WILLIAM BLAKE'S MILTON: MEANING AND MADNESS by Edward Robert Friedlander, M.D. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Honors degree program in the department of English Literature of Brown University 1973 Revised 1986 TO NORM BERTELS, M.D. "The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship." PREFACE TO THE 1986 REVISION William Blake's poetry and artwork still delight me after thirteen years. As I had hoped, my "double vision" as a physician interested in the humanities has been a source of much satisfaction. I am grateful to Dr. Colin Baxter for giving me the opportunity to share my interest in William Blake's poetry and visions with a new audience. I am very happy that many people are still interested in the subject. Now that I have completed my medical education, I am more confident than ever that my assessment of Blake's thinking was correct. The American Psychiatric Association's DSM-III was published since my college days, and Blake easily fulfills criteria in the appropriate section. Since I finished my college thesis, a handsome and inexpensive facsimile edition of Milton has published by Shambhala-Random House (1978). PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL PAPER My undergraduate concentration is English Literature, but my chief interests are science and medicine. This study came to be written because of my double perspective. I once planned to write a critique of the Jungian approach to Blake, but I discovered that there are more essential problems which remain unsettled. Focusing on Milton has given me an opportunity to explore several of these questions. All references in this study are to the Erdman text. It will be helpful if the reader is acquainted with Blake's main ideas and is familiar with the important poems. In discussing Milton, I am concerned only with the original epic, and will not consider plates 2-6, 10, 18, or 32, or the "Preface", to belong to this poem. These are late additions. If they are deleted, continuity is improved, the development of Los's character is smoother, there is less of the late style and characters typical of Jerusalem, the essential plot remains intact, and the whole work is much better unified. I am pleased to take this opportunity to thank my advisors in the English Department for their able assistance, Dr. Gabriel Najera for his thoughts on Blake and schizophrenia, and the staff of the Butler Hospital Library, whose courtesy helped make possible the medically-oriented portion of this study. I would also like to thank Brown for making available to me materials from the estate of the late Professor Damon. I am grateful to the English Department, and especially to my family, for their many indulgences. TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE TO THE 1986 REVISION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL PAPER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 WHAT HAPPENS IN MILTON? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. Blake's "Visions" of Milton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. Urizen: Milton as Satan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3. Tharmas: Milton as Covering Cherub . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 4. Luvah: Milton as Orc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5. Urthona: Milton as Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 6. Milton's Emanations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 7. The Traveler to Golgonooza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 THE SPIRIT OF ABSTRACTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 1. Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 2. Dream Elements in Blake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 3. Inspiration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 4. Blake's Visions and Voices: Introduction . . . . . . . . . 62 5. Blake's Visions and Voices: The Facts . . . . . . . . . . . 64 6. Blake's Visions and Voices: The Explanation . . . . . . . . 93 7. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 NOTES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 DIAGRAM OF THE ACTION OF MILTON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 WILLIAM BLAKE'S MILTON: MEANING AND MADNESS The end of the world is experienced as a transition to something new, vaster, and is felt as a terrible annihilation. At first everything seems queer, uncanny, and significant. Catastrophe is impending; the deluge is here. A unique catastrophe approaches. Something comes over the world; the last Judgment, the breaking of the seven seals of the Book of Revelation. God comes into the world. Time wheels back. The last riddle of all is being solved. -- from Dr. Karl Jaspers's General Psychopathology INTRODUCTION One day William Blake saw a little girl named Ololon coming down from heaven into his garden. A moment later, he fainted at the climax of a complicated vision. He had seen John Milton renounce Satan, and he had glimpsed the return of Jesus Christ. Blake described this experience, together with many interesting things that had led up to it, in the shortest of his three major poems, Milton. Milton does not contain so many obscure geographic and Biblical allusions as Jerusalem. But readers find it even more difficult for other reasons. Milton assumes a knowledge of the other writings in which Blake explains the cosmic myth on which it is based. Much of the poem is biographical allegory. Characters of uncertain significance, such as Ololon, play prominent roles. Figures with different names are called the same character or coalesce. Conversely, one figure can play several different roles simultaneously. Shifts in perspective are bewilderingly rapid, and Blake has complicated it all by adding supplementary pages within the text. The first part of this study, then, explains what actually happens in Blake's Milton. Blake's role in his own poem will be the starting-point for discussion. We will see that the epic is based on familiar characters and conflicts from Blake's other writings. Some new figures are in fact types of those in The Four Zoas and Jerusalem. The symbols which illustrate Blake's message will be explained, and the themes developed in the poem will be summarized. The rest of the study is less conventional. Unlike the two longer epics, Milton is not an attempt to write a full cosmic history or a metaphysical treatise. But it claims to be the record of a sequence of Blake's visions and an explanation of what they meant. Also, Blake insisted that the poem itself was not his own work at all, but had been "dictated" to him by beings from another world. In what ways does Milton bear the stamp of visionary origin? Did Blake actually see and hear things that other people could not? If so, what were these visions? The purpose of this section is not to "psychoanalyze" a dead poet, or to discuss his writings in terms of a system of psychology. Attempts to do both have been made, with varying success, especially by the Jungians. These need not concern us. Instead, I will cite ways in which certain things about Milton appear to be related to various kinds of visions. The most familiar and best characterized of these is the common dream. After this, I will review all our records of Blake's visionary experiences. While Hunt and Hayley were blind to the merits of Blake's prophetic books, they were correct in saying Blake had a very different kind of mind. A medical diagnosis does not at all detract from William Blake's stature as artist and thinker -- it increases it. CHAPTER I WHAT HAPPENS IN MILTON? I bless thee, O Father of Heaven & Earth, that ever I saw Flaxman's face. Angels stand round my Spirit in Heaven, the blessed of Heaven are my friends upon Earth. When Flaxman was taken to Italy, Fuseli was given to me for a season, And now Flaxman has given me Hayley his friend to be mine, such is my lot upon Earth. Now my lot in the Heavens is this, Milton lov'd me in childhood & shew'd me his face. Ezra came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years gave me his hand; Paracelsus and Behmen appear'd to me, terrors appear'd in the Heavens above And in Hell beneath, & a mighty & awful change threatened the Earth. The American War began. All its dark horrors passed before my face Across the Atlantic to France. Then the French Revolution commenc'd in thick clouds, And My Angels have told me that seeing such visions I could not subsist on the Earth, But by my conjunction with Flaxman, who knows to forgive Nervous Fear. -- Blake to John Flaxman, Sept. 12, 1800 1. Blake's "Visions" of Milton Milton contains more details about William Blake's own "spiritual acts" than any of his other writings except the letters. According to the poet, the epic is built around two great visions. We can discuss these now without asking how literally Blake meant us to take his descriptions. The poem also describes other events in Blake's earthly life from the period 1800-1803. Blake and his wife had accepted the invitation of his new patron, the philanthropist William Hayley, to move from the London slums to Hayley's ocean-side estate at Felpham. Blake was to earn his living painting and engraving commissions for Hayley's wealthy friends. Blake liked his new situation but resented Hayley's hostility toward his esoteric "visionary" works. Hayley in turn believed Blake suffered from "nervous infirmity", a country gentleman's euphemism for mental illness. Blake reportedly cursed the King in front of witnesses while he scuffled in his garden with one Scofield, a drunken soldier. The government tried him for treason. If he had been convicted, he would have been executed, but Hayley managed to get him acquitted. After three years at Felpham, the Blakes chose to return to London and to poverty. Blake published Milton soon afterwards, engraving every letter and design onto copper sheets and hand-coloring each printed page. Hayley, who had saved his life, appears in the poem as the villain, Satan. The first vision in Milton begins with the mysterious union of William Blake with the spirit of the poet John Milton: Then first I saw him in the Zenith as a falling star, Descending perpendicular, swift as the swallow or swift; And on my left foot falling on the tarsus, entering there; But from my left foot a black cloud redounding spread over Europe. -- Milton 15:47-50 We learn that this happened while Blake was still living at Lambeth in London (M 22:11). Although we know nothing of the encounter apart from the epic, Blake depicted the scene three times among the illustrations to the text. The first is a small sketch on plate 15. A falling star is entering the left foot of a man whose body is thrown backward. From the foot extends a web of fibers, perhaps depicting a net (the Net of Religion?) or vines on a wall, and beyond this a small female, possibly Jerusalem, is wailing. A second full-page design depicts the star and visionary in much greater detail. The left foot and hand of the half-naked figure are extended toward the black flaming star, while the torso, right foot, and right hand extend in the opposite direction. The head is also thrown upward and backward. Behind the seer three steps rise, and in the background there are dark clouds which contrast with the vivid pinks and yellows of the rest of the design. This is an idealized self-portrait, and "William" is inscribed across the top of the design. A third picture, almost a mirror image of the second, is labelled "Robert", and depicts the spirit of Blake's beloved brother. Here the lighting is softer, there are four steps (the visionary number) instead of three (nature), the colors are darker and cooler, and, of course, the star is entering the man's right foot. As in Illustrations to Job, the right is the side of eternity, while the left is that of this world. In each design, the man is both stepping toward the vision and withdrawing from it, in both ecstasy and terror. As we will discover when we read the poem, this is the right mixture of emotions. The appearance of the star marks the beginning of the apocalypse, in which the world as we know it will be annihilated. John Milton, in the form of the meteor, had smashed a gaping hole in the middle of the sky. While Blake (and all other creatures with "imagination") saw this, the meaning of the vision remained a mystery. The vision continued: But Milton entering my Foot; I saw in the nether Regions of the Imagination; also all men on Earth, And all in Heaven, saw in the nether regions of the Imagination In Ulro beneath Beulah, the vast breach of Miltons descent. But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know What passes in his members till periods of Space and Time Reveal the secrets of Eternity; for more extensive Than any other earthly things, are Mans earthly lineaments. And all this Vegetable World appeard on my left Foot, As a bright sandal formd immortal of precious stones & gold: I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro' Eternity. -- Milton 21:4-14 Suddenly, the poet's entire frame of perception was altered, and the world in which Blake had been standing turned into a sandal of gems and gold, Blake's emblems for ordinary matter. Without even mentioning surprise, much less fear, Blake prepared to journey through the visionary regions which he had just entered. Once again, there is something ambiguous about the familiar world as a sandal. A close parallel to this part of the first vision appears in Blake's disturbing letter to his patron Thomas Butts dated Sept. 11, 1801: I labour incessantly & accomplish not one half of what I intend. because my Abstract folly hurries me often away while I am at work, carrying me over Mountains & Valleys which are not Real in a Land of Abstraction where Spectres of the Dead wander. This I endeavour to prevent & with my whole might Chain my feet to the world of Duty & Reality, but in vain! the faster I bind the better is the Ballast for I so far from being bound down take the world with me in my flights & often it seems lighter than a ball of wool rolled by the wind Bacon & Newton would prescribe ways of making the world heavier to me & Pitt would prescribe distress for a medicinal potion. but as none on Earth can give me Mental Distress, & I know that all Distress inflicted by Heaven is a Mercy, a Fig for all Corporeal Such Distress is My mock & scorn. Alas wretched happy ineffectual labourer of times moments that I am! who shall deliver me from the Spirit of Abstraction & Improvidence. Such my dear Sir Is the truth of my state.... This passage has been ignored by people who see a Platonic allegory in Blake's vision of the sandal, but the two texts are obviously related. To the poet under the influence of this "Spirit of Abstraction", the "Vegetable World" of duty and solid forms no longer encloses him. Instead, it becomes inconsequential, something of which the poet is not really a part, to which he is bound only by his foot. In the letter, Blake is clearly alarmed when he is forced into the strange sphere, and when he cannot fulfill his artistic "responsibilities". Blake feels that he is in the grips of a "Spirit of Abstraction", which carries him away from the world of ordinary things. He also feels that his experience must be rationalized as the mercy of God. As Blake tied the sandal to his foot, he was joined by his character Los. Los had come to take him to Golgonooza, the City of Art where all beautiful things are kept forever: ...Los descended to me: And Los behind me stood; a terrible flaming Sun: just close Behind my back; I turned round in terror, and behold. Los stood in that fierce glowing fire; & he also stoop'd down And bound my sandals on in Udan-Adan; trembling I stood Exceedingly with fear and terror, standing in the Vale Of Lambeth: but he kissed me, and wishd me health. And I became One Man with him arising in my strength; Twas too late now to recede. Los had enterd into my soul: His terrors now posses'd me whole! I arose in fury & strength. I am that Shadowy Prophet who Six Thousand Years ago Fell from my station in the Eternal bosom. Six Thousand Years Are finishd. I return! both Time & Space obey my will. I in Six Thousand Years walk up and down: for not one Moment Of Time is lost, nor one Event of Space unpermanent. But all remain: every fabric of Six Thousand Years Remains permanent: tho' on the Earth where Satan Fell, and was cut off all things vanish & are seen no more They vanish not from me & mine, we guard them first & last[.] The generations of men run on in the tide of time But leave their destind lineaments permanent for ever & ever. So spoke Los as we went along to his supreme above. -- Milton 22:4-26 Blake depicts his meeting with Los in another full-page illustration. The sandal for some reason appears on Blake's right foot. Los, whose expression and posture recall the star-struck visionaries described above, is stepping form the sun with his left foot, while the right foot remains within the magic circle. Once again, a letter provides a surprising perspective on this episode. In November, 1802, Blake, disturbed by his difficulties with Hayley, sent Thomas Butts a copy of some verses which he claimed were a year old. He described an encounter with a thistle which has threatened him in the name of Los and spoken of obligations, and then told what had happened when he defied the vegetable: Then Los appeard in all his power In the Sun he appeard descending before My face in fierce flames in my double sight Twas outward a Sun: inward Los in his might "My hands are labourd day & night" "And Ease comes never in my sight" "My Wife has no indulgence given" "Except what comes to her from heaven" "We eat little we drink less" "This Earth breeds not our happiness" "Another Sun feeds our lifes streams" "We are not warmed with thy beams" "Thou measurest not the Time to me" "Nor yet the Space that I do see" "My mind is not with thy light arrayd" "Thy terrors shall not make me afraid" When I had my Defiance given The Sun stood trembling in heaven The Moon that glowd remote below Became leprous & white as snow And every Soul of men on the Earth Felt affliction & sorrow & sickness & dearth Los flamd in my path & the Sun was hot With the bows of my Mind & the Arrows of Thought My bowstring fierce with Ardour breathes My arrows glow in their golden sheaves My brothers & father march before The heavens drop with human gore Readers who know Los best from the three long poems may not recognize this sun fiend as the Eternal Prophet. (Remembering the erring Los of the Lambeth books and Vala may help.) Los is the creator and guardian of the material world, and this is why he urges Blake to remain comfortable at Felpham making money doing hack work. After Milton was written, this aspect of the fourth Zoa was to become the separate Spectre of Urthona. In Milton, however, Los is still only one character, and according to the epic, when he approached Blake, he was friendly. Los and the two poets traveled to Golgonooza, which they entered despite opposition from Rintrah (prophecy) and Palamabron (conventional art). The first episode concludes with a view of the activity of Los's family there, with a study of how souls are incarnated, and how impoverished visionaries learn to look at nature. The second grand vision described in Milton took place several years later, at Felpham. Interestingly, Blake tells us how he had been sent to Hayley by Los: For when Los joind me he took me in his firy whirlwind My Vegetated portion was hurried from Lambeths shades He set me down in Felphams Vale & prepard a beautiful Cottage for me that in three years I might write all these Visions To display Natures cruel holiness: the deceits of Natural Religion[.] -- Milton 36:21-5 Blake was walking in his garden when he spotted a heavenly being named Ololon in the form of a twelve-year-old girl. He thought she was just another Daughter of Beulah bringing celestial news (M 36:26-7). He invited her into his cottage to talk with him and his wife, who of course was also able to see the spirits (36:28-32). Ololon did not have time to visit, and she explained that she needed to find John Milton (37:1-3). "Milton's Shadow" then appeared in the garden. Blake was able to look at its insides and saw Satan, Rahab, the twelve Sons of Albion disguised as the pagan idols from Paradise Lost, the Covering Cherub with its twenty-seven churches, the forty-eight constellations, and a variety of dreary Industrial Revolution landscapes (37:5-38:27). An entirely different "Milton" appeared in the apocalyptic eastern sky and announced his great commission to repudiate Satan's doctrines through love (38:28-49). Satan countered with bombastic claims while the Seven Spirits of God called to the human race to renounce the accuser (38:50-39:31). As Blake watched, Albion, the sleeping giant whose nightmares are human history, attempted for the first time to arise (39:32-52). Blake also saw Urizen, the cruel cosmic law-giver, overcome by Milton's spirit. The two had been struggling in the caverns of the sky (39:53-61). Blake remembered that the visions that followed were by him "unknown except remotely" (40:2-3). The penitent Ololon revealed that she had caused Deism (40:4-16), whereupon Natural Religion appeared as the Harlot (Rahab) and Dragon (Urizen) of the Biblical Apocalypse (40:17-22), along with the kings of the earth (40:23-7). Milton endorsed the artistic credo of Blake (40:28-41:28), the "feminine portion" of Ololon flew shrieking into the Shadow (41:29-42:6), and Jesus Christ descended toward Felpham, surrounded by Ololon, the twenty-four Cities of Albion, and the Zoas (42:7-23). At the end of the vision, Blake recalls: Terror struck in the Vale I stood at that immortal sound My bones trembled. I fell outstretchd upon the path A moment, & my Soul returnd into its mortal state To Resurrection and Judgment in the Vegetable Body And my sweet Shadow of Delight stood trembling by my side -- Milton 42:24-8 Blake's Shadow of Delight is of course Mrs. Blake, who had seen him fall down. Blake explained the second vision as the climax of a series of apocalyptic events known only partially to him beforehand (37:3). These events are summarized in the diagram. The living John Milton, Blake tells us, had held wrong views which had contaminated his work. Although he went to heaven after he died, the poet was unhappy because his "emanation", all the things he had produced and loved in life, was spreading error in the world he had left behind. The God of Paradise Lost was remote, cold, cruel, and arbitrary. Milton's poem had made readers think wrongly of God. John Milton had been considering an attempt to salvage his errors. He made his decision after hearing the story of Satan and Palamabron (Hayley and Blake) in a song which celebrated the inadequacies of conventional morality. As he began his descent, he was encouraged by perceptions of another, ideal Milton. This form, now asleep, is the last of the "Eight Eyes of God", a series which also includes Jehovah and Jesus. Upon reaching Beulah, the descending spirit entered his "Shadow", a dismal monster reaching from heaven to earth. Milton traveled inside it, falling through the heart of Albion into the world of Time and Space. For the rest of the poem, Milton is in several places simultaneously. Milton crashed through the Mundane Shell (our sky) and in the form of a meteor united with Blake. The Shadow rebounded from Blake's foot and hovered over a final Milton, this one a thundering rock in Mount Sinai. Simultaneously, Milton's spirit, traveling in the landscapes of the sky, battled Los and Urizen. Los was afraid that the Puritan fanatic had returned to spread his errors. Then he remembered a prophecy that Milton's return would begin the apocalypse, the time when all people's perceptions will be raised to the infinite. Los then descended to Blake and took the spirit of Milton with them to Golgonooza. In heaven (Eden), a group of immortals also misunderstood the purpose of Milton's descent. Fearing the spread of false religion, they drove the Eight Eyes into our world (Ulro). Then, realizing that Milton was returning to earth in order to redeem his errors and awaken Albion, they repented their act. Guided by Jesus Christ, the immortals descended through Beulah, passing the chaoses that surround the Mundane Shell and arriving at Golgonooza. They passed through the break in the sky that Milton had made, and they arrived in Blake's garden in the form of a little girl for the final reconciliation with Milton. The apocalypse was starting as Blake, overcome by his visions, fell in his garden path: Immediately the Lark mounted with a loud trill from Felphams Vale And the Wild Thyme from Wimbletons green & impurpled Hills And Los & Enitharmon rose over the Hills of Surrey Their clouds roll over London with a south wind, soft Oothoon Pants in the Vales of Lambeth weeping oer her Human Harvest Los listens to the Cry of the Poor Man: his cloud Over London in volume terrific, low bended in anger. Rintrah and Palamabron view the Human Harvest beneath Their Wine-presses & Barns stand open; the Ovens are prepar'd The Waggons ready: terrific Lions & Tygers sport & play All Animals upon the Earth, are prepard in all their strength To go forth to the Great Harvest & Vintage of the Nations -- Milton 42:29-43:1 How much of this plot (?) is based on Blake's actual visions and how much is inventive speculation probably cannot be decided, although the poem certainly draws on Blake's unusual feelings and experiences. The most important action of the poem is not the allegorical movements of his allegorical characters, but the changes in their attitudes. First Milton, then Los, Ololon, and eventually the human race itself move from anxious concern for self and surroundings to the creative self-giving on which visionary existence depends. Blake built his epic around this theme. We will now review all his characters, their points of view, and the shifting patterns of symbols that surround them. 2. Urizen: Milton as Satan Then spoke the Spectrous Chaos to Albion darkning cold From the back & loins where dwell the Spectrous Dead I am your Rational Power O Albion & that Human Form You call Divine, is but a Worm seventy inches long That creeps forth in a night & is dried in the morning sun In fortuitous concourse of memorys accumulated & lost It plows the Earth in its own conceit, it overwhelms the Hills Beneath its winding labyrinths, till a stone of the brook Stops it in the midst of its pride among its hills & rivers[.] Battersea & Chelsea mourn, London and Canterbury tremble Their place shall not be found as the wind passes over[.] The ancient Cities of the Earth remove as a traveller And shall Albions cities remain when I pass over them With my deluge of forgotten remembrances over the tablet So spoke the Spectre to Albion. he is the Great Selfhood Satan: Worshipd as God by the Mighty Ones of the Earth Having a white Dot calld a Center from which branches out A Circle in continual gyrations. this became a heart From which sprang numerous branches varying their motions Producing many Heads three or seven or ten, & hands & feet Innumerable at will of the unfortunate contemplator Who becomes his food[:] such is the way of the Devouring Power. -- Jerusalem 29:5-24 Blake's writings all concern the struggle of visionaries against the "False Tongue", the distortions of Satan and of what the eighteenth century called "the natural man". This theme, announced clearly at the beginning of Milton, has been described by fifty years of Blake's critics. Central to all Blake's writing is the theme of radical change in human perception itself. The view of the world against which the prophet-poet labors is at once a conception of nature, an idea about people, and specifically a view of how people should act. The ordinary person today imagines the earth is a ball of rock moving through empty space in obedience to mathematical laws, laws which also govern all the other phenomena of the world. He sees no spirits or spiritual agency, and if he conceives of God at all, thinks of Him at first as a remote Being. He thinks of his own person as a chance product of nature, separate from all other people, getting knowledge only the five natural senses, and seeking safety by controlling nature and his fellow people. This supposedly makes him care nothing about life and dignity for others. Blake said that all this determines how the natural man behaves. His actions aim to keep his body alive and comfortable, and to satisfy his sexual drives. He scorns poetic vision as madness, and sees art as pleasant untruths. To achieve precarious security, he invents morality and social contracts, systems of laws reflecting the impersonal laws that make nature predictable. He invents a new God to enforce moral decrees, and thus an imaginary tyrant appears in the sky. This God is the fallen Urizen, who is in the realms of imagination the giver of form, just as in our world he is the supposed creator of moral and natural law. In the natural world, Urizen's is the difficult work of repressing people's disorderly natural appetites. As the God of the churches, his power is his mysterious and remote majesty. The Christ preached by the prophets is a man and readily accessible. Urizen (Nobodaddy, Old Testament law-giver, Deist clock-maker, etc.) is a fiction, refuses to be approached or examined, and wants to be feared and revered unthinkingly from a safe distance. In these respects Urizen is like the inscrutable Jehovah of Paradise Lost. Urizen is always associated in Blake's poems with certain basic symbols. In Milton, as elsewhere, he is a skeleton, dead bones. A real skeleton is incapable of acting, feeling, or perceiving; a moving skeleton is either a puppet or a fairy-tale to frighten a child. The sight of a skeleton makes people fear that their personalities will vanish when they die. Thus the skeleton symbol evokes Urizen in many ways. (By contrast, Blake's living real God always displays the "human form divine".) Urizen's rocks, clouds, and snows are powerful symbols of the uniformity, sterility, and deadness of legalism. The clouds conceal Urizen and conceal the way back to Eden. They also remind us how insubstantial Urizen really is. The rocks form the foundation for the buildings of human society, and suggest the opposite of living form. In The Four Zoas, snow is associated with sexual repression, chastity being at once cold and "pure". Perhaps the hexagonal snowflakes reminded Blake of Urizen's geometry. Urizen leads an army of stars which inspire people to believe in natural laws and a remote heaven and God. Stars give a faint, unsteady light, just as Urizenic science supposedly casts light on a small facet of reality. In Milton, Urizen is associated with two new symbols -- the marble rocks which he freezes around Milton's feet (19:2), and the river Jordan, in which he tries to baptize the poet. In addition to suggesting Urizen's deadness, white marble was the building material of ancient Greece and Rome which Blake believed had contributed to Milton's errors. Freezing Jordan water evokes the Hebraic influence on Milton, while the baptism itself implies both guilt and mystery. Immersion also suggests death by drowning in the Sea of Time and Space, the fate that overtook Urizen in the Lambeth books. We see little of Urizen in Milton, and especially little of his unfallen role as the lord of light and form. Urizen's sons work for the regeneration of the world among the family of Los (27:44). We learn from Jerusalem that they are the scientists and engineers (J 65:12-28). Milton, as he rebuilds Urizen with red clay, is giving God back his true form. The role played by Urizen in the early poems and in Vala is mostly given to Satan in Milton. Although Satan incorporates the errors of all four fallen Zoas, it is his role as "God of this world" that is especially important in Milton. As the last of the Sons of Los, Satan supervises the practical things that are needed simply "to make the world go around". Blake calls these "dark Satanic mills", and in the biographical allegory they encompass areas of art such as portrait painting and other hack work. More generally, Satan takes over Urizen's role as operator of natural law, which is part of Los's regenerative activity. He also invents moral virtue, and recreates Urizen's law-books as he falls. Satan is a more personal being who includes in one figure the blind, selfish natural man and the God that he supposedly creates in his own image. Satan is distinguished by his "mildness" and "softness" (M 7:4, 6, 13, etc.), and by his "youth and beauty" (8:31). While there is no doubt that this character is modeled on William Hayley, Blake's Satan is any person who thinks himself "righteous in his vegetated spectre", holy by following the laws of conventional piety. Self-righteous Satan's laws do not rest on creative self-giving, but are designed to promote the physical security and well-being of natural, un-visionary people. They only secure an armed truce among people and make them forget visionary brotherhood. This is the mental state which Blake calls the "limit of opacity". By fixing moral law, Satan, whose name Blake knew means "accuser", accuses Humankind of being unable to rise above their own self-centeredness. The young Blake had thought the great struggle in human life was between Luvah and Urizen, energy and its boundaries. By the end of the Felpham period, Blake had come to view the great struggle as being between the visionaries, who saw all men as part of the divine family, and the rationalizing masses, concerned only with personal security. But if, in our world everyone worked with Blake-like dedication producing prophetic books, everyone would starve, and Blake knew it. As the last son of Los, the "Miller of Eternity" sees to the function of nature and society. While not part of the visionary process, Satan keeps the ordinary world from collapsing. The circulation of necessities Blake calls "the mills of Satan". Satan-Hayley seized the Harrow (art) because the conventional man "pitied" the struggling poet Palamabron-Blake. Satan-Hayley selected the Harrow rather than the Plow (prophecy) because the latter instrument breaks directly into the visionary realms to make new life sprout. The Harrow evens out the work done by the Plow, and this is probably why Satan-Hayley wanted to try it. Even so, the conventional gentleman was unable to handle the poet's task, finding the "fires of genius" to be mere "torment and insanity". Yet, with his faith in his own virtue, Satan-Hayley was unable to realize that he has done anything wrong (7:39-40). Satan-Hayley's misdeed was completed only after he received "the Wine of the Almighty", the drink of the poet and prophet, from Elynittria, Palamabron-Blake's inspiration. Blake's character Leutha explains: For Elynittria met Satan with all her singing women. Terrific in their joy & pouring wine of wildest power They gave Satan their wine: indignant at the burning wrath. Wild with prophetic fury his former life became like a dream Cloth'd in the Serpents folds, in selfish holiness demanding purity Being most impure, self-condemn'd to eternal tears, he drove Me from his inmost Brain & the doors clos'd with thunders sound -- Milton 12:42-8 The drug turned Satan-Hayley into a very angry reactionary. He preached the need for law, obsessive purity and obedience, and damned art and visions as delusions subversive to the well-functioning social machine. He turned opaque to visionary love, and blackened the East, realm of the heart (9:40). Seeing no other God, he set himself up as an imposter, "self-comdemn'd to eternal tears" (12:47) in a loveless world. As "God", Satan's first act was to cast out his inspiration Leutha, who had suggested he to try to be a poet. (The same thing happened when Urizen cast out Ahania in Vala.) Satan immediately lost control of himself and tumbled into Ulro (our world). Satan announced he would "rend the divine family from his covering" (9:21). He would permit no visionaries to interfere with his world, in which he is worshipped by his druid sons (11:7, renamed after Blake's trial the "Sons of Albion"). Although he is a different character, Satan's symbols are Urizenic. His "infernal scroll" of laws (9:31) is the sky-god's Books of Brass; his bosom is filled with the "ruins and desarts" (38:15-22) of Newtonian science. Satan is associated with Sihon, Og, and Anak, who guard the perceptual frontiers of mortals. If we detect an allusion to Paradise Lost in M 20:33-6, we see Og as Sin and Anak as Death; fear of these mythical giants prevents the seeker from approaching Golgonooza. The giants also represent the terrors of the unknown and indefinite in outer space -- the constellations are divided between Og and Sihon. Satan is also the type and sum of the elemental spirits (M 31:17-27). Blake tells us little about them except that they are deified and are incapable of regeneration or forgiveness. Probably they are personifications of what we call natural forces. In his last appearance (39:24-31), Satan is fourfold, fully formed and ready to be thrown away. He is surrounded by four Miltonic "Zoas", Death (Tharmas), Sin (Luvah), Chaos (Urthona), and Night (Urizen, equipped with a "mantle of laws"). When Milton announced, "I in my selfhood am that Satan: I am that evil one" (14:30), he began an equation that runs throughout the poem. While they seem to be separate characters, Milton and Satan are both multifaceted images of all people. "Milton's "Shadow" would come to be identified with the fallen demon and the Cherub, while the true Humanity of the poet would be identified with the passive "body" of Satan (39:18) and the rising Albion. What was it about John Milton that qualified him for such a role in Blake's "vision"? The answer is well-known to students of Blake. It is perhaps even more familiar to Miltonists who feel that the Puritan poet's writings betray an unintended sympathy for Satan and the other devils. Milton was an inspired romantic genius, Blake believed, but his poetry was perverted by Puritanism. As a revolutionary and epic poet, John Milton had embodied the Blakean ideals of an inspired man. He had defended individual liberty against royal tyrants and Puritan censorship. He had based his great poetic work on his understanding of Christianity, and he had looked with Oliver Cromwell to the foundation of a society filled with simplicity and godliness. John Milton had spoken as a prophet to the people of his age, and had found himself "a voice crying in the wilderness", a Rintrah among his fellow Puritans. The close of his life found him alone, cut off from Restoration society, uttering his prophecies for "fit audience though few", a phrase selected by Blake as the epigraph to his 1809 Catalogue. When Blake noted in the margin of a copy of a book by Joshua Reynolds that "Milton was in earnest in believing God did visit man", he recognized in him a fellow poet-prophet inspired by the Holy Ghost. Milton had made it clear in Paradise Lost (VII, 1-20), Paradise Regained (I, 8-17), and The Reason of Church Government that a great Christian epic would be inspired by no less a Person. Milton's poem on Adam and Eve was the first highly successful epic poem not dealing with heroic warfare, a subject which Milton and Blake considered inferior to the highest poetry (Paradise Lost X: 1-47). Blake told Crabb Robinson that while Milton had been gifted with Divine Imagination, he became "an Atheist, a mere politician busied about this world... till in his old age he returned back to God whom he had had in his childhood". Thus Milton is classed with Dante, Wordsworth, and probably every other competent Christian poet known to Blake, as having been grossly in error though inspired. While Blake may appear to be referring only to Milton's career as Cromwell's spokesman, we remember that Blake had himself supported the American and French Revolutions in his early days. Later Blake came to think that political activism was only useless, not harmful. They key phrase rather is "busied about this world". Despite his stance as a prophet, Milton had held the doctrines of the False Tongue, cut his thoughts off from Eternity, and had become only a stage in the endless cycle of earthly selfishness which Blake called the Orc cycle. Blake's early recognition of Milton's imperfect vision provoked his famous remark: ...in Milton, the Father is Destiny, the Son, a Ratio of the five senses. & the Holy-ghost, Vacuum! Note. The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devils party without knowing it. -- Marriage of Heaven & Hell ,Plate 5 Blake means, of course, that the Father in Paradise Lost is the remote Urizen, operating the wheels of the heavens and of the law, delivering boring lectures on predestination and guilt, creating man as a drudge, and demanding bloody sacrifice to atone for "sin". Christ is the builder of the Mundane Shell, which he circumscribes with his compasses as in Blake's famous picture of Urizen. Milton's epics contain few references to the Holy Ghost, none of which amounts to much poetically. At this stage, Blake felt that the devils (Luvahs, revolutionaries) were the visionaries and enemies of the false doctrines of Urizen; hence Milton is "of the devil's party". Later, Milton would be redivided between the party of Christ and that of Satan, who combines the errors of all the Zoas. Just as John Milton was in error about the nature of his God, he held pernicious views of human life which spoiled his poetry and made him personally unhappy. As a Puritan, Milton had urged men to withdraw from the sexual pleasures which are the easiest means to attain heavenly joys. When Quid the Cynic (Blake) remarks in An Island in the Moon that "Milton has no feelings" and "might easily be outdone", he is probably referring to the antiseptic way in which Milton handled even the great lovemaking-scenes in Paradise Lost. Crabb Robinson recalled that one of Milton's errors Blake wished to correct was that "the pleasures of love arose from the fall". Damon [1] is probably correct in thinking Blake meant Milton had seen lust as the result of sin (Paradise Lost IX, 1010 ff.), when to Blake "the lust of the goat is the glory of God". Comus betrays a similar un-Blakean approach to sexual matters. Milton also was wrong, Blake states in the late "Preface" to our poem, to choose the classical militarists as models for his life and poetry. Milton had defended the execution of Charles I, and had supported Cromwell's efforts to impose morality by the use of military force. The historical John Milton was subjected to "the torments of love and jealousy" at the hands of his three wives and three daughters. These six women, whom Milton had tyrannized in life, had to the visionary eye "represented and contained" Blake's sex female characters who together symbolize the natural world (M 17:2). Admirers of Milton, such as Percy Shelley and E.M.W. Tillyard, have often noted the same tension in his work that Blake did. The best-known presentation of the very Blakean ideas that have been found beneath the surface of Paradise Lost is Tillyard's discussion of "unconscious meanings" [2]. According to Professor Tillyard, John Milton had far more admiration and empathy for his rebellious Satan than he liked to admit. So he made him a "figure of heroic energy", a Blakean hero struggling against Urizen. Milton wrote no verse on the Atonement that rises above the prosaic, and Tillyard felt that Milton did not much like this doctrine, which he held only intellectually, and which Blake abhorred. Milton's paradise, where Adam and Eve live as "old age pensioners enjoying perpetual youth" is Blake's Beulah, and he and Tillyard recognized it as less than fully human. Finally, Tillyard saw John Milton as basically pessimistic about the human condition, showing little interest in expressing hope for the future. Blake agreed -- if a person cannot break out of this world by vision and self-sacrifice, neither of which Milton understood, he will never be happy again. Whatever one may think of Tillyard's criticism, which has been discarded by most serious Miltonists, Blake makes the dead poet himself recognize that it was true. John Milton often "begged Blake to confute" the "fatal errors in his Paradise Lost". Indeed, the John Milton familiar to lovers of English poetry appears to the visionary eye as a frozen monster, parodying the way in which the blind poet dictated his epics to his family: He saw the Cruelties of Ulro, and he wrote them down In iron tablets: and his Wives & Daughters names were these Rahab and Tirzah, & Milcah & Malah & Noah & Hoglah. They sat rang'd round him as the rocks of Horeb round the land Of Canaan: and they wrote in thunder smoke and fire His dictate; and his body was Rock Sinai; that body, Which was on earth born to corruption: & the six Females Are Hor & Peor & Bashan & Abiram & Lebanon & Hermon Seven rocky masses terrible in the Deserts of Midian. -- Milton 17:9-17 For Blake, the mortal John Milton had worshipped Urizen-Satan and has now become what he beheld. The poet, seated in Mount Sinai like Moses writing the Bible, sees the "cruelties of Ulro", the half-visionary, half-mythical, and altogether tragic events surrounding the Fall of Man, and inscribes them in Paradise Lost just as Urizen wrote the laws of morality based on his own distorted understanding. To the visionary, Paradise Lost and Urizen's Bible are the same. Both urge the same submission to mystery and tyranny. The first face of Milton is that of Satan-Urizen himself. 3. Tharmas: Milton as Covering Cherub Thus was the Covering Cherub reveald majestic image Of Selfhood, Body put off, the AntiChrist accursed Coverd with precious stones, a Human Dragon terrible And bright, stretchd over Europe & Asia gorgeous In three nights he devourd the rejected corse of death His Head dark, deadly, in its Brain incloses a reflexion Of Eden all perverted: Egypt on the Gihon many tongued And many mouthd: Ethiopia, Lybia, the Sea of Rephain Minute Particulars in slavery I behold among the brick-kilns Disorganiz'd, & there is Pharoh in his iron Court: And the Dragon of the River & the Furnaces of iron. Outwoven from Thames & Tweed & Severn awful streams Twelve ridges of Stone frown over all the Earth in tyrant pride Frown over each River stupendous Works of Albions Druid Sons And Albions Forests of Oaks coverd the Earth from Pole to Pole His Bosom wide reflects Moab & Ammon, on the River Pison, since calld Arnon, there is Heshbon beautiful The Rocks of Rabbath on the Arnon & the Fish-pools of Heshbon Whose currents flow into the Dead Sea by Sodom & Gomorra Above his Head high arching Wings black filld with Eyes Spring upon iron sinews from the Scapulae & Os Humeri. There Israel in bondage to his Generalizing Gods Molech and Chemosh, & in his left breast is Philistea In Druid Temples over the whole Earth with Victims Sacrifice, From Gaza to Damascus Tyre & Sidon & the Gods Of Javan thro the Isles of Grecia & all Europes Kings Where Hiddekel pursues his course among the rocks Two Wings spring from his ribs of brass, starry, black as night But translucent their blackness as the dazling of gems His Loins inclose Babylon on Euphrates beautiful And Rome in sweet Hesperia. there Israel scatterd abroad In martyrdoms & slavery I behold: ah vision of sorrow! Inclosed by eyeless Wings, glowing with fire as the iron Heated in the Smiths forge, but cold the wind of their dread fury. -- Jerusalem 89:9-42 Blake's Tharmas, while one of the four Zoas, receives little attention as such outside Vala. In Eden he is perception, or, more accurately, Man's power to create his world. (There is no subject-object distinction in Blake's highest realm.) Thus, Tharmas is the "Parent Power" underlying the workings of the other Zoas. Tharmas is associated especially with Beulah, the dimension of sensation and passive experience rather than of creation and conflict. With the closure of the Western Gate belonging to this Zoa, imaginative control over the perceptions was lost, and Man came to experience the world of matter. Tharmas divided into a Spectre and an amorphous residue. The surviving Zoa becomes the life-force. He begets monsters by spontaneous generation from chaos, and orders Los to his anvil to forge a new world of solid forms. As the Zoa who governs the experience of the unfallen world, Tharmas is also the sense of being happy and knows when things are wrong. Thus in Vala, after his own fall during the struggles of Luvah and Urizen, he knocked Luvah from the sky in anger, and later did the same to Urizen. While he is always expressing his feelings in some way or other, and thus functions as a sort of chorus, he does nothing constructive. In the later Milton and Jerusalem, the conception of a divided Tharmas was abandoned, and the Spectre was equated with the Covering Cherub of Ezekiel. The Spectre of Tharmas is called the False Tongue itself, because the error of perception is basic. The fallen Man perceives only a hostile, alien world around him and supposedly thinks that he must act accordingly. As Tharmas grants perceptions in Eden, the Cherub causes the natural person to perceive a solid material world. Tharmas is the vitality that bestows imaginative life in Eden; the Cherub is the Selfhood's idea of the life-giving spirit. Every advance in biology has confirmed the view that our species is a product of a complicated chemical process and is evolved ultimately from a few types of subatomic particles. As Urizen is the sky-god, the Covering Cherub is the limiting sky surrounding the world of matter and cutting off the vision of Eternity. As he is ultimately the fallen person's whole view of the world, the Covering Cherub's tyranny encompasses all errors that keep us from enjoying the fellowship of all people, whether they are political (9:51), "moral", scientific, artistic, or religious (37:16-8). Satan, the natural heart, falls enfolded by the Cherub as by a deadly constricting snake (12:46), a classical symbol for matter [3]. The most famous symbol for Tharmas is the ocean, which is appropriate for several reasons. Kathleen Raine says a great deal about water as a Neoplatonic image of matter [4], and Carl Jung found the sea to be the "commonest symbol for the unconscious" [5], source of all imaginative perception of the fallen man. As the sea engulfs all things, it is a fine symbol for the ever-devouring false Tongue; as it reflects heaven in its quiet moments, it becomes a symbol of the redeemed Tharmas (M 25:71). Finally, as matter, the Spectre of Tharmas (like his closest literary relative, Milton's Anarch Chaos), can give rise to nothing living. Left alone, it will eventually disintegrate into a "sea of atoms" [6], or, as Blake expresses it: The Natural Power continually seeks & tends to Destruction Ending in Death: which would of itself be Eternal Death -- Milton 26:41-2 All material things tend to deteriorate into formlessness. Thus Blake can say that the Covering Cherub, or natural power, pursues death, a process arrested only by the fixing of the "limits of opacity and contraction". All Spectres seek the deaths of others out of fear and jealousy. By remaining unregenerate we are also working toward our own nonexistence. The image of the gloomy "death" the erring Milton had chosen for himself in life is called "Milton's Shadow". While much has been written to make clear what Blake meant by a "spectre", less has been said about the quite different conception of a "shadow". Any shadow is the form of a thing without its substance or life, appearing opposite the light source. A review of the Felpham letters and later works shows that Blake often spoke of all material things and persons as "shadows" of their Eternal beings. The concept of the shadow must therefore be related to the material reality which helps or hinders the visionary. In the late strata of The Four Zoas, the shadows are the female counterparts to the spectres of the Zoas -- pale, static, inconsequential things. They are the soft of emanations spectres would desire, just as the material shadow seems to "emanate" from a material man. The invisible, wailing Enion, the lost Ahania, the laboring Vala, and Orc's silly goddess of purity, white Enitharmon, are all called "shadows", and are all that remains of their original forms in Ulro. So is the "Shadowy Female", personification of nature. Albion's "Shadow" is the idiotic, voiceless creature that arises from him and to which he prays to forgive his sexual sins (J 43:33-54). So the Shadow of Milton is probably the Spectre's version of what the human being ought to be. It is the pathetic image or parody of the self-sacrificing and productive Humanity of Milton; it is at once the roles he invented for himself and the errors that interacted with them. Milton's Shadow is "a mournful form", dismal as John Milton was when "covered" with the earthly body. Being mournful is the loveless spectrous version of being a solitary prophet speaking against evil. Blake's heroic Milton, while he is "severe and silent" (38:8), is not doleful or without hope. As Milton's experience of the fallen world, the Shadow encompasses all errors, and extends from Beulah through the twenty-seven heavens (human history) to the earth. This begins the suggestion that the Shadow, formed of the material of the Covering Cherub, is the Cherub. Milton enters the gloomy shape, and begins his voyage as "Milton's Human Shadow" (17:18). As Blake prepares to travel to Golgonooza, the Shadow separates (20:20-2), flying from the fierce visionary and going to "brood" over the frozen Milton in Sinai, just as the Cherub hovers over humankind in general. Blake is punning -- the dismal Shadow frets over Milton, but it is also "brooding" in the sense that Milton spoke of the Holy Spirit as a dove brooding to make chaos fertile (Paradise Lost I, 21). The action of the Shadow is an impossible parody of regeneration. Again Blake seems to identify Cherub and Shadow: For that portion namd the Elect: the Spectrous body of Milton: Redounding from my left foot into Los's Mundane space, Brooded over his Body in Horeb against the Resurrection Preparing it for the Great Consummation; red the Cherub on Sinai Glow'd; but in terrors folded round his clouds of blood. -- Milton 20:20-4 The Shadow appears again, as the Cherub (37:4-12), in definite form and ready to be cast out by the awakened Milton. Before it is given this shape, it is compared to a "polypus" (15:8). Readers of Blake know that this can mean either an octopus or a type of malignant growth; here both are very appropriate. Error spreads invasively and grows like cancer, and all of a cancer must be removed before a cure is effected. An octopus is a shapeless, clinging, soft-bodied sea creature with many extensions, one that avoids light and obscures itself in clouds of black ink. Why did Milton enter the Shadow to return to the material world? The Shadow is the material reality with which the personality of Milton dealt in life. Being twenty-seven-fold, extending through Ulro, and being likened to a polypus indicates that it is the unregenerated world which Milton perceived while on earth. However, since every person's way of looking at the world is distinctive to the person, the shadow is properly the Tharmic portion of one's personality. Because it is part subject, part object, it is "hermaphroditic; male and female / In one wonderful body" (14:37-8), just like Tharmas. Even though it is a body of error, the Shadow must be rejoined if the errors committed in the body are to be redeemed. Until the apocalypse, anyone who wishes to act in the time-and-space world needs to have some view of it. Milton travels in his Shadow until he joins Blake. Then the Shadow is discarded and John Milton can see the world with fresh eyes. 4. Luvah: Milton as Orc Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air; Hungry clouds swag on the deep Once meek, and in a perilous path, The just man kept his course along The vale of death. Roses are planted where thorns grow. And on the barren heath Sing the honey bees. Then the perilous path was planted: And a river, and a spring On every cliff and tomb; And on the bleached bones Red clay brought forth. Till the villain left the paths of ease, To walk in perilous paths, and drive The just man into barren climes. Now the sneaking serpent walks In mild humility. And the just man rages in the wilds Where lions roam. Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air; Hungry clouds swag on the deep -- The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 2 Luvah (Love, the Eastern Zoa of many aspects) figures prominently in Blake's two longest poems. In Milton, he is present only as he appears in our world. Albion (Humankind) fell in Beulah (dreamland) because he found it pleasant to allow Luvah (sensual desire, love of beauty) to control him. The natural person is dominated in the same way. Any being that feels love or a passion stemming from it, selfish or not, participates in what Blake came to call the state of Luvah. His manifestations in Milton include the unformed souls of people, the universal angry boy Orc, the other sons of Los, and the John Milton who chooses, out of love, to descend from heaven and redeem his mistakes. Luvah-Albion forgot his role in creative fellowship of Eden, and wanted the secure, passive, sensual and mindless dreamland of Beulah. Though now confined to the natural world, Luvah episodically tries to return to this comfortable state, and appears in the world as Orc. To make improvements in the world, people must imagine something better for themselves. Thus Orc is regularly born as the first child of Los and Enitharmon, who give visions. Orc has not returned to Beulah yet, because he retains the selfishness that turned Beulah into the Cherub's world of matter. Because he has not understood, every Orc falls prey to the delusions of our world, becoming preoccupied with security and rewriting Urizen's laws to control his own revolution. In the end he becomes Urizen, the adventure fails, and a new Orc is born. The history of the fallen world is the cycles between these two aspects of the fallen Albion. Blake saw each human life beginning with Orc and moving to Urizen. Every baby is a little bundle of primitive desire, restrained first by parental discipline and later by the child's own sense of guilt. Repressed desires, both aggressive and sexual, seethe under an outward show of chastity. Later, the young idealist, dreaming of a better life, may try to recover Beulah through political action, sexual promiscuity, or intoxicants. Yet these concerns of the young person eventually give way to concern for mere safety, until the ideals are forgotten. Blake saw the same process taking place in political and social revolution; a tyrant will be overthrown by well-meaning people, only to be replaced by anarchy and then another tyrant. The deterioration of Orc recalls that of Milton's Satan, identified with Luvah in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The heroic rebel of the first books of Paradise Lost degenerates through pride into a vengeful, malicious autocrat of an enormous wasteland. He finally gets changed, like Orc, into a snake. Orc is every person who refuses to be content with his circumstances. Revolutions that have made concessions to selfish hatred and fear have failed to restore the golden age. When a revolutionary finally appears who is free from these errors, the real revolution of love and forgiveness will take place, and the Covering Cherub will vanish. Waiting for human perceptions to change radically, the inspired prophets labor continually to weaken the hold of the False Tongue and help people see spiritual beauty. Most of Orc's symbols suggest both kinds of revolution. There is the trumpet (M 23:14) of militaristic war or apocalypse. Orc's fires (9:37 etc.) combine suggestions of desire, pain, destruction, and transmutation. Blood (27:3, etc.) is the living principle, and may flow from sacrifice either of self or others. Eerie "spectres of the dead" haunt the middle plates of Milton and the late passages of The Four Zoas. These are souls that inhabit the regions of the Mundane Shell waiting to be given earthly bodies. Although their personalities differ, each is a little Orc. One of the great tasks of Los and his family is to provide these spirits with the minds and bodies they need to develop into suitable inhabitants of a world being regenerated. Blake calls any being that knows only the natural world a "spectre", and the word as used in Milton should not be confused with "reasoning power". These little spectres are without shape, being compared to clouds (M 26:27), flickering flames (28:11), or even Shakespeare's "airy nothing" (28:3). They are "piteous passions and desires" (26:26), "doubts and fears" (28:9), "piteous sufferers" (28:7). They are little pieces of primitive selfish behavior that have somehow resulted from the fall. Together, they comprise Satan (15:17-8), and perhaps they are the "poor infected" (M 8:43). Getting the spirit into the body is the task of many members of Los's staff. Blake's description of the process is scattered through his three epics. A poignant passage in Jerusalem describes the role of the Daughters of Albion, personified natural functions, in the process [7]: This World is all a Cradle for the erred wandering Phantom: Rock'd by Year, Month, Day, & Hour; and every two Moments Between, dwells a Daughter of Beulah, to feed to Human Vegetable Entune: Daughters of Albion, your hymning Chorus mildly! Cord of affection thrilling extatic on the iron Reel: To the golden Loom of Love! to the moth-labourd Woof A Garment and Cradle weaving for the infantine Terror: For fear; at entering the gate into our World of cruel Lamentation: it flee back & hide in Non-Entitys dark wild Where dwells the Spectre of Albion: destroyer of Definite Form. The Sun shall be a Scythed Chariot of Britain: the Moon; a Ship In the British Ocean! Created by Los's Hammer; measured out Into Days & Nights & Years & Months. to travel with my feet Over these desolate rocks of Albion: O daughters of despair! Rock the Cradle, and in mild melodies tell me where found What you have enwoven with so much tears & care? so much Tender artifice: to laugh: to weep: to learn: to know; Remember! recollect! what dark befel in wintry days O it was lost for ever! and we found it not: it came And wept at our wintry Door: Look! look! behold! Gwendolen Is become a Clod of Clay! Merlin is a Worm of the Valley! -- Jerusalem 56:8-28 The spectres are drawn into our world by the power of natural beauty, not by the hope of regeneration. Thinking they are going to Beulah, the spirits enter the bodies woven for them in the womb. (The passage is the basis of the commonly accepted interpretation of The Book of Thel.) The account is elaborated in Milton, in a long continuous passage which Blake unfortunately interrupted by the insertion of Plate 27. It repays a close reading as Blake's essay on the origins of the individual personality: There are Two Gates thro which all Souls descend. One Southward From Dover Cliff to Lizard Point. the other toward the North Caithness & rocky Durness, Pentland & John Groats House The Souls descending to the Body, wail on the right hand Of Los; & those deliverd from the Body, on the left hand -- Milton 26:13-7 Los is at his forge in London, facing the apocalyptic eastern sky. The souls descending on his right are thus entering the body through the gate of Satan-Urizen in the South. After the soul has finished its life as a human being, it returns to the spirit world by way of the gate of Adam-Los in the North. Between these gates, the soul lives on earth, where the family of Los struggle to help it regain the lost vision of Eternity. And these the Labours of the Sons of Los in Allamanda: And in the City of Golgonooza: & in Luban: & around The Lake of Udan-Adan, in the Forests of Entuthon Benython Where Souls incessant wail, being piteous Passions & Desires With neither lineament nor form but like to watry clouds The Passions & Desires descend upon the hungry winds For such along Sleepers remain meer passion & appetite; The Sons of Los clothe them & feed & provide houses & fields And every Generated Body in its inward form, Is a garden of delight & and a building of magnificence, Built by the Sons of Los in Bowlahoola & Allamanda And the herbs & flowers & furniture & beds & chambers Continually woven in the Looms of Enitharmons Daughters In bright Cathedrons golden Dome with care & love & tears[.] For the various Classes of Men are all markd out determinate In Bowlahoola; as the Spectres choose their affinities So they are born on Earth, & every class is determinate But not by Natural but by Spiritual power alone. -- Milton 26:23-40 Even disembodied spectres have different personalities. Each soul chooses the body with which it can express the type of desires of which it is composed (cf. M 25:43). There are three basic sorts of spectres -- the sullen lovers, the anxious doubters, and the sadistic weaklings. These recall Tharmas, Urizen, and Luvah, and so do the descriptions which follow: Some Sons of Los surround the Passions with porches of iron & silver Creating form & beauty around the dark regions of sorrow, Giving to airy nothing a name and a habitation Delightful! with bounds to the Infinite putting off the Indefinite Into most holy forms of Thought: (such is the power of inspiration) They labour incessant; with many tears & afflictions: Creating the beautiful House for the piteous sufferer. -- Milton 28:1-7 The emphasis here is on the body (Tharmas) itself, and particularly the regenerative power of the sexual act, the principal means by which we may guess these souls will achieve vision. Others; Cabinets richly fabricate of gold & ivory For Doubts & fears unform'd & wretched & melancholy The little weeping Spectre stands on the threshold of Death Eternal; and sometimes two Spectres like lamps quivering And often malignant they combat (heart-breaking sorrowful & piteous) Antamon takes them into his beautiful flexible hands, As the Sower takes the seed, or as the Artist his clay Or fine wax, to mould artful a model for golden ornaments. The soft hands of Antamon draw the indelible line: Form immortal with golden pen; such as the Spectre admiring Puts on the sweet form; then smiles Antamon bright thro his windows The Daughters of beauty look up from their Looms & prepare The integument soft for its clothing with joy & delight. -- Milton 28:8-20 Gold, ivory, and the light-giving lamp are emblems of the unfallen Urizen, as are the symbols of form -- the outline, the skin, the wax model. The battling spectres are of course twins, who struggle in the womb like Jacob (the patriarch Urizen) and Esau (the red Luvah). The images of graphic art suggests a means by which these spirits might be redeemed. But Theotormon & Sotha stand in the Gate of Luban anxious Their numbers are seven million & seven thousand & seven hundred They contend with the weak Spectres, they fabricate soothing forms The Spectre refuses. he seeks cruelty. they create the crested Cock Terrified the Spectre screams & rushes in fear into their Net Of kindness & compassion & is born a weeping terror. Or they create the Lion & Tyger in compassionate thunderings[.] Howling the Spectres flee: they take refuge in Human lineaments. -- Milton 28:21-8 Still other aggressive spirits are incarnated only by being frightened into the body. They will become people of great energy which must be directed by Los. The cycle from Tharmas through Urizen to Luvah is completed in the next verse paragraph, describing the clan of Ozoth, a lower form of Los himself: The Sons of Ozoth within the Optic Nerve stand fiery glowing And the number of his sons is eight millions and eight. They give delights to the man unknown; artificial riches They give to scorn, & their posessors to trouble & sorrow & care, Shutting the sun. & moon. & stars. & trees. & clouds. & waters. And hills. out from the Optic Nerve & hardening it into a bone Opake. and like the black pebble on the enraged beach. While the poor indigent is like the diamond which tho cloth'd In rugged covering in the mind, is open all within And in his hallowd center holds the heavens of bright eternity Ozoth here builds walls of rocks against the surging sea And timbers crampt with iron cramps bar in the joys of life From fell destruction in the Spectrous cunning or rage. He creates The speckled Newt, the Spider & Beetle, the Rat & Mouse, The Badger & Fox: they worship before his feet in trembling fear. -- Milton 28:29-43 While Theotormon and Sotha were associated with the number seven (time), Ozoth is associated with eight (eternity). Ozoth opens the visionary eye of any person who is content, like Blake, to be materially poor. The passage recalls Blake's remarks to Dr. Trusler in 1799: To the Eyes of a Miser a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun & a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some See Nature all Ridicule & Deformity & by these I shall not regulate my proportions, & some scarce see Nature at all But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is So he Sees. As the Eye is formed such are its Powers That Ozoth also creates vermin is puzzling. The creatures tremble and prostrate themselves before him, and probably they are people whose visions have led them into superstitious awe. Yet the visionary can now see the world with an eye for beauty, and will labor for a better life among the Sons of Los -- Rintrah, Palamabron, Theotormon, and Bromion. Twelve of the Sons of Los and Enitharmon were lost to Urizenism. These remaining Four embrace all humanistic endeavor. All are forms of Orc, but unlike the terrible child, the drive of the Four toward a comfortable and happy world is controlled and directed by Los, prime agent of regeneration. Because Milton is a poem about people as we know them rather than a cosmic chronicle, the Four are very important in our epic. In particular, Rintrah, Palamabron, Theotormon, and Bromion are the enlightened, socially conscious people of Blake's age. We learn from Africa that Rintrah is particularly the genius of the Jewish and Oriental religions, and that Theotormon is associated with Christianity. Palamabron's is the Greek heritage, while Bromion is responsible for the rise of Deism and scientific naturalism. In the later poem, Rintrah is the type of the prophet, Palamabron is the poet or artist, and Bromion is the scientist. In Visions of the Daughters of Albion, Theotormon is the ascetic, joyless Puritan, setting impossible standards of behavior and wondering why he is so miserable. Perhaps we can recognize Theotormon in the moralists and social critics who remain in their societies. Together the Four make up a group, in which Rintrah recalls Urthona, Palamabron Luvah, Theotormon Tharmas, the Bromion Urizen. Rintrah is the person who withdraws from regular affairs of the world in order to speak against evil. He is called "fierce" (M 24:11) because he is every angry person. He is associated with fire and wrath for the same reasons as is Luvah. He is also a sun-hero (29:27) -- the sun is the source of the greatest light received by people, and it is Rintrah who lays the groundwork for his brothers by saying something is wrong. Enitharmon enters the Great Solemn Assembly on Rintrah's arm. She represents mercy following prophetic denunciations, a common theme in Old Testament prophecy as well as in Blake. Palamabron the poet is often paired with Rintrah as his contrary. Since Palamabron is Blake in the Bard's song, it is inviting to think Blake patterned Rintrah on his idealized brother Robert, who is paired with "William" in the illustrations. Palamabron is the moon (7:20; 29:27) reflecting more softly the light of Rintrah's sun, the Harrow that evens out the work of Rintrah's plow. Rintrah and Palamabron are associated with the Two Witnesses of the Bible (M 9:8; 22:55, cf. Rev. 11:7-12). While his elder brother looks dangerous, Palamabron is "mild and piteous" (24:71). He is called Pity while Rintrah is Wrath. In Blake's terminology, pity does not only mean compassion, but may mean beauty, kindness, and cooperation. As prototype of the "Redeemed", Palamabron is the sensitive man whose concerns are with restoring love and beauty but who does not remove himself from the company of people less sensitive than himself. He may speak as a prophet (7:23-4), because the convictions of any just man are prophetic. He puts his trust in God (9:5-6) and hesitates to become angry for fear of being accused of ingratitude (7:11-2). Palamabron the artist is responsible for most of human culture, including everything that is beautiful, but also the errors of dreaming poets -- all false gods and false religions (cf. MHH pl. 11). By Leutha, emanation of Satan, Palamabron becomes the father of Death and Rahab (13:40-1). Furthermore, an artist may be induced by society (Satan) to abandon true art for hack work (the mills of Satan). If the artist is truly inspired, as Blake was at Felpham, traces of genius will remain in the work (the drunken gnomes sing Palamabron's songs), and the results will be unsatisfactory. Theotormon may be modeled on the spirit of John Blake "in a black cloud making his moan", or of William Cowper, who worked in Felpham's mills before Blake. He is "filled with care" (24:12), and is imprisoned like industrial-age humans in his own factories (27:49-54). He works with the Sons of Urizen, forging materials in the mills of Protestant technology. While we do not know much about Theotormon, it is likely that he represents an aspect of Los's personality that became incorporated into the Spectre of Urthona. Bromion "loves science" (24:12). While Blake rejected efforts to explain all phenomena in natural terms, he appreciated the importance of science to human life, seeing it as the basis of all human activity (27:55-63). Theotormon and Bromion, more than the artists and prophets, share Satan's lack of vision. "Terrified" at the myth of "Eternal Death", they contend with Satan against Palamabron and Rintrah (8:30). These four sons of Los, as aspects of Orc, share his limited perspective. Thus, they think Blake intends to destroy their good creations. The spirits of civilization cannot appreciate the coming Last Judgment, the radical change in human vision, and the disappearance of the familiar world. While they recognize Satan (the savage) as their enemy, the Four direct the energies of Orc to secular ends. They are as wary of people like William Blake as they are of Satanic error. Rintrah and Palamabron (and also the other two, as Los later addresses them all together) try to block Milton-Blake's entry into the City of Art. Los delivers two long speeches warning his sons to remember the visionary ideals while thy civilize the world. Los reminds them: We were plac'd here by the Universal Brotherhood & Mercy With powers fitted to circumscribe this dark Satanic death And that the Seven Eyes of God may have space for Redemption. But how this is as yet we know not, and we cannot know; Till Albion is arisen; then patient wait a little while, Six thousand years are passd away the end approaches fast; This mighty one is come from Eden, he is of the Elect, Who died from Earth & he is returnd before the Judgment. This thing Was never known that one of the holy dead should willing return Then patient wait a little while till the Last Vintage is over: Till we have quenched the Sun of Salah in the Lake of Udan Adan O my dear Sons! leave not your Father, as your brethren left me.... You O my Sons still guard round Los. O wander not & leave me Rintrah, thou well rememberest when Amalek & Canaan Fled with their Sister Moab into that abhorred Void They became Nations in our sight beneath the hands of Tirzah. And Palamabron thou rememberest when Joseph an infant; Stolen from his nurses cradle wrapd in needle-work Of emblematic texture, was sold to the Amalekite, Who carried him down into Egypt where Ephraim & Manasseh Gatherd my Sons together in the Sands of Midian And if you also flee away and leave your Fathers side Following Milton into Ulro, altho your power is great Surely you also shall become poor mortal vegetations Beneath the Moon of Ulro: pity then your Fathers tears[.] -- Milton 23:50-24:25 The Sons of Los, like Blake's contemporaries, were not persuaded. So Los spoke. Furious they descended to Bowlahoola & Allamanda Indignant. unconvincd by Los's arguments & thun[d]ers rolling -- Milton 24:44-5 The Four fear Milton-Blake with good reason. Within his body is concealed Milton in his Luvah aspect. Although they cannot realize it, he is already a higher aspect than they. In his life on earth, John Milton had embodied the Sons of Los as a prophet, a poet, a Puritan social critic, and an avid student of the scientific advances of his day. After his death, however, he had realized that he had not understood his unconscious vision, and his work had propagated the errors that cut Humankind off from eternal life. At first Milton's spirit kept Puritanic silence (2:18), wondering whether to try to recover the truth that had inspired his great poetry. He listened as the Bard's song presented the errors of Satan and the dominion of selfishness over the whole natural heart, even the Miltonic virtues. Realizing this, Milton decided to descend to our world ("Generation"). The John Milton who descends is the spirit of the poet who lived on earth, but not the actual Self, who is sleeping the sleep of Albion. The wandering Milton is rather the "Vehicular Form", the manifestation in time and space of the unchanging reality of his personality. The "Vehicular Form" of Urthona is Los. Since the fiery Vehicular Form is associated with Luvah as the Shadow is with Tharmas, a quaternity appears... Humanity ³ ³ ³ ShadowÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄVehicular ³ Form ³ ³ Spectre (Body) ...showing the two as the time and space creations of Truth and Error. And Milton said, I go to Eternal Death! The Nations still Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam; in pomp Of warlike selfhood, contradicting and blaspheming. When will the Resurrection come; to deliver the sleeping body From corruptibility: O when Lord Jesus wilt thou come? Tarry no longer; for my soul lies at the gates of death. I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave. I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks! I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death, Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate And I be seiz'd & giv'n into the hands of my own Selfhood. The Lamb of God is seen thro' mists & shadows, hov'ring Over the sepulchers in clouds of Jehovah & winds of Elohim A disk of blood, distant; & heav'ns & earth's roll dark between What do I here before the Judgment? without my Emanation? With the daughters of memory, & not with the daughters of inspiration? I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil one! He is my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him form my Hells To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death. -- Milton 14:14-32 Milton must return to earth to see whether Christ is rising in people's hearts ("the morning of the grave") and to overcome his errors. As he announces he will descend, Milton removes the "robe of the promise" (14:13). The robe is one of many clothing images in the epic. In every case, the garment is some illusion. The reference here is probably to the robe which was presented to the idolater Jeroboam as promise of his future kingship over Israel. Milton is divesting himself at once of the roles of politician, tyrant, and worshipper of mysteries. The "Gods of Priam" are the idols of war and mystery in our world. Christ is seen only dimly as a blood-red disk, an ambiguous emblem, suitable either for the rising Sun of Life or the Orc-cycle. Separated from his emanation, the visionary truth he had seen only dimly in writing his poetry, Milton cannot be anything more than Satan, an unregenerate "spectre of the dead", and his shadowy life will be annihilated at the Judgment. In searching for his emanation, his "daughters of inspiration", Milton seeks to oust Satanic error from the productive regions of his personality. These are the "furnaces", which can either consume and destroy or make possible the manufacture of works of art. Milton is the only one of the elect who realizes that without a radical change in outlook, he is lost. The poet's encounter with Urizen shows him as Orc and depicts his becoming something more by reconstructing the true image of God. In the depths of the sky, Milton wrestles with Urizen (and the three other Zoas, cf. 40:6). Urizen seeks to petrify Milton as he has frozen all the previous Orcs. The monster baptizes him with Jordan river water (18:8-9). Urizen wants to Hebraize the free Christian, to create in him the illusion of guilt that needs to be washed away. The baptism symbol is particularly helpful here, because, like Christ, Milton has come into the world and is soon to save others through willing self-sacrifice. The poet in turn struggles to create a living form for God out of the red earth (Greek milton) from which Adam had been created. Red covering the white bones of Urizen symbolizes revolution using the traditional colors of rebellion and conservatism. Blake frequently contrasts red and white in the later writings. The full page illustration in which Milton removes his robe shows him as reddish, the robe as white. Yet Milton is a different kind of revolutionary. Instead of burying the worn-out tyrant in the soil, Milton reconstructs for the people of the apocalyptic age the image of the loving heavenly Father. Milton works to restore the humanity of the God of Paradise Lost and thus correct his error. In molding his clay over the dead bones of God, Milton is a creative artist bringing together contraries; in essence Milton is rebuilding his own ideal personality which is the only true God. In the process, the negation must be destroyed. The illustration in which Milton is shown as overthrowing a hoary Urizen-like figure is titled "To Annihilate the Selfhood of Deceit and False Forgiveness". When Rintrah and Palamabron stop Los, Milton, and Blake at the gate of Golgonooza, they do not understand what Milton is doing. They suppose Milton the Puritan rebel only wants to establish the twenty-eighth church of Satan, another phase of organized religion. They say to Los: ....O Father most beloved! O merciful Parent! Pitying and permitting evil, tho strong & mighty to destroy. Whence is this Shadow terrible? wherefore dost thou refuse To throw him into the Furnaces! knowest thou now that he Will unchain Orc? & let loose Satan, Og, Sihon & Anak Upon the Body of Albion? for this he is come! behold it written Upon his fibrous left Foot black! most dismal to our eyes The Shadowy Female shudders thro' heaven in torment inexpressible! And all the Daughters of Los prophetic wail: yet in deceit, They weave a new Religion from new Jealousy of Theotormon! Miltons Religion is the cause: there is no end to destruction! -- Milton 22:29-39 The Sons of Los dread Milton both as the grim Puritan and as the wild religious enthusiast so detested by the enlightened people of Blake's age. The humanists are confronted with an other-worldly fanaticism wholly unlike their earthly idealism. They can only see in the earth-shattering appearance of Milton-Blake a threat to civilization. They are afraid Milton-Blake will restore mystery, savagery, and spiritual isolation. The "new religion" foreshadowed in the writings of Milton is Deism, manufactured from the "Jealousy of Theotormon" (orthodox Christianity). The Sons of Los go on the explain how Milton's image of a remote God led to the religious disasters of the eighteenth century: the appearance of Voltaire and Rousseau, the errors of Swedenborg, Whitefield, and Wesley, and the Deist revolution in France with wholesale destruction of life and culture. The sons of Los conclude: Milton will utterly consume us and thee our beloved Father[.] He hath enterd into the Covering Cherub, becoming one with Albions dread sons, Hand, Hyle & Coban surround him as A girdle; Gwendolyn & Corwenna as a garment woven Of War & Religion; let us descend & bring him chained To Bowlahoola O Father most beloved! O mild Parent! Cruel in thy mildness, pitying and permitting evil Tho strong and mighty to destroy, O Los our beloved Father! -- Milton 23:13-20 Los hesitates, and then explains his act: O noble Sons, be patient yet a little[.] I have embracd the falling Death, he is become One with me O Sons we live not by wrath. by mercy alone we live! I recollect an old Prophecy in Eden recorded in gold; and oft Sung to the harp: That Milton of the land of Albion Should up ascend forward from Felphams Vale & break the Chain Of Jealousy from all its roots; be patient therefore O my Sons.... -- Milton 23:32-8 Milton has devoted himself single-mindedly to bringing in the apocalypse. Humanized by his visionary union with Blake and Los, he will break up the Chain of Jealousy by destroying, through his own example, the error of selfishness by which Love is bound. As a star shooting out of the Urizenic ranks, he has already struck a death-blow to the Covering Cherub, piercing a passageway through the sky to reveal Eternity to all people (21:4 ff.) Milton's descent awakens Blake and all other people to a new view of their world. Albion (Humankind) begins to come to life once more (20:25-6). 5. Urthona: Milton as Christ Then Jesus appeared standing by Albion as the Good Shepherd By the lost Sheep that he hath found & Albion knew that it Was the Lord the Universal Humanity, & Albion saw his Form A man. & they conversd as Man with Man, in Ages of Eternity And the Divine Appearance was the likeness & similitude of Los Albion said. O Lord what can I do! my Selfhood cruel Marches against thee deceitful from Sinai & from Edom Into the Wilderness of Judah to meet thee in his pride I behold the Visions of my deadly Sleep of Six Thousand Years Dazling around thy skirts like a Serpent of precious stones & gold I know it is my Self: O my Divine Creator & Redeemer Jesus replied Fear not Albion unless I die thou canst not live But if I die I shall arise again & thou with me This is Friendship & Brotherhood without it Man is Not So Jesus spoke; the Covering Cherub coming on in darkness Overshadowd them & Jesus said Thus do Men in Eternity One for another to put off by forgiveness, every sin Albion replyd. Cannot Man exist without Mysterious Offering of Self for Another, is this Friendship & Brotherhood I see thee in the likeness and similitude of Los my Friend Jesus said. Wouldest thou love one who never died For thee or ever die for one who had not died for thee And if God dieth not for Man and giveth not himself Eternally for Man Man could not exist! for Man is Love: As God is Love: every kindness to another is a little Death In the Divine Image nor can Man exist but by Brotherhood. So saying the Cloud overshadowing divided them asunder Albion stood in terror: not for himself but for his Friend Divine, & Self was lost in the contemplation of faith And wonder at the Divine Mercy & at Los's sublime honour Do I sleep admist danger to Friends! O my Cities & Counties Do you sleep! rowze up. Eternal Death is abroad So Albion spoke & threw himself into the Furnaces of affliction. All was a vision, all a Dream: the Furnaces became Fountains of Living Waters flowing from the Humanity Divine And all the Cities of Albion rose from their slumbers, and All The Sons & Daughters of Albion on soft clouds Waking from Sleep. -- Jerusalem 96:3-39 The power which in our world grants visions is Los, the imagination. In Eden this power as Urthona forges the tools of mental combat and creation. After the fall into matter, Los's forging reshapes the world as a tool for the visionary consciousness. Because the natural world left to itself would collapse, Los's first task is to set a limit to the fall. Thus Los creates the elements of human experience -- time, matter, and the present form of human beings. Blake describes this in terms of the creation of the organs of perception. The second task of Los and his family is keeping chaos from overwhelming the world. Los protects his creatures from the unthinking outbursts of the rebel Orc as well from Urizenic darkness. Thus Los chains his first son, to keep him from remaining forever in a childish dreamland (Innocence) or destroying the creations of Los in war (the basic activity of the state of Experience). The "Chain of Jealousy" is Blake's metaphor for the social contract that links all people to each other to restrain the violence of the natural heart. This aspect of imaginative activity that Blake later assigned to the Spectre of Urthona, the reality principle that restrains childish passion and enables people to exercise good judgment in everyday matters. When Los begins laboring in The Four Zoas, his world is a sea of matter, like today's chaoses beyond the sky (outer space). The third task of Los, then, is to form the things in the familiar world so that progression upward may occur. These may be negations as well as contraries -- Los hammers all things into form to prepare for the Last Judgment. He supervises and records all events (M 22:15-25), and writes the history of the world in blood (27:8-10). He is called Time by Blake, but we might call him the all-creating God Who rules the world and Who shows people that their choice lies between radical new vision and annihilation [8]. In all these ways, Los recalls Milton's poetic interpretation of Christ. If Los can induce a person to set aside the naturalistic, self-centered perspective, that person will begin to realize the fourth phase of Los's redemptive activity, one which John Milton never imagined. Los, who creates the senses of fallen humanity, transforms the world of time and space into the image of Eternity by means of vision. Before the eyes of people like Blake, the whole world is alive: Thou seest the Constellations in the deep & wondrous Night They rise in order and continue their immortal courses Upon the mountains & in vales with harp & heavenly song With flute & clarion; with cups & measures filld with foaming wine. Glittring the streams reflect the Vision of beatitude, And the calm Ocean joys beneath & smooths his awful waves! These are the Sons of Los, & these the Labourers of the Vintage Thou seest the gorgeous clothed Flies that dance & sport in summer Upon the sunny brooks & meadows: every one the dance Knows in its intricate mazes of delight artful to weave: Each one to the wound his instruments of music in the dance, To touch each other & recede; to cross & change & return These are the Children of Los; thou seest the Trees on mountains The wind blows heavy, loud they thunder thro' the darksom sky Uttering prophecies & speaking instructive words to the sons Of men: These are the Sons of Los! These the Visions of Eternity But we see only as it were the hem of their garments When with our vegetable eyes we view these wond'rous Visions. -- Milton 25:66-26:12 The butterflies perform a ballet, Urizen's stars celebrate life, and the trees utter prophecies. To the eyes of the visionary artist, everything is beautiful and meaningful. A suitably disciplined visionary can preserve this enhanced perception in a material medium, transforming it into an artistic creation under the guiding spirit of Los, the Universal Artist. The artist opens people's eyes to the eternal images behind the natural world, and thus makes them see things in their true glory. Los the artist often comes to stand for Blake himself, even in such details as his red hair. As such, he has doubts and moments of indecision and even makes mistakes, such as allowing Palamabron-Blake and Satan-Hayley to exchange roles. Los hears the apocalyptic song of Ololon "as the poor bird within the shell / Hears its impatient parent bird". Working in the enclosed world of time and space, Los cannot see what is happening in Eternity, and at first tries to restrain Milton as he has restrained the previous Orcs, shooting out his limbs like the "roots of trees" (17:34-6, an old symbol of the Chain of Jealousy). Los's placing of the sandal on his head as a sign of the fall (8:11-2) contrasts with Blake's tying of his sandal on his foot during the vision of redemption. It is only after a time of despair that Los recalls an "Old Prophecy" (a truth known only to visionaries) and knows that Milton's descent is apocalyptic instead of merely destructive (21:1). Luvah-Orc and his manifestations look to political revolution, refined culture, social service, or science as means of restoring human happiness. Milton-Blake and Los prepare instead for the true revolution -- that of human perception itself. Whether a person is made to love and forgive by a glimpse of the world of Los in a work of art, in the beauty of nature, in a scientific exhibition, or by just being showed by a prophet the consequences of his selfish attitude, that person's regeneration is effected by the work of Los. It is by means of the Bard's inspired song that John Milton realizes the seriousness of his errors, and chooses to correct them by his self-sacrifice. By becoming united with Los and taken to Golgonooza, he will be able to realize the truth that is the essence of poetry. Blake's meeting with Milton revealed Eternity to the younger poet. He saw the heavens cracking, and then the world itself became only a sandal. Blake was then ready to identify himself with Los and experience the vision of nature in transformation (the City of Art). Milton's revolutionary form, concealed within Blake, was called Satanic by the Sons of Los, but he passed with Blake into the realms of vision. As source of all creative possibility, Los is the "Puer Eternus" of Jung and alchemy [9], and is portrayed by Blake has having eternal youth. Los's role as a blacksmith might be archetypal; some students of symbolism find that "the blacksmith is equivalent to the accursed poet and the despised prophet" [10]. Similarly, Los as a plowman (8:20, etc.) awakes the creative seed hidden in the earth. When Los is upset or unsure of himself, a storm arises (8:27-8; 23:21-31): Jehovah rains prophetic tears, lightnings of anger flash, and the thunder speaks. A brighter symbol is the sun, which Los shares with Rintrah. As giver of light, it is essential to human vision, and Blake must also have thought of how all creatures depend on the sun for life, warmth, and direction. In contrast to the false "gods" of the heathen (37:20-34), there are in Blake's Eternity seven real spirits of Divinity. These are the seven "Eyes of God", sent in succession by the Divine Family to guard the world. The name derives from the Biblical Apocalypse, but Blake has reinterpreted the symbolism. Satan ("organized religion") claims them for his own (38:54-8), but they sound their trumpets (39:3-9, cf. Rev. 8:2) and call on Albion (Humankind) to awake. We learn that Los was placed on earth "that the Eyes might have space for redemption" (23:52). The Seven are also connected with a mysterious Eighth Eye, identified with Milton himself. Blake's way of using language might lead us to think that "Eyes of God" may mean "ways people have had of looking at God". The suggestion works. Blake seems to be describing a historical succession of people's concepts of divinity. The Seven are: 1. Lucifer. The "Prince of Light", the fallen Day Star (Isaiah 14:12), thus an aspect of Urizen. Christian tradition identified him with Satan, who is also identified by Blake with the elemental spirits of animism. Thus primitive man's first conception of the Divine is the powers supposedly at work in nature. The first image of "God" is nature itself, called by Blake the devil. 2. Moloch. Named literally "King", this Ammonite war spirit, at once an idol and a furnace, received child sacrifices. People have come at this stage to view God as a personal being who is as cruel as greedy as ourselves. But they at least see Him as personal. The "thick fires" of Moloch are lightning and probably represent selfish anger (8:27-8). 3. Triple Elohim. Elohim is the name, grammatically a plural, used for the Israelite God in the later strata of the Old Testament. This name is used in the first chapter of Genesis for the Creator, and under this Eye the human body and senses took their present form. 4. Shaddai, literally "Almighty", is a rare name for the Old Testament God, as is... 5. Pahad, literally "Terror". Blake does not tell us enough about these Eyes for us to be confident about what they mean. 6. Jehovah. The most familiar name of the Hebrew God. The name was, according to one version, revealed at Sinai during the giving of the Law. God is now seen as a lawgiver in the sky, but one that dispenses mercy and makes covenants with people. His "rain" is probably the prophets' pity (8:27-8), in contrast to Moloch's rage. His wind, a symbol of prophecy, disperses doubt (23:31). Many of the laws of the Old Testament concern "leprosy", a skin disease which Blake equated with Albion's disease of sexual shame (J 43:64). Blake wrote that Jehovah is a spirit of guilt and punishment and is infected with his own spiritual disease (13:24). 7. Jesus. Christ appears in two different aspects in Milton -- as the Seventh Eye, and as the essence of the Eight. In either case, He is Divinity as He reveals Himself to people today. Blake explained that Jesus "was all virtue and acted from impulse not from rules" (MHH pl. 22), and He preached the forgiveness of sin, condemned the self-righteous Pharisees, and allowed Himself to be sacrificed for others as a "reprobate" (13:27). Thus the living Christ was the "image of the invisible God" (2:12), as well as "the likeness and similitude of... Los" (J 96:7), i.e., the Blakean prophet. He is the Divine Vision (22:2), the opposite of the False Tongue. As the preacher of apocalyptic love and rebel against Satanic law, Christ is identified with the unfallen Luvah. The rebel that can rise out of the errors that keep him bound to earth will enter the same state. The Christianity that superseded ancient Israel's religion was an improvement, but did not end fallen history. Christ was seen as an external Being, a distant God, not as the Godhead within each human being. While in Eden He is the form assumed by the Divine Family (21:37-42), on earth Christ appears even at the apocalypse only "in the clouds of Ololon", concealed by the limits of revelation. Christ thus appears above the spectres as the ambiguous disk of blood behind clouds and winds. In creating the world (Canaan, the Promised Land) for the Seven Eyes to develop, Los constructed a subject-object realm in which the concept of divinity could be reconstructed, culminating in the experience of Jesus. The Eighth Eye, which awakens when Albion begins to stir, is the only idea of the Supreme Being that will remain after the Last Judgment. This Eye is the awakened Humanity, typified by John Milton. This fourth aspect of the poet has been asleep in Eden (heaven) since, presumably, the fall of Albion. Blake believed, according to his Felpham letters, that each person was represented by an overself, or "humanity" living in heaven. In the first lines of The Gates of Paradise he states that each of these re-enacts the fall of Humankind. The Seven Eyes strengthen the wandering Vehicular Form with perceptions of the sleeping Humanity, equated with the essence of every person (the "Satan" or M 39:18). As Milton works at rehumanizing Urizen and enters the world of Los, the sleeping form begins to move (20:13), and appears fully awake in the East in Blake's apocalyptic vision. And Milton collecting all his fibres into impregnable strength Descended down a Paved work of all kinds of precious stones Out from the eastern sky; descending down into my Cottage Garden: clothed in black, severe & silent he descended. -- Milton 38:5-8 This final aspect of the poet is the final Orc, the prophet who has passed beyond the temptations of selfishness. As he renounces Satan, he summarizes the theme of the epic: Satan! my Spectre! I know my power thee to annihilate And be a greater in thy place, & be thy Tabernacle A covering for thee to do thy will, till one greater comes And smites me as I smote thee & becomes my covering. Such are the Laws of thy false Heavns! but Laws of Eternity Are not such: know thou: I come to Self Annihilation Such are the Laws of Eternity that each shall mutually Annihilate himself for others good, as I for thee[.] Thy purpose & the purpose of thy Priests & of thy Churches Is to impress on men the fear of death; to teach Trembling & fear, terror, constriction; abject selfishness Mine is to teach Men to despise death & to go on In fearless majesty annihilating Self, laughing to scorn Thy Laws & terrors, shaking down thy Synagogues as webs I come to discover before Heavn & Hell the Self righteousness In all its Hypocritic turpitude, opening to every eye These wonders of Satans holiness showing to the Earth The Idol Virtues of the Natural Heart, & Satans Seat Explore in all its Selfish Natural Virtue & put off In Self annihilation all that is not of God alone: To put off Self & all I have ever & ever Amen -- Milton 38:29-49 6. Milton's Emanations And the Divine Voice was heard in the Songs of Beulah Saying When I first Married you, I gave you all my whole Soul I thought that you would love my loves & joy in my delights Seeking for pleasures in my pleasures O daughter of Babylon Then thou wast lovely, mild & gentle. now thou art terrible In jealousy & unlovely in my sight, because thou hast cruelly Cut off my loves in fury till I have no love left for thee Thy love depends on him thou lovest & on his dear loves Depend thy pleasures which thou hast cut off by jealousy Therefore I shew my Jealousy & set before you Death. Behold Milton descending to Redeem the Female Shade From Death Eternal; such is your lot, to be continually Redeem'd By Death & misery of those you love & by Annihilation When the Sixfold Female perceives that Milton annihilates Himself: that seeing all his loves by her cut off: he leaves Her also: intirely abstracting himself from Female loves She shall relent in fear of death: She shall begin to give Her maidens to her husband: delighting in his delight And then & then alone begins the happy Female joy As it is done in Beulah, & thou O Virgin Babylon Mother of Whoredoms Shalt bring Jerusalem in thine arms in the night watches; and No longer turning her a wandering Harlot in the streets Shalt give her into the arms of God your Lord & Husband. Such are the Songs of Beulah in the Lamentations of Ololon. -- Milton 33:1-24 So far we have seen that Blake's character Milton is really four different characters. One is a picture of the gloomy Puritan in his retirement, a miniature Urizen. Another is "Milton's Shadow", his old way of looking at our world, identified with the Covering Cherub. The third figure, who descended to Blake to bring vision to all people, is a heroic rebel and related to Luvah-Orc. The fourth, Milton's Humanity, appears at the end as a prophet who talks like Blake and Los and an image of the perfect human being. All four are named "Milton". The main female characters can all be seen as a single character, "Milton's emanation", though this is not very useful in reading the whole poem. All of the women who play active roles in the poem -- Leutha, Elynittria, Enitharmon, Rahab, Tirzah and her sisters, and the "multitudes of Ololon" -- represent Milton-Satan's varying mental constructions, especially his religious beliefs. Since the word "emanation" implies an evanescent thing arising from something more substantial, the term is quite appropriate in Blake's system. The emanation has no independent existence in Blake's Eden, but the subject-object distinction is basic to Beulah and to the error that causes the fall. The two familiar time-and-space names of the emanation who produced the original sleep of Humankind are Rahab and Tirzah. Tirzah, daughter of Rahab, is one of five sisters, the "daughters of Zelophehad", and usually stands for all five when Rahab is not representing the six together. In the Old Testament, a harlot and a huge sea monster are both named "Rahab". "Tirzah", another Old Testament name, is one of the daughters of Zelophehad, daughters who inherited as if they were sons, and one capital of idolatrous Israel. In Eternity, Rahab and Tirzah are Vala, natural beauty. In our world, Rahab, as Vala's Shadow, is the religion of error, natural religion. Especially she is Deism and the idea of a natural world left to run by itself. Thus she created Voltaire (M 22:41), and holds dominion over the warlike "male-female" churches (37:43). Her symbols are the veil of obscurity and mystery, and the cup, which combines ideas of mystery, femininity, and human sacrifice. Rahab represents the error itself. Tirzah is the world of error, the tyrannical and cruel Mother Nature. In antiquity she was contained in the idolatrous women of Amalek, Canaan, and Moab (24:14-5). In the eighteenth century she created the primitivists like Rousseau (22:41), and in general she heads the animistic "male-female" churches. Tirzah, as Mother Nature, weaves the fabric of life on a spindle (M pl. 7, erased line). Her special symbol is the moon, generally a female symbol connected with the menstrual cycle, water (because of the tides), and the passive, reflective role that women play in a patriarchy. Tirzah is the "Moon of Ulro" (24:25). Rahab and Tirzah are the natural errors that confront John Milton as he struggles to recreate his image of God and avoid merely becoming part of history. Rahab and her family tempt Milton with the things that had bound him to their world during his life. The temptation scene closely recalls Paradise Regained. In John Milton's own poem, Satan tempts Christ to become less than He can by offering him the roles of prophet, priest, and king of a secularized world [11]. Rahab and Tirzah invite Blake's Milton, not to do outright evil, but to become less than he could by accepting their limited perspective. William Blake considered royalty, priesthood, and prophecy to be possessions of every person willing to develop the visionary powers. For Blake, the living John Milton had enacted spectrous versions of all these roles. The senior poet was a Puritan and an admirer of the Old Testament patriarchy (false priest), he had been a Hebraist and a Classicist and advanced wrong views in his art (false prophet-poet), and he had gotten involved in bloody secular politics under Cromwell (false king). The wandering John Milton could do all three again -- he is imitating the patriarch Jacob by wrestling Urizen, he is being baptized by the classically-minded Urizen with Jordan river water, and he is about to appear as a new Orc. The Man and Demon [Urizen] 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, The Twofold form Hermaphroditic: and the Double-sexed The Female-male & the Male-Female, self-dividing stood Before him in their beauty, & in cruelties of holiness! Shining in darkness, glorious upon the deeps of Entuthon. Saying. Come thou to Ephraim! behold the Kings of Canaan! The beautiful Amalekites, behold the fires of youth Bound with the Chain of Jealousy by Los & Enitharmon; The banks of Cam: cold learnings streams: Londons dark-frowning towers, Lament upon the winds of Europe in Rephaims Vale. Because Ahania rent apart into a desolate night, Laments! & Enion wanders like a weeping inarticulate voice And Vala labours for her bread & water among the furnaces 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 embalmed, 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 Two but yet one: each in the other sweet reflected! these Are our Three Heavens beneath the shades of Beulah, land of rest! Come then to Ephraim & Manasseh O beloved-one! Come to my ivory palaces O beloved of thy mother! And let us bind thee in the bands of War and be thou King Of Canaan and reign in Hazor where the Twelve Tribes meet. -- Milton 19:27-20:6 John Milton is invited to become "King of Canaan", to rule our world as Rahab and Tirzah show it to him. They prophesy the new age of materalism, and describe the spirit of the times. The natural desires of youth, they sing, are being frustrated needlessly by the old world order of the Christian visionaries. The intellectual life of the Universities is no longer necessary. People are learning to look on the pleasures of the mind (Ahania), love (Enion), and natural beauty (Vala) as merely phenomena of Nature, part of the bloody struggle for existence. Deism and other philosophies based on natural science are now popular, and the things of the spirit (Jerusalem) are analyzed and dismissed by scientists holding the naturalistic point of view (Tirzah). Soldiers (and Blake remembers Scofield) are born only to be killed in wars among cynical tyrants. And Christ's promised return has never happened. Rahab and Tirzah call to the world to put off superstition and discard belief in everything spiritual. Humankind is truly nothing but physical matter -- brains, hearts, sex. The person who recognizes this can tyrannize everyone else and be the new prophet, priest, and king of the coming scientific age [12]. Rahab and Tirzah are forms of the fallen Vala. Blake's Leutha clearly recalls Ahania, and is associated with the Urnizenic Antamon (Europe, Plate 14), Bromion (Four Zoas 115:7), and Satan, as well as Milton's character Sin. In Milton, she represents the feelings and ideals of Satan-Hayley and of other reasoners. Leutha is the beauty and delight that exist in order, structure, and thought. In the biographical allegory, Leutha is the Augustan Age's muse, whose special gift was the pleasures of the intellect, science, and "right reason". Satan's love of these good things caused his fall. Leutha tells the story. Descending as a butterfly into the midst of the "Great Solemn Assembly" in Palamabron's tent (the cottage at Felpham), she alights on the "golden floor" of Palamabron-Blake (his brain, 11:34) and explains how she led Satan-Hayley to attempt a task for which he was unfit. Her story is on one level an event in cosmic history, but it just as interesting as Blake's thoughts about decent, reasonable people like Hayley who want to write poetry, too. Leutha begins: I loved Palamabron & I sought to approach his Tent, But beautiful Elynittria with her silver arrows repelld me. For her light is terrible to me. I fade before her immortal beauty. O wherefore doth a Dragon-form forth issue from my limbs To seize her new born son? Ah me! the wretched Leutha! -- Milton 11:37-12:3 The emanations are the vehicles by which two male principles interact with one another. Hayley loved poets and poetry, and thought of becoming a poet himself. He had no talent, and Blake called his patron's poetic efforts "primitive tyrannical attempts on Los" (M 7:5). Hayley's works could not compare with those of an inspired genius like Blake, but were obscured by Blake's as a star disappears in the bright moonlight (the mighty silver arrows of Elynittria, moon-maiden and emanation of Palamabron-Blake). This, Blake believed, had made Hayley jealous of him; the new-born son of Elynittria, which is attacked by Leutha's dragon (cf. Revelation 12:4), may be any important production of Blake's, or of any other "inspired genius". So, Blake thought, the good-natured Hayley came to hate art. Leutha saw that Hayley's jealousy was dangerous, and she made him react against his own unrealized emotions. This to prevent, entering the doors of Satans brain night after night Like sweet perfumes I stupified the masculine perceptions And kept only the feminine awake. hence rose his soft Delusory love to Palamabron: admiration join'd with envy Cupidity unconquerable! -- Milton 12:4-10 Admiration and envy are feminine perceptions because they are passive and ignore the essential unity of all life. Leutha forgot that "every man's genius is particular to his own individuality". Putting her faith in the abstract principles of kindness, she made Satan feel he was doing Palamabron a good turn by assisting with the harrowing. Hayley decided that he wanted to be an artist like the people he patronized, and to work under the inspiration of Leutha. A mechanic seizing the production of art is very wrong, Blake knew. Palamabron's task is the dissemination of ideas and beauty; in Blake as in Shelley, the poet is the "legislator of the world". When his task was taken over by a demon whose province is mathematical formulae and the dull necessities of life, it spoiled everything. Satan was incapable of operating the poet's harrow properly, and in his hands it became a dangerous machine run wild. Elynittria knows how to let the horses move freely. Leutha in fear tightened the reins, only to find that the "fires of genius" seemed to be "torment and insanity". Trying regain control of the power of the harrow, Leutha formed the constricting Covering Cherub (12:38-9). On one biographical level, Satan and Leutha generate the sentimental, restrained art of the Augustan Age. In the cosmic drama, Satan's frolic began the production of spectrous art, an imitation by the Selfhood of the things in Eden reflecting and consolidating Satan's errors. Several illustrations of spectrous art have been noted so far. We have seen that the Selfhood possesses its own version of the Divine Vision (the False Tongue), of the life principle (the Covering Cherub), of prophets (the dismal Shadows), or creative conflict (war), of love (jealousy), of the fellowship of human beings (the chain of jealousy), and of the loving heavenly father (Urizen, Nobodaddy). Urthona's angry gnomes soon refuse to cooperate with Leutha and Satan. They prophetically denounced Leutha as "sin", the seductress who had separated people from God (12:38-9). At the end of the day, the fall of Satan is completed: For Elynittria met Satan with all her singing women. Terrified in their joy & pouring wine of wildest power They gave Satan their wine: indignant at the burning wrath. Wild with prophetic fury his former life became like a dream Cloth'd in the Serpents folds, in selfish holiness demanding purity Being most impure, self-condemn'd to eternal tears, he drove Me from his inmost Brain & the doors clos'd with thunders sound O Divine Vision who didst create the Female; to repose The Sleepers of Beulah: pity the repentant Leutha. My Sick Couch bears the dark shades of Eternal Death infolding The Spectre of Satan. he furious refuses to repose in sleep. I humbly bow in all my Sin before the Throne Divine. Not so the Sick-one; Alas, what shall be done to restore? Who calls the Individual Law, Holy: and despises the Savior. Glorying to involve Albions Body in fires of eternal War -- Now Leutha ceas'd: tears flow'd: but the Divine Pity supported her. -- Milton 12:42-13:7 Elynittria is the poet's emanation, and as such she is the perspective of a poet, the things that keep him in mind of what his art should be, and the joys and relaxations of poetry, as well as the guardian of poetic fury. She is Palamabron-Blake's muse. Her wine is the archetypal beverage of inspired poets: [Wine is] an ambivalent symbol like the God Dionysus. On the one hand, red wine symbolizes blood and sacrifice. On the other, wine symbolizes youth and eternal life, hence the sacred drunkenness of the poets... which permits the man to participate in the mode of being attributed to the gods [13]. Blake may have intended the "Wine of the Almighty" to represent the power of prophecy which enlightens the poet's work. Once he had taken the drug, Satan stops posing as the gregarious, good-natured poet and became instead an angry, self-righteous fool. In "prophetic fury" he casts out Leutha and destroyed the link between himself and the rest of the visionary company. Leutha bewails the situation: All is my fault! We are the Spectre of Luvah the murderer Of Albion: O Vala! O Luvah! O Albion! O Lovely Jerusalem The Sin was begun in Eternity, and will not rest to Eternity Till two Eternitys meet together, Ah! lost! lost! lost! forever! -- Milton 13:8-11 This is the voice of Satan's emanation, the highest ideals of which the natural heart is capable. Her symbols -- the rainbow (11:33), the moth (11:33), and perfume (12:5) -- all evoke her insubstantial beauty. Leutha sees no hope in the situation beyond offering herself as a "ransom" for Satan (11:20). She believes in vengeance for sin, and, after hiding in Canaan (our world), she becomes Palamabron's mistress and the mother of Rahab (fallen religion, produced when poets have visions only of the natural world). Blake unites aspects of the other emanations in the character of Ololon. Ololon is Milton's religion, the way in which the Divine is understood by the man. She may either be the Sixfold Female (Rahab and her daughters, the near-atheism which Blake found in Milton's thought and poetry), or be Milton's true inspiration. As the latter, she is the muse Urania who enabled him to write his great poetry. She is his revolutionary thought, his hatred of tyranny, his insistence on the worth and integrity of individuals, his belief in poets as inspired prophets, his passion for righteousness and intellectual inquiry. Through Ololon-Urania, Paradise Lost received its true meaning even though it was "unconscious". Blake's reason for including both the true emanation and the false one in the same character is made clear in a climactic speech of Ololon's: Are those who contemn Religion & seek to annihilate it Become in their Femin[in]e portions the causes & promoters Of these religions, how is this thing? this Newtonian Phantasm This Voltaire & Rousseau: this Hume & Gibbon & Bolingbroke This Natural Religion! this impossible absurdity Is Ololon the cause of this? O where shall I hide my face -- Milton 40:9-14 In Blake's analysis, the Deist rejection of orthodox Christianity only substituted one mystery (the remote Creator) for another (the arbitrary tyrannical God). Both Ololons are the enemies of orthodoxy and represent membership in the "devil's party". The Sixfold Female who inspired Deism merely substituted a grosser error, but the true emanation built the pathway back to Eden by granting vision. We first meet Ololon as members of the Divine Family who live on the shores of a river of "milk and liquid pearl". These Eternals did not hear the Bard