there is no "next bridge"), so that Dante and Virgil are forced to escape from them.

Within the Inferno, the demons provide some moments of satirical black comedy. There are twelve Malebranche named in the poem:

Blake/s Illistration of Dante's Inferno Plate 23

For descritive material go here.

NUPTIAL SONG [14]

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Enter the URL in your browser to view the picture.

Four Zoas, Night I, PAGE 13, (E 308)
"And Los & Enitharmon sat in discontent & scorn  
The Nuptial Song arose from all the thousand thousand spirits
Over the joyful Earth & Sea, and ascended into the Heavens
For Elemental Gods their thunderous Organs blew; creating
Delicious Viands. Demons of Waves their watry Eccho's woke!
Bright Souls of vegetative life, budding and blossoming" 

 Four Zoas, Night I, PAGE 14, (E 308)
"Stretch their immortal hands to smite the gold & silver Wires
And with immortal Voice soft warbling fill all Earth & Heaven.
With doubling Voices & loud Horns wound round sounding
Cavernous dwellers fill'd the enormous Revelry, Responsing!
And Spirits of Flaming fire on high, govern'd the mighty Song.   

And This the Song! sung at The Feast of Los & Enitharmon

Ephraim calld out to Zion: Awake O Brother Mountain
Let us refuse the Plow & Spade, the heavy Roller & spiked
Harrow. burn all these Corn fields. throw down all these fences
Fattend on Human blood & drunk with wine of life is better far   

Than all these labours of the harvest & the vintage. See the river
Red with the blood of Men. swells lustful round my rocky knees
My clouds are not the clouds of verdant fields & groves of fruit
But Clouds of Human Souls. my nostrils drink the lives of Men

The Villages Lament. they faint outstretchd upon the plain       
Wailing runs round the Valleys from the Mill & from the Barn 
But most the polishd Palaces dark silent bow with dread
Hiding their books & pictures. underneath the dens of Earth

The Cities send to one another saying My sons are Mad
With wine of cruelty. Let us plat a Scourge O Sister City
Children are nourishd for the Slaughter; once the Child was fed
With Milk; but wherefore now are Children fed with blood"
 

Los and Enitharmon sit together at their wedding feast serenaded by the Elemental Gods. What they hear is the consequences of the fall which has been set in motion by the striking of the blow by Los and the calling forth of Urizen by Enitharmon. The rulers of the elemental world know nothing of Eternity. They rejoice that time and space will bring to them souls whom they can enlist in conflict, one against the other.

Blake wrote of this point of transition when the mind becomes captive to perceiving not unity but division to great dramatic effect on Plate 5 of Europe.

Europe, Plate 3, (E 61)
     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.

Then Enitharmon saw her sons & daughters rise around.            
Like pearly clouds they meet together in the crystal house:
And Los, possessor of the moon, joy'd in the peaceful night:
Thus speaking while his num'rous sons shook their bright fiery wings

Again the night is come 
That strong Urthona takes his rest,                              
And Urizen unloos'd from chains                                  
Glows like a meteor in the distant north
Stretch forth your hands and strike the elemental strings!
Awake the thunders of the deep."

Milton Percival, in William Blake's Circle of Destiny, demonstrates the irony of the this event as a Nuptial Feast. It is an acknowledgment that Los and Enitharmon are not joined but completely alienated. The harvest and the vintage are not to be enjoyed at this feast. This feast celebrates the pouring out of human life and the spilling of human blood.   

"The creation of the star world is preceded in the Four Zoas (the one complete account of the achievement) by the feast of mortality. This feast is also the nuptial feast of the youthful Los and Enitharmon. The appearance of Urthona, the essential man, in the male and female forms of Los and Enitharmon indicates that the rational mind now sees the universe as dual. Urizen apparently expects his star world to reconcile this duality, to minimize the consequence of a separation into Spectre and  Emanation, in a word to accomplish the 'marriage' of Los and Enitharmon. He draws his inferences, in true rational fashion, from the outward, rather than the inward principle. His true alliance is with Enitharmon, not with Los. Consequently the creation in which he hopes to reconcile the strife of the contraries is predominately feminine - a natural world. Law is its principle, and the stars are its symbol." (Page 150)
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Dante 17

Fifth Circle (Anger)[edit]

The fifth circle, illustrated byStradanus

Lower Hell, inside the walls of Dis, in an illustration by Stradanus. There is a drop from the sixth circle to the three rings of the seventh circle, then again to the ten rings of the eighth circle, and, at the bottom, to the icy ninth circle.

In the swampy waters of the river Styx, the wrathful fight each other on the surface, and the sullen lie gurgling beneath the water, withdrawn "into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe."^[20] Phlegyas reluctantly transports Dante and Virgil across the Styx in his skiff. On the way they are accosted by Filippo Argenti, a Black Guelph from a prominent family. When Dante was forced to leave Florence, Argenti took all his property. When Dante responds "In weeping and in grieving, accursed spirit, may you long remain,"^[21] Virgil blesses him. Literally, this reflects the fact that souls in Hell are eternally fixed in the state they have chosen, but allegorically, it reflects Dante's beginning awareness of his own sin^[22] (Cantos VII and VIII). Just as Argenti seized Dante's property, he himself is "seized" by all the other wrathful souls.

The lower parts of Hell are contained within the walls of the city of Dis, which is itself surrounded by the Stygian marsh. Punished within Dis are active (rather than passive) sins. The walls of Dis are guarded by fallen angels. Virgil is unable to convince them to let Dante and him enter, and Dante is threatened by the Furies(consisting of Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone) and Medusa. An angel sent from Heaven secures entry for the poets, opening the gate by touching it with a wand, and rebukes those who opposed Dante. Allegorically, this reveals the fact that the poem is beginning to deal with sins that philosophy and humanism cannot fully understand. Virgil also mentions to Dante how Erichtho sent him down to the lowest circle of Hell to bring back a spirit from there (Cantos VIII and IX).^[22]

From wiki common
Blake Dante Hell IX.jpg

The City of Dis:

Dis (Divine Comedy)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lower Hell, inside the walls of Dis, in an illustration by Stradanus. There is a drop from the sixth circle to the three rings of the seventh circle, then again to the ten rings of the eighth circle, and, at the bottom, to the icy ninth circle.

In Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, the City of Dis (in Italian, la città ch'ha nome Dite, "the city whose name is Dis")^[1]encompasses the sixth through the ninth circles of Hell.^[2]

In ancient Roman mythology, Dis Pater ("Father Dis") is the ruler of the underworld and is named as such in the sixth book of Virgil's "Aeneid", one of the principal influences on Dante in his depiction of Hell (the god was also known as Pluto, a name not used by Virgil in the Aeneid). The hero Aeneas enters the "desolate halls and vacant realm of Dis"^[3] with his guide, the Sibyl, who correspond in The Divine Comedy to "Dante" as the speaker of the poem and his guide, Virgil.

Description[edit]

The walls of Dis are guarded by fallen angels and the Furies. Dante emphasizes the character of the place as a city by describing its architectural features: towers, gates, walls, ramparts, bridges, and moats. It is thus an antithesis to the heavenly city, as for instance described by St. Augustine in his City of God.^[4] Among these structures are mosques, "the worship places of the most dangerous enemies of medieval Christendom."^[5] In Dante's schematics of Hell, some Muslimsand Jews are placed among the heretics. The presence of mosques probably also recalls the reality of Jerusalem in Dante's own time, where gilded domes dominated the skyline.^[6]

Punished within Dis are those whose lives were marked by active (rather than passive) sins: heretics, murderers, suicides, blasphemers, usurpers, sodomites, panderers, seducers, flatterers, Simoniacs, sorcerers, barrators, hypocrites, thieves, false counsellors, schismatics, falsifiers and traitors. Sinners unable to control their passions offend God less than these, whose lives were driven by malizia ("malice, wicked intent"):

Of every malice (malizia) gaining the hatred of Heaven, injustice is the goal; and every such goal injures someone either with force or fraud.^[7]

There is perhaps a distinction between malizia as the characteristic of circles seven and eight, and the matta bestialitade, "inhuman wickedness," of circle nine, which punishes those who threaten "the most basic civic, familial, and religious foundations of happiness."^[8]