LAMENT I

Four Zoas, Night I
Page 18

In the Four Zoas the first psychic division which takes place is between Tharmas and Enion. Blake uses these two characters to symbolize a mental division which is basic in the development of the operation of the human mind. I think of it in terms of the infant first being able to recognize that the mother whom he can touch, see, hear, and smell, and, most importantly, from whom he receives sustenance, is outside of himself. If Tharmas is the sensing being who becomes aware, Enion is the external world from whom the the sensations come.

Thinking about Tharmas and Enion in this way explains why Tharmas is constantly in pursuit of Enion who constantly flees. He seeks to return to that bliss of undifferentiated consciousness.She seeks to preserve the ability to step outside of self-reflection. It also indicates something of the underlying unity of the internal world with the external world: the unity to which Albion must return when he is restored to wholeness.

Sukie Colgrave in her book Uniting Heaven & Earth wrote of the process of separation from the totality and the desire to overcome the divisions which ensued:

"As humanity awoke millennia ago from its instinctive at-oneness with the cosmos, so each individual emerges, at some moment, from his or her own pre-conscious identity with the Mother. This initial loss coincides with the birth of human consciousness. It is followed by a struggle between the desire for freedom and knowledge and the longing for wholeness and peace. The tension between these two impulses propels the restless psyche ever onward in search of a kingdom in which freedom and unity belong together, in which understanding and peace are no longer in conflict." (Page 198)

The character Enion is best known for her laments of which there are four in the Four Zoas. In these she explores the implications of existence in matter as the field in which experience is gained. Her first lament in Night I finds her wandering desolate, acutely aware of the suffering and futility of the varied manifestations of life which have been generated in matter as a consequence of the origin of time and space which give matter definition.

Children early learn to use the question 'Why?' They find it a powerful tool with which to explore their world. With it they force their parents to explore their own assumptions and interpretations about how the world works. The question 'Why?' is a challenge to emphathize, to put oneself into the position occupied by another, to see and feel more than what is a part of our individual perception. If we stop asking that question we will never get to the root of the dual nature of humanity - an eternal spirit confined in a mortal body.

Four Zoas, Night I, PAGE 17, (E 310)

"Enion blind & age-bent wept upon the desolate wind  

Why does the Raven cry aloud and no eye pities her?
Why fall the Sparrow & the Robin in the foodless winter?
Faint! shivering they sit on leafless bush, or frozen stone 

Wearied with seeking food across the snowy waste; the little     
Heart, cold; and the little tongue consum'd, that once in thoughtless joy
Gave songs of gratitude to waving corn fields round their nest.

Why howl the Lion & the Wolf? why do they roam abroad?         
Deluded by summers heat they sport in enormous love
And cast their young out to the hungry wilds & sandy desarts     
PAGE 18
Why is the Sheep given to the knife? the Lamb plays in the Sun
He starts! he hears the foot of Man! he says, Take thou my wool
But spare my life, but he knows not that winter cometh fast.

The Spider sits in his labourd Web, eager watching for the Fly
Presently comes a famishd Bird & takes away the Spider           
His Web is left all desolate, that his little anxious heart
So careful wove; & spread it out with sighs and weariness.

This was the Lamentation of Enion round the golden Feast
Eternity groand and was troubled at the image of Eternal Death
Without the body of Man an Exudation from his sickning limbs"