WEAVING 4

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 25

Blake was acutely aware of the negative forces which operate in the outer world and within the hearts and minds of human beings. He found that he could use the symbol of weaving garments to explore the powerful forces leading man away from wholeness as well as toward it. While Enitharmon and her daughters wove beneficent garments for the Spectres, Tirzah and Rahab took the opposite tact to draw them away from a perception of the infinite. The effect of their strategy was to make the material world perceived by the senses enticing to the Spectres in spite if its strictures of Moral Law and harsh punishment which it entailed.

Four Zoas, Night VIII, PAGE 113 (FIRST PORTION), (E 376)

"We behold with wonder Enitharmons Looms & Los's Forges        
And the Spindles of Tirzah & Rahab and the Mills of Satan & Beelzeboul                                               
In Golgonooza Los's anvils stand & his Furnaces rage           
Ten thousand demons labour at the forges Creating Continually
The times & spaces of Mortal Life the Sun the Moon the Stars 
In periods of Pulsative furor beating into wedges & bars      
Then drawing into wires the terrific Passions & Affections
Of Spectrous dead. Thence to the Looms of Cathedron conveyd
The Daughters of Enitharmon weave the ovarium & the integument
In soft silk drawn from their own bowels in lascivious delight 
With songs of sweetest cadence to the turning spindle & reel
Lulling the weeping spectres of the dead. Clothing their limbs
With gifts & gold of Eden. Astonishd stupefied with delight
The terrors put on their sweet clothing on the banks of Arnon 
Whence they plunge into the river of space for a period till 
The dread Sleep of Ulro is past. But Satan Og & Sihon         
Build Mills of resistless wheels to unwind the soft threads & reveal
Naked of their clothing the poor spectres before the accusing heavens
While Rahab & Tirzah far different mantles prepare webs of torture
Mantles of despair girdles of bitter compunction shoes of indolence
Veils of ignorance covering from head to feet with a cold web"

Milton, Plate 19 [21], (E 113)
"Therefore bright Tirzah triumphs: putting on all beauty.
And all perfection, in her cruel sports among the Victims,       
Come bring with thee Jerusalem with songs on the Grecian Lyre!
In Natural Religion! in experiments on Men,
Let her be Offerd up to Holiness! Tirzah numbers her;
She numbers with her fingers every fibre ere it grow;
Where is the Lamb of God? where is the promise of his coming?    
Her shadowy Sisters form the bones, even the bones of Horeb:
Around the marrow! and the orbed scull around the brain!
His Images are born for War! for Sacrifice to Tirzah!
To Natural Religion! to Tirzah the Daughter of Rahab the Holy!
She ties the knot of nervous fibres, into a white brain!        
She ties the knot of bloody veins, into a red hot heart!
Within her bosom Albion lies embalmd, never to awake
Hand is become a rock! Sinai & Horeb, is Hyle & Coban:  
Scofield is bound in iron armour before Reubens Gate!
She ties the knot of milky seed into two lovely Heavens,         

Milton, Plate 19 [21], (E 112)
"And in the South remains a burning fire; in the East a void.
In the West, a world of raging waters; in the North a solid,
Unfathomable! without end. But in the midst of these,
Is built eternally the Universe of Los and Enitharmon:       
Towards which Milton went, but Urizen oppos'd his path.

The Man and Demon strove many periods. Rahab beheld
Standing on Carmel; Rahab and Tirzah trembled to behold
The enormous strife. one giving life, the other giving death
To his adversary. and they sent forth all their sons & daughters 
In all their beauty to entice Milton across the river,"

Jerusalem, Plate 84, (E 243)
"But we woo him all the night ill songs, O Los come forth O Los 
Divide us from these terrors & give us power them to subdue
Arise upon thy Watches let us see thy Globe of fire
On Albions Rocks & let thy voice be heard upon Euphrates.

Thus sang the Daughters in lamentation, uniting into One
With Rahab as she turnd the iron Spindle of destruction.    
Terrified at the Sons of Albion they took the Falshood which
Gwendolen hid in her left hand. it grew &, grew till it

PLATE 85
Became a Space & an Allegory around the Winding Worm
They namd it Canaan & built for it a tender Moon"