|
William Blake - The Book of Urizen
This is the web version of my MA Thesis
|
William Blake
- The Book of Urizen -
Table of Contents
Introduction & Acknowledgement
» I. Introducing William Blake
» II. Major Influences
The
Romantic period
» III. The Book of Urizen
The Chapters
Preludium
» Appendix:
W.B. - The Book of Urizen
» Bibliography
» List
of Plates
+ MS Word verison [« read it ]
Want to know more?
» read more Hermetic writings
» and visit the Library
|
[« previous ] |
|
Chapter III. - The Book of Urizen
The years 1793 and
1794 mark a crisis for William Blake and the group of radicals with
whom he was associated. The September Massacres in 1792, and the execution
of the King and Queen in 1793, followed by the Terror, made those
whose support for the Revolution was combined with humanitarianism
gradually change their views. Further, the reaction of Pitt's government
to the new development in France led to a violent repression of all
radicalism in England. Some, like Thomas Paine, fled to France; others
were brought to trial, and though Holcroft escaped conviction, many
of his friends were less fortunate and were condemned to deportation.
The intellectual members of the group found various solutions to the
disillusionment which they felt at the failure of the hopes they had
placed in the Revolution and the breaking up of their movement. Mary
Wollstonecraft devoted herself to propaganda against social evils
and the battle for the rights of women, and Godwin spent the rest
of his life in pure speculation and the creation of anarchist Utopias
(» 1).
Blake's solution was
in many ways similar to Godwin's. He foreswore political activity
and turned inward toward "mental strife", seeking a philosophical
and religious solution to the problems of the universe rather than
aiming at the immediate improvement of man's state on earth. He gave
his most moving expression to this reincarnation of his belief in
revolutionary activity in "The Grey Monk", written
some years later:
But vain the
Sword & vain the Bow
They never can work War's overthrow.
The Hermit's Prayer & the Widow's tear
Alone can free the world from fear.
For a Tear is an Intellectual Thing.
An a Sigh is the Sword of an Angel King,
And the bitter groan of a Martyr's woe
Is an Arrow from the Almighty's Bow. |
But this solution was
not to be found all in a moment, and for the next five years Blake
was to plunge into a despair from which he only slowly emerged after
1800, as he gradually discovered a final, mystical solution to his
problem. The poems, which he produced during these years, called the Lambeth Books from his new place
of residence, are the darkest and gloomiest in the whole range of
his work, both in their text and their illustration.
Blake's bitter awareness
of the evil of the world led him to a dualist belief which insisted
on the existence of an original force of evil, which he called URIZEN (» 2).
The name "Urizen" comes from the Greek oriezein,
"to fix a limit" and is identified with the Jehovah (IHVH)
of the Old Testament by Blake in opposition to Jesus of the New Testament,
whom he identified with the force of good. This basic opposition he
extended by adding to Urizen-Jehovah the attributes of reason, restraint,
and law, as opposed to imagination, freedom, and love for one's neighbour,
which he associated with Christ.
The [First] Book of
Urizen is known in seven copies, containing from 24 to 28 plates plus
some scattered plates – including the title page and ten full-page
designs. The first copy was published in 1794. As in the Bible, the
text is divided into two columns and set out in chapters and verses.
Designs are chiefly restricted to blocks at top or bottom of the page,
often however filling more than half the page and dominating it. The
figures are often gruesome: a crouching skeleton, for example, or
the blind Urizen opening his book of corruption. Earth, air, fire,
and water become elements of oppression and death. Only a few of the
designs are lighter and more hopeful. Blake's theme now is not the
overthrow of tyranny, but a horrified fascination with its origin.
The Book of Urizen – written in a rough anapaestic trimeter (» 3)–
is Blake's Genesis, and the core of his Bible of Hell, re-shaping
the Fall and the Creation of the physical universe. It is also the
locus for his mythology in 'A Song of Liberty', America, Europe,
The Song of Los, The Book of Ahania and The Book of Los,
all of which rest on the ideas presented in this poem. Urizen,
like Milton's Satan, was an angel enjoying the immoral life, though
among democracy of immortals. He is not cast out for rebellion against
law, but separates himself by demanding that Law be established. Los,
the immortal artist, emerges to define, clarify and make sense of
the disaster, by the power of imagination. Blake works in many more
allusions. Los becomes Adam, and Enitharmon his Eve. Orc is born to
her, like Cain, but also the Serpent.
The storyline of the
poem is as follows: Urizen – a god of Reason who separates himself
from other Eternals, demands obedience to his self-proclaimed principles,
and falls into Chaos – is an abstract, vain and punitive deity.
A body is created for him by Los, 'the eternal prophet' or Divine
Imagination. But Los, exhausted, divides into male (Los) and female
(Enitharmon). Their child Orc – who represents Rebellious Energy
– is born but immediately chained to a rock. Urizen then explores
his deadly world, and mankind shrinks up from Eternity. Finally, some
of Urizen's children begin an exodus.
It is important to
note that for Blake the Creation and the Fall are one event. This
event occurs in stages, each of which shows unity lapsing into duality
and spiritual energy lapsing into material passivity. Humanity as
we know appears only at the very end of a long cataclysmic process,
and is – from the point of view of Eternity – almost wholly
pathetic. In Urizen, Apocalypse is genesis; creation is fall
– conflations that obviously clash with the logical flow of
the biblical (and Miltonic) hexameral paradigm. Urizen, at the centre
of both binaries, additionally confounds the reader who expects a
Manichean division of good and evil in the characters. (» 4)
Understanding the text thus must necessarily be a recursive act. Urizen cannot be read – it can only be re-read. Yet, a distinct temporal
progression does characterize the events of Urizen. The narrator's
response to the muse-like Eternals "I hear your call gladly,/
Dictate swift winged words" [Prel:5-6] (» 5)
suggests that the process of composition proceeds in a continuous
(hence linear) manner. Structurally the book also evinces a recognizable
architecture: the title page submits to the preludium,
which precedes sequential chapters, each subdivided and numbered.
Fibres and chains,
webs and nets: Blake's illuminated poetry is replete with objects
that snag and bind. Nearly every character in The Book of Urizen is
caught up in something; Los nets and binds Urizen [8:6], Enitharmon
and Urizen chain Orc [20:20]; the Web of Religion enmeshes all [25:20].
The reader, too, finds navigation difficult; the collapsed temporal
framework of Blake's cosmogony thwarts the linear, easy read. This
dialectic between bookish linearity and conceptual chaos is not, of
course, abnormal in Blake, a writer who fuels his works with the friction
of opposition. But the tension between linearity and non-sequentiality
(or multi-sequentiality) in the text of Urizen is exacerbated by the
illustrations, all of which deny interpretation as mere portrayals
of the textual narration. Not all the plates, for example, depict
scenes mentioned in (or even suggested by) the text itself. (The title
page is a good example of this. Urizen as writer of course is a major
theme in The Four Zoas, though it is only alluded to in Urizen.)
The most obvious subversion
of order is the fact – as W.J.T. Mitchell has
noted – that ten of the plates are full-page illustrations and
that their order is different in each of the seven extant copies of Urizen. Mitchell sees this "atemporal, antisequential
quality" as a "deliberate formal device, a way of augmenting
the anti-narrative elements disclosed by the text." (» 6)
And yet, again, the book maintains a certain fixity: the title
page, preludium, and (most of) the textual plates follow in the
same basic sequential order in all copies of the poem. So, it seems
that linearity in Blake's Urizen inheres neither in the text
nor in the images but rather in the format of the book itself. This
tension is a function of a narrative constrained by its own materiality.
No one knows for sure
how to proceed through The Book of Urizen. That is, none
of the seven extant copies of the illuminated books is composed of
plates arranged in the same order. At this most basic level there
is a sense that Blake toyed around with the meaning of linear progression
through his textual picture book. It inheres in multiplicity, for
the various and tangled narrative lines in Urizen can bewilder
the reader and stymie the sense of a logical flow. Commenting on the
motif of the "Fibrous form" (one of many kinds of organic
filaments in Blake's poem), Mitchell notes that the "temporal
manifestation of this form is the structure of intricate, labyrinthine
interplay between various narrative lines, and the feeling that our
movement through the poem is like watching the uncontrolled growth
of a cancer, an explosive series of mitoses, divisions, and subdivisions,
or the proliferation of genealogical ‘branches' from a single
root." (» 7)
The narrative lines
in Urizen – of the Eternals, of Urizen, of Los, and of Enitharmon
– do not merge into a singularly definable narrative "trunk";
they are rather separate and discrete (though they do intersect).
In a word, Urizen is multi-linear. One "storyline" constructs
Urizen as the God of creation whose "Words articulate" "rolled
on the tops of his mountains"[4:4-5]; another fashions a demonic,
fallen Urizen, "Unseen in tormenting passions;/ An activity
unknown and horrible;/ A self-contemplating shadow"; another
depicts Urizen as the Adamic first human "rent from Eternity,"
a "clod of clay" [6:8-10]. Navigating these lines requires
surrendering the very notion of line, for to follow a particular line
to its end is to be led astray, or not to be led anywhere. Only by
moving associatively through the forest of signification can sense
be constructed. The figure of Urizen (and the other polymorphous characters)
literally is the intersection of these storylines, a kind of node
moving among the bifurcating elements of the narrative.
Nelson Hilton believes that Blake was aware of textual accordioning to the extent
that his word "fold" is a self-conscious referent. Hilton
describes the spatializing feat that the reader must execute in trying
to manoeuvre the narrative lines of Urizen: "To stave
off the madness of proliferating extensions and regression, we "chunk,"
or shrink, together the levels not directly before us... As words
have no direct relation to things, so the "chunks" of image,
belief, perception, and so on have no direct relation to reality;
perception becomes a localized function of past and present environment."
(» 8)
Reality here corresponds to the material artefact that is the book
of Urizen. Perceptually we distort the neat physical lines of the
book; we crumple them together in order to perform the most basic
readerly task of understanding the poem. We must effect a stasis like
Urizen in plate six, one that
cuts across the lines of signification, rather than hanging ourselves
in them like the figures in the next plate. As the agents of the perception,
we readers stand at the centre of a tangle of lines, echoing Urizen
caught in the Web of Religion.
Top
Footnotes:
-
(1) Blunt, Anthony - The Art of William Blake.
[New York: Columbia University Press, 1963.] (Chpt. IV.: The First
Illuminated Books). (p. 59.)
-
(2)
The name "Urizen" was pronounced by Blake with primary
stress on the first syllable (not on the second). For the clear
metrical evidence see: Metcalf, Francis Wood – "The Pronunciation of Blakean Names" in Blake Newsletter 21. [1972.] (pp. 17-18.)
-
(3) Keynes, Geoffrey (ed.) - The Complete
Writings of William Blake. [Oxford: Oxford Universitiy Press,
1996.] (p. 913.)
-
(4) The "bounding line": Verbal and Visual Linearity
in Blake's "Laocoön" and Book of Urizen. [http://www.
mindspring.com/~jntolva/blake/#5]
-
(5) All Blake quotations are from Erdman, David V. - The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. [New
York: Doubleday, 1988]. In-text references to poems cite first
the plate then the line number.
-
(6) Mitchell, W.J.T. - Blake's Composite Art:
A Study of the Illuminated Poetry. [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1978] (p.137.)
-
(7) Mitchell, W.J.T. - Blake's Composite Art:
A Study of the Illuminated Poetry. [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1978] (p.130.)
-
(8) Hilton, Nelson - Blakean Zen. [in
Studies in Romanticism 24. (Summer 1985.)] (p.184)
|
|
Table of Contents:
The Chapters
Preludium
|
The Chapters
At this point I have to indicate that Blake's mythology should be considered as a complex whole, built round several main "ideas" of which perhaps the most consistent summary is the Four Zoas. The Book of Urizen is therefore not a separate piece of writing, but fits in with the spiritual progress of Blake's own ideas. All the later pieces of his
work tend to express the various aspects of this myth. The First
Book of Urizen is perhaps more shapeless and chaotic at a first
glimpse than any other of these prose poems of the Prophetic Books.
Clouds of blood, shadows of horror, worlds without form and void,
rise and mingle and wane in indefinite ways, with no special purpose
or appreciable result. The myth here is of an active but unprolific
God, warring with shapes of the wilderness, and at variance with the
eternals: beaten upon by Time. But what lies beneath the surface of
this myth?
Before we can investigate
into that question, there are some general points we have to consider
in order to save ourselves from making far-reaching statements. To
fully understand Blake's importance without overestimating his personal
potential, we have to accept the "expressive theory" as
a general point of view. I wish to point out by this, the possibility
of gaining unconscious knowledge of universal truths. Blake with his
prophetic abilities could have been precisely the kind of man to gain
such 'transcendental' knowledge. For what we find in his work is one
of the most superior literary expression of a certain "psychological
idea", which we could call "The Urizen Myth".
So now we can put the
question forward again: What is Urizen?
"The most merciful
thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind
to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance
in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that
we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction,
have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together
of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of
reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either
go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the
peace and safety of a new dark age.
Theosophists have
guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our
world and human race form transient incidents. They have hinted
at strange survival in terms which would freeze blood if not masked
by a bland optimism. /.../ Who knows the end? What has risen may
sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams
in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men.
A time will come..."
[H.P. Lovecraft – "The Call of Cthulhu"]
Top or Chapters
|
Text of the poem:
Preludium to the First Book of Urizen
Of
the primeval Priest's assum'd power,
When Eternals spurn'd back his religion
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.
Eternals! I hear
your call gladly.
Dictate swift winged words & fear not
to unfold your dark visions of torment.
|
Blake in the early
1790s was writing about the nature of prophecy in The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Almost as if he were replying
to Paine's discrediting of biblical prophecy, Blake makes the fantastic
claim that
"The Prophets
Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how
they dared so roundly to assert that God spoke to them; and whether
they
did not think at the time that they would be misunderstood, &
so be the
cause of imposition.
Isaiah answered. I saw no God nor heard any, in a finite organical
perception; but my senses discovered the infinite in every thing,
and as I
was then persuaded & remain confirmed; that the voice of honest
indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences
but wrote."
[The Marriage of Heaven and Hell pl.12.]
Blake
thus explains the nature of prophecy paradoxically: Prophets neither
see nor hear God, yet through their senses they discover God. Moreover,
one needs only to be honestly indignant, it seems, to be a prophet.
|
This
is exactly what Blake's referring to in the Preludium to The Book of Urizen, where he pays homage to his great masters – 'the primeval Priests' – Isaiah and Ezekiel, and calls for their power [2:1]. (» 1)
As a self-proclaimed seer he takes his place among the prophets
setting forth his ability to record his visions of the infinite.
He takes part of their 'assumed power' to communicate with the
Eternals and blindly record the dictated words of eternity.This
idea of being a non-conscious communicator is well represented
in the figure on the title page often described as the blind Urizen.
In my opinion it also
refers to the prophets of illumination, who took on themselves
the tormenting task of revealing heavenly secrets. Thus Urizen
himself is a prophet unfolding the mysteries of his own creation.
The allusion to Moses writing 'The
Ten Commandments' [Exodus 19-20.] is quite clear –
the canonical representation of the two stone plates of the Commandments
in the background can be easily recognised.
|
"If
the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to
man as
it is: Infinite. This I shall do by printing in the infernal method
by
corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent
surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid."
[The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell]
This is the reason
for the development of the Illuminated Book as means of fusing the
visual and the literary into a form which – according to Blake
– would cleanse the "doors of perception," that is
the senses and their relationship to the imagination, and awaken Man
from the "sleep of reason." (» 2)
» poem chapter
Top or Chapters
|
Textof the poem:
Chapter I.
1.
Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos'd, all-repelling: what demon
Hath form'd this abominable void,
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? Some said
"It is Urizen." But unknown, abstracted,
Brooding, secret, the dark power hid.
2.
Times on times he divided and measur'd
Space by space in his ninefold darkness,
Unseen, unknown; changes appear'd
Like desolate mountains, rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation.
3.
For he strove in battles dire,
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent and element,
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.
4.
Dark, revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passions:
An activity unknown and horrible,
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied.
5.
But Eternals beheld his vast forests;
Age on ages he lay, clos'd, unknown,
Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific, abominable chaos.
6.
His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen
Prepar'd; his ten thousands of thunders,
Rang'd in gloom'd array, stretch out across
The dread world; and the rolling of wheels,
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds,
In his hills of stor'd snows, in his mountains
Of hail and ice; voices of terror
Are heard, like thunders of autumn
When the cloud blazes over the harvests.
|
Chapter I. – Urizen
Chapters
I. and II. describe the state of the Universe before Creation unfolds.
Since this 'state of being' precedes every kind of singularity and rational
identification, it is described as Chaos identified with the emerging
Urizen thereof. The name "Urizen" comes from the Greek orizein,
"to fix a limit" and is identified with the Jehovah (IHVH)
of the Old Testament by Blake.
According to hermetic ideas we can identify Blake's Urizen with the
well-known character of the system called Hermes or Pan. In order to
get a full grip of the question matter we have to investigate into the
system of Hermetics (» 3)
– the religio-philosophical system, which deals with the mystical-magical
tradition of mankind. Given, that this is a literary paper focusing
on Blake's Urizen, I will not to go into all of the philosophical and
psychological aspects, but rather identify a number of historical-cultural
images of the same idea only.
Hermes-Urizen
is a primordial figure; the progenitor-existent of Chaos in the aspect
of Pan. We might understand this better by looking at what Pan means.
The word pan (Greek: ran), means "everything".
Therefore he represents the all-aspect of the universe; the physical
world, the psychic world, the idea world and the one above all, the
divine sphere of One. In this respect he is called Gnosis by the Gnostic,
which is rather a state of "existence" than a defined existent.
This all-aspect is anthropomorphised in the figure of Pan-Hermes.
Hermes is everything. In hermetics, as in any other tradition, he is
the omnipotent, divine, one-god aspect of everything. There is nothing
else, but Hermes – every movement is happening within himself.
He changes face, appearing in countless figures: In alchemy he is Alchemy.
Not only is he the planet Mercurius, but also the Venus, the
Sun and the Saturn. In alchemy Saturn is called "Sol Niger",
therefore he is also the black sun. (The planetary aspects of Hermes
should of course not be understood by physical terms, but as an allegory
of different phases of the mind and of the world.) He is the one appearing
in different 'disguises' changing from one to the other – he was Hermes Trismegistos of Egypt, he was Asklepios, was Imhotep, was himself Toth, and the deciple of Toth,
but also father and sometimes the son of Toth. At places he was Agathodaimon or the master of Agathodaimon. There are versions where he appears as Asklepios Imhotes deriving from Imhotep who was a real character,
the high-priest and architecture of Heliopoli, uniting with Asklepios,
similarly to Hermes who became son of Agathodaimon. It is not the importance
of the exact figure, but the interaction and the undividable complexity
of these symbols. Therefore Hermes is also Pan, who according
to the Greek cosmology and works trying to describe the origin of the
cosmos and mind – like Hesiod's –, belongs to the very first
generation of Gods, who precede the existence of the cosmos.
Hermes-Urizen
is the progenitor-existent of the micro-cosmos just the same as of the
macro-cosmos. He is the creator of both Heaven and Earth. Sometimes
he is vulgarised, appearing as a triarchic system of micro-, macro-,
and mezzo-cosmos, but really there is a hiding fourth; the uniting-all
divine aspect. The aspect above existence and non-existence.
The
character of Urizen is also defined by abstractions and negations –
unknown, unprolific, repelling, void, vacuum, unseen, secret, etc. [3:1-20]
– for two reasons: From the point of view of Eternity, Urizen
is unreal; and only an isolated 'Reason' can invent abstract and negative
terms. In a full reality, such terms would have no meaning. By comparison Milton's God is praised by the angels for being 'invisible'
and 'thorned inaccessible' [Paradise Lost III.375-7]. Blake condemns such qualities in a deity, and mocks them
by exaggeration.
As
the primarily, divine, ancient and creative idea, Pan-Urizen is called
Pan pangenitor, "the creator of all", but is also
called Pan panfager, "the destroyer of all". In Latin
tradition the dark aspect of Pan will be called Dispater, the Father
of the Underworld, the ruler of the Underworld, Dys. So we
see that Pan is an ambivalent figure like Mercurius-Hermes-Toth; he
has a satanic face, the Saturnic, the Sol Niger face, the face of the
chaos of the under-waters, the face of the underworld, the nearly-nothing-aspect,
and he has the face of the spiritual sun, the universality of above
existence. Just like Blake's Urizen who first appears embodied in the
dark horrors of the "petrific abominable chaos" [3:26], but
later becomes the creator of the Worl
"Dark revolting
in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passion;
An activity unknown and horrible;
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied"
[The Book of Urizen I.4.] |
Pan-Urizen's
dark aspect can be traced through the centuries, and was always placed
in absolute central position like the city of the underworld, Dys in Dante's Divina Comedia. (In
the Book of Enoch, the same layers of the underworld are given centuries
before.) Pan is the Master of the Universe, the primal Dispater; the
lord of the chaotic under-waters and the equivalent of all dark aspects
of things. This "underworldness" was called khthonicity by the Greeks – the absolute darkness and abyss of all evil. In
this chthonic under-water realm is where Dispater rules. "In
his cold horrors silent, dark Urizen prepared" [3:27-28].
Blake also sees Urizen as a dark, winter god, anticipated in the imagery
of "Winter" of Poetical Sketches (» 4).
We
could go on and on showing the immense variety of ideas trying to formulate
the meaning of Pan-Urizen through the various traditions, but it is
more profitable to narrow our subject down to the actual representation
of Blake. Of course we will have to reach out to the latest times of
Hermetics; the 20th century, where the hermetic tradition seems rather
chaotic, and therefore presents us with a very rich variety of ontology.
» poem chapter
Top or Chapters
|
Textof the poem:
Chapter II.
1.
Earth was not: nor globes of attraction;
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses;
Death was not, but eternal life sprung.
2.
The sound of a trumpet the heavens
Awoke & vast clouds of blood roll'd
Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam'd
That solitary one in Immensity.
3.
Shrill the trumpet: & myriads of Eternity
Muster around the bleak desarts,
Now fill'd with clouds, darkness, & waters,
that roll'd perplex'd, lab'ring; & utter'd
Words articulate bursting in thunders
that roll'd on the tops of his mountains:
4.
"From the depths of dark solitude, From
The eternal abode in my holiness,
Hidden, set apart, in my stern counsels,
Reserv'd for the days of futurity,
I have sought for a joy without pain,
For a solid without fluctuation.
Why will you die, O Eternals?
Why live in unquenchable burnings?
5.
"First I fought with the fire, consum'd
Inwards into a deep world within:
A void immense, wild, dark & deep,
Where nothing was: Nature's wide womb;
And self balanc'd, stretch'd o'er the void,
I alone, even I! the winds merciless
Bound; but condensing in torrents
They fall & fall; strong I repell'd
The vast waves, & arose on the waters
A wide world of solid obstruction.
6.
"Here alone I, in books form'd of metals,
Have written the secrets of wisdom,
The secrets of dark contemplation,
By fightings and conflicts dire
With terrible monsters Sin-bred
Which the bosoms of all inhabit,
Seven deadly Sins of the soul.
7.
"Lo! I unfold my darkness, and on
This rock place with strong hand the Book
0f eternal brass, written in my solitude:
8.
"Laws of peace, of love, of unity,
Of pity, compassion, forgiveness;
Let each chuse one habitation,
His ancient infinite mansion,
One command, one joy, one desire,
0ne curse, one weight, one measure,
One King, one God, one Law."
|
Chapter II. – Prior to Existence
According
to every spiritual tradition, the creation of the universe consists
of several “phases”, and the first stage always refers to
the realm “before the creation”. It is always described
as the disordered entire beyond the sphere of the universe – the
Kabbalah calls it zimzum meo – which is characterized by absolute
nothing (ayin) and absolute everything (ayin sof). The Gnostic describe
it as complete emptiness (keroma) and complete inclusiveness (pleroma):
this is the infinite orb of divinity before the emanation. Blake describes
it beautifully: "Earth was not, nor globes of attraction; the will
of the Immortal expanded or contracted at will his all-flexible senses.
Death was not; but eternal life sprang" [3:36]. Eternity is undivided
and has nothing to separate the oneness of immanent power. Geoffrey
Keynes understands this as in Eternity there are no spheres (such as
planets, moons, stars, etc.) subject to the law of gravity [3:36]. Eternity
is non-Newtonian. Expansion and contraction are by will, not by the
law of gravity [3:37-38] (» 5).
Creation
begins with the unfolding of the unspeakable creative forces,
awakening the sleeping God of Formation. He is aroused by the
sound of a heavenly trumpet. The trumpet [3:40] does not refer
to the trumpet of the Last Judgement, but the trumpet that sounded
over Sinai when God gave the Law to Moses [Exodus 19:16]. Similarly
to Moses, Urizen is seated on a mountain writing secret words
of wisdom that are uttered from the bursting thunders [4:3-4].
He – just like Moses – is seeking to learn the secret
laws of the Eternals, but the Almighty God stays hidden in darkness.
Jehovah too, hid himself in darkness, in the cloud in Sinai, and
then in the windowless “Holy of Holies”. Urizen [pl.4b.]
Details
could have been taken from the mustering of armies in Milton's
Paradise Lost [VI.55-60]. This is when Urizen is first named –
“the solitary one in Immensity” [3:43]. Urizen and
Moses are identified, not just in their common act of recording
the secrets of Heaven, but also in their task to create order.
On plate no. 4 Urizen is
depicted just like Michelangelo's Moses; with
long white hair and beard. |
|
Urizen’s
motivation is clearly explained [4:6-13]. It is intended to sound reasonable,
as Urizen is Reason – he has to justify his task of recording
the true secrets of Creation. His reason echoes the reason of Neoplatonic
creation myths: to fulfil the void. He describes his solitude fighting
the fire of passion within himself [4:14] that has pushed him in a state
which Alchemy calls albedo. Albedo is "whiteness" or the 'emptiness', when the creative powers
are locked in passivity generating an empty space. Blake describes this
with an alchemical allusion too, describing Nature's wide womb. In Alchemy
the philosopher’s vase is often portrayed as the womb (of Nature).
"Consumed
inwards, into the world within:
A void immense, wild dark and deep,
Where nothing was; Natures wide womb
And self balanced stretched over the void
I alone, even I!"
[The Book of Urizen II.5] |
In stanza no.5 “I alone, I
even!” [4:19] shows the lonesomeness of Urizen which echoes at
once the biblical Jehovah ("I am the Lord thy God" [Exodus
20:2]) and Milton's Satan. It isn’t egotism like Stevenson would suggest (» 6),
but the clear expression of the horrors of standing out against emptiness.
Urizen is the only progenitor-existent capable of withstanding the excruciating
transformation of Creation. Similarly to Ezekiel witnessing the change
of times, or Satan fallen from Heaven, Urizen is left alone to manifest
the creative powers of Eternity. Compare "Why will you die O Eternals?"
[4:12] to "Why will ye die, O house of Israel?" [Ezekiel 18:31,
33:11].
Many
more biblical parallels can be found. Compare “Self balanced stretched
over the void” [4:18] with "And the Earth was without form
and void" [Genesis I:2] and "And Earth self-balanced on her
Centre hung" [Paradise Lost VII.242]. Urizen partakes in the first
stage of Creation by becoming the God of restraint, the creator of prohibition,
whose laws are forbearance and abstinence, and therefore is for ages
divided from Eternity and at war with Time. But he does not see that
joy and pain are necessary contraries for a living existence, that 'a
solid without fluctuation' is dead, and that the burning fires of 'the
enjoyments of Genius' only appear like 'torment and insanity' to those
who do not understand them. [For comparison see: The Marriage of
Heaven and Hell (pl.17-20)].
He
creates the dividing laws and lays down the fundamentals of Creation.
Similarly to the Bible he writes all the laws in “the Book of
eternal brass” [4:32-40], setting the foundations of a created
Universe – he becomes the Ordering Power of God. Compare: "Thou
shall have no other gods before me" [Exodus 20:3]. Milton's God
promises, after 'long obedience…One Kingdom' [Paradise Lost VII.159-61.].
This is what the hermetic tradition identifies with IHVH or Jehovah.
|
So
this is where we meet up with the hermetic tradition once more,
which also presents us with the expression of the same idea, which
is closely similar to the Sumerian pan-aspect, which they called
Sub Isniggarab. We also have to introduce a new line: the dark
mythology of H.P. Lovecraft (» 7)
called the "Great Old Ones" – a group of gods
from the times of chaos, who dwell in the inter dimensional spheres
or the deep oceans, representing the chaotic under-waters. He
calls his main god Yog-Sothoth, as well as Sub Niggurath,
the " black goat of the woods with a thousand progeny",
the principle which Blake calls Urizen and the Greeks called panfager.
This god lies deep below the realms of time and space ready to
emerge from the chaotic abyss.
Chaos
appears when it is believed to have emerged; then it is the time
of Chaos, the Lead Age, the age of Saturn, the time of 'chaos-magic',
when the disintegrated chaotic powers appear in the world, for
everything is allowed. It is interesting to draw a parallel to Aleister Crowley (» 8),
who chooses Pan as the main principle of his magical
system. It is not by coincidence that he does that; the sabbatical
goat is the strongest satanic aspect, for Sabbath is
the resting sun, the last sphere, and the time where one falls
or transcends. |
We
can identify Lovecraft’s beast as the most central figure of chaos
magic, where Cthulhu is the most clear manifestation of Chaos.
This is what Crowley – although had no kind of relationship with
Lovecraft – calls CTHLH666. This is the Sumerian Kaprunuja,
known in the Islam too as the satanic principle, the vitiating, the
disrupting force, as well as known by the Indian tradition as a sea-monster
called Khatala. The Chinese are also familiar with it as Hui
Tai Lao "the monster in the sea". The important is that
they are all the same representatives of the same idea, the same principle.
I could go on showing
the parallels in Blake's Urizen and the way it appears in certain mytho-magical
systems or the way his intuitive descriptions influence and interact
with other mystic circles, but at this point I wish to summarize.
All mythological representations are symbolic expressions of this chaotic
condition preceding the emergence of the human psyche; consciousness.
This certain psychological condition is still there in every human,
far beyond the deepest domain of the mind: The fear of the unrecognisable,
inconceivable, inexplicable non-consciousness. Therefore Urizen is not
a horror character like Frankenstein or Dracula; he is not an outer
force, but the symbolical representation of the 'Pan principle', more
ancient than anything else in the world, for it is the progenitor-existent
preceding consciousness. Blake's importance lies in the perfect representation
of this inner force. He is the first, who by means of unparalleled talent
of literary capabilities, goes beyond fantasy and horror as a genre,
and is able to express this pre-conscious principle. All those who see
Blake as a simple writer of dark horror and fantasy, not only underestimate
his work, but fall short of understanding their own inner depths.
» poem chapter
Top or Chapters
|
Textof the poem:
Chapter III.
1. The voice ended: they
saw his pale visage
Emerge from the darkness, his hand
On the rock of eternity unclasping
The Book of brass. Rage siez'd the strong,
2. Rage, fury, intense
indignation,
In cataracts of fire, blood, & gall,
In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke,
And enormous forms of energy,
All the seven deadly sins of the soul
In living creations appear'd,
In the flames of eternal fury.
3. Sund'ring, dark'ning,
thund'ring,
Rent away with a terrible crash,
Eternity roll'd wide apart,
Wide asunder rolling;
Mountainous all around
Departing, departing, departing,
Leaving ruinous fragments of life
Hanging, frowning cliffs & all between,
An ocean of voidness unfathomable.
4. The roaring fires
ran o'er the heav'ns
In whirlwinds & cataracts of blood,
And o'er the dark desarts of Urizen
Fires pour thro' the void on all sides
On Urizen's self-begotten armies.
5. But no light from
the fires: all was darkness
In the flames of Eternal fury.
6. In fierce anguish
& quenchless flames
To the desks and rocks he ran raging
To hide; but he could not: combining,
He dug mountains & hills in vast strength,
He piled them in incessant labour,
In howlings & pangs & fierce madness,
Long periods in burning fires labouring
Till hoary, and age-broke, and aged,
In despair and the shadows of death.
7. And a roof vast, petrific
around
On all sides he fram'd, like a womb,
Where thousands of rivers in veins
Of blood pour down the mountains to cool
The eternal fires, beating without
From Eternals; & like a black globe,
View'd by sons of Eternity standing
On the shore of the infinite ocean,
Like a human heart, strugling & beating,
The vast world of Urizen appear'd.
8. And Los, round the
dark globe of Urizen,
Kept watch for Eternals to confine
The obscure separation alone;
For Eternity stood wide apart,
As the stars are apart from the earth.
9. Los wept, howling
around the dark Demon,
And cursing his lot; for in anguish
Urizen was rent from his side,
And a fathomless void for his feet,
And intense fires for his dwelling.
10. But Urizen laid in
a stony sleep,
Unorganiz'd, rent from Eternity.
11. The Eternals said:
"What is this? Death.
Urizen is a clod of clay."
12. Los howl'd in a
dismal stupor,
Groaning, gnashing, groaning,
Till the wrenching apart was healed.
13. But the wrenching
of Urizen heal'd not.
Cold, featureless, flesh or clay,
Rifted with direful changes,
He lay in a dreamless night,
14. Till Los rouz'd his
fires, affrighted
At the formless, unmeasurable death.
|
Chapter
III. – Grasping Subsistence
The
Fall (of God or Man) is always understood by all hermetic traditions
as a division. Creation also starts with a division for Blake
[5:3-4]. The division of Urizen from the hosts of Eternity has
ironically resulted from his attempts to enforce a fixed static
unity. According to the neoplatonic views Creation is no other
than the emanation of the light of God arranging chaos around
its emanative route generating different spheres. In the Kabbalah
the emanation creates four "universes": the world of
Emanation (Aziluth), the world of Creation (Beriah),
the world of Formation (Yetzirah) and the world of Action
(Assiyah). (» 9)
Aziluth separates Heaven and Earth from Nothingness – it
is the world that was summoned from the non-existent by the “Ten
Voices of God”. Urizen also summons the first sphere of
existence by opening ‘the Book of Brass’ unleashing
the creative powers of nature – “enormous forms of
energy; all the seven deadly sins of the soul” [4:48-49].
Compare the creation of the world by the power of the Word in
the Bible, separating the Heaven and the Earth [Genesis I.1-10.]. |
|
The
bounding forces of the productive energies of nature unleashed by Urizen
establish the boundaries of the created universe – Blake compares
it to a bloody womb [4:29] and a black globe [4:33] ‘standing
on the shore of the infinite ocean’. Emanating from the dark void
Urizen becomes the focal point of existence gathering the creative powers
around his own existence, like an immense gravitational field that draws
light towards itself. This state is understood in the hermetic tradition
as the state of "Hell". Blake is also aware of it and takes
a detail “No light from the fires” [5:17] from Milton's
Hell [Paradise Lost I.61-63.]. This is the state the Greeks called kthonicity
– the absolute darkness of the abyss. At this emanative state
creation is still unconscious and automatically ordains existence around
the centre of creation. The creative processes are mechanical and even
Urizen cannot resist becoming the nucleus of life [4:21]. Compare “He
dug mountains” [5:22] with Milton's war in Heaven [Paradise
Lost VI. 639-69].
In
this condition of existence Urizen can be identified with Pan as ‘the
Master of the Universe’, the primal Dispater; the lord of the
chaotic under-waters and the equivalent of all dark aspects of things.
In this chthonic under-water realm is where the Dispater rules without
reason or rational construction – the laws of generating are ruled
by chaotic conditions: fear, fury and fierce madness [4:24]. The created
universe in this state is 'unorganised' [6:8] and 'formless' [7:9],
so the images are confusing [5:28-37].
The
hermetic tradition reveals to us a very interesting 'aspect' of this
chaotic state of existence: this is where the female aspect of Nature
(Physis), the Sophia, the daughter of the world is cast. By
Hermetics she is called Khoré Kosmu and by the Sumerian tradition
Erestigal. She becomes the mistress of the underworld, in her 'sacred
whore' aspect, in contradiction to Innana, the virgin aspect.
We find such examples in Orpheus and Erudite or the hymns of the Gnostic. Accordingly Pan is this aspect of Nature
too, the sabbatical goat, known as Sub Isniggarad for the 'goat-aspect'
by the Sumerians, and Kernumos for the 'deer-aspect' by the
Celts. This pan-face of Hermes can be found in the proto-Indian early
states like the proto-Siva of Mohenjodaro. The same idea is there: the
high-aspect of Siva sitting on the top of the mountain of life,
as the representative of the mind, as Sakta – the Lord
of the World, as mayavin – world magician, with his female
aspect (Sakti) there in the beginning too, later descending
to the bottom of the world and kept prisoner by the snake or becoming
a snake-goddess. (This tradition reflects nicely in the Kundalini-yoga
praxis.) She is there in many other traditions as well; what is prajna
in the East is Khoré Kosmu in the Kabbalah and Hermetics, Shekinah in the Jewish tradition, Shakina in the Sufi,
and so on.
Blake
calls this wisdom principle of Nature – the Sophia –
Los. As with Orpheus and Erudite in the Ileuses mysteries, or Pan-Hermes
and Khoré Kosmu in the hermetic tradition, Urizen and
Los are inseparable – they are the diabolic aspect of the same
unity.
|
"Los
wept howling around the dark Demon
And cursing his lot; for in anguish,
Urizen was rent from his side"
[The Book of Urizen III.9] |
Los
is the power of poetic imagination. If Imagination is separated
from Reason, both are drastically wounded. Los is in anguish because
he has lost his Mind. The biblical allusion of Adam and Eve is
quite clear – Urizen was created from the side of Los [6:4]
like Eve of Adam’s rib [Genesis II.21-23.]. Urizen lost
in the chaotic state of his own emptiness is locked in unconscious
sleep. Separated from his power of imagination, he is dead until
Los creates a vault for him to be reborn [7:8]. It is only the
physical sphere (Physis) that is able to frame and orient the
creative powers lost in chaos. |
» poem chapter
Top or Chapters
|
Textof the poem:
Chapter IV.
1.
Los, smitten with astonishment,
Frighten'd at the hurtling bones
2.
And at the surging, sulphureous,
Perturbed Immortal, mad raging
3.
In whirlwinds & pitch & nitre
Round the furious limbs of Los.
4.
And Los formed nets & gins
And threw the nets round about.
5.
He watch'd in shudd'ring fear
The dark changes, & bound every change
With rivets of iron & brass.
6.
And these were the changes of Urizen.
1. Ages on ages roll'd over him;
In stony sleep ages roll'd over him,
Like a dark waste stretching, chang'able,
By earthquakes riv'n, belching sullen fires:
On ages roll'd ages in ghastly
Sick torment; around him in whirlwinds
Of darkness the eternal Prophet howl'd,
Beating still on his rivets of iron,
Pouring sodor of iron; dividing
The horrible night into watches.
2.
And Urizen (so his eternal name)
His prolific delight obscur'd more & more
In dark secresy, hiding in surgeing
Sulphureous fluid his phantasies.
The Eternal Prophet heav'd the dark bellows,
And turn'd restless the tongs, and the hammer
Incessant beat, forging chains new & new,
Numb'ring with links hours, days & years,
3.
The Eternal mind, bounded, began to roll
Eddies of wrath ceaseless round & round,
And the sulphureous foam, surgeing thick,
Settled, a lake, bright & shining clear,
White as the snow on the mountains cold.
4.
Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity,
In chains of the mind locked up,
Like fetters of ice shrinking together,
Disorganiz'd, rent from Eternity,
Los beat on his fetters of iron,
And heated his furnaces, & pour'd
Iron sodor and sodor of brass.
5.
Restless turn'd the Immortal inchain'd,
Heaving dolorous, anguish'd unbearable;
Till a roof, shaggy wild, inclos'd
In an orb his fountain of thought.
6.
In a horrible, dreamful slumber,
Like the linked infernal chain,
A vast Spine writh'd in torment
Upon the winds, shooting pain'd
Ribs, like a bending cavern;
And bones of solidness froze
Over all his nerves of joy.
And a first Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
7. From the caverns of his jointed Spine
Down sunk with fright a red
Round Globe, hot burning, deep,
Deep down into the Abyss;
Panting, Conglobing, Trembling,
Shooting out ten thousand branches
Around his solid bones.
And a second Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
8.
In harrowing fear rolling round,
His nervous brain shot branches
Round the branches of his heart
On high into two little orbs,
And fixed in two little caves,
Hiding carefully from the wind,
His Eyes beheld the deep.
And a third Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
9.
The pangs of hope began.
In heavy pain, striving, struggling,
Two Ears in close volutions
From beneath his orbs of vision
Shot spiring out and petrified
As they grew. And a fourth Age passed,
And a state of dismal woe.
10.
In ghastly torment sick,
Hanging upon the wind,
Two Nostrils bend down to the deep.
And a fifth Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
11.
In ghastly torment sick,
Within his ribs bloated round,
A craving Hungry Cavern;
Thence arose his channel'd Throat.
And, like a red flame, a Tongue
Of thirst & of hunger appear'd.
And a sixth Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
12. Enraged & stifled with torment,
He threw his right Arm to the north,
His left Arm to the south
Shooting out in anguish deep,
And his feet stamp'd the nether Abyss
In trembling & howling & dismay.
And a seventh Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
|
Chapter IV. – Taking Form
Urizen
is asleep or dead from the point of view of Eternity. Hurtling bones…surging…raging [8:2-4] means he has become a chaos of disorganised motion. His elements
(sulphur, pitch, nitre) suggest that he has become a hell [8:3-5]. In
order to change his condition he needs to be bounded by Los –
he has to go through an "alchemical transmutation". As with
every transmutation he is first hemmed in the alchemical stove, upheld
by the nets and rivets of Los [8:8-11]. His mind is still characterized
by “perturbed immortal mad raging” but it is also
"sulphureous" [8:3, 10:14, 10:21] referring to the alchemical
theory of metamorphosis, because sulphur is a primal formative element
in alchemical theory. Urizen is locked in the state that Alchemy calls nigredo. Nigredo is "blackness" or the ‘philosophical
death’, when because of oblivion the creative powers are unrealised,
resulting in a death like stupor (» 10). Plate no.10 & 11 (chapter
IV [a]) is like a prologue to the detailed description of the transmutation
of Urizen that follow.
These
transformations of Urizen make up some of Blake's grandest and strangest
prophetic studies. The transformation is full of horror and pain. First
the spinal skeleton, with branchwork of rib and savage nudity of joint
and clavicle, shaped mammoth-wise, in grovelling involution of limb.
Next a huge fettered figure with blind shut eyes overflowing into tears,
with convulsed mouth and sodden stream of beard: then bones painfully
gathering flesh, twisted forms round which flames break out fourfold,
tortured elemental shapes that plunge and writhe and moan.
Blake
describes this change with a number of alchemical allusions. To begin
with Urizen is described as a dark waste [10:3] – what alchemists
called prima materia ("first matter") and often identified
with soil. For the transmutation to go into operation a new order has
to be adopted – the measurement of time – since changes
can only take effect in time. Los is now for the first time called 'the
Eternal Prophet' [10:15]. In Eternity there is no need for Prophecy
because there is no Time. Time belongs to the fallen world, and is a
necessity for it. Hence Los divides the night into 'watches' and creates
'hours, days and years' by the repeated beat of his blacksmith's hammer
– which is a metaphor for the metre of poetry. In time the formless
God takes from, creating and assuming feature by feature; bones heart,
eyes, nostrils, throat with tongue, hands with feet; on age of agony
being allotted to each of the seven created features; still toiling
in fire and beset by snares.
This
stage of Creation belongs to the World of Formation, which the Cabbala
calls Yetzirah. The visionary cabbalistic writing, the Síúr
Qomá – as well as the Zohar – give detailed descriptions of the creation of the First Man
(Adam Kadmon) as an allegory to the creative processes of heavenly
emanation. The head, the beard and every part of the first divine body
refer to metaphysical symbols of creation. Without these symbols one
would not be able to gain knowledge of the higher stages of existence.
It is interesting that Blake also describes the unfold of creative powers
with the formation of Urizen’s body by Los.
The
emanation of the hidden creative powers of Urizen is a re-verbalization
of the biblical Genesis – the seven "Ages" [10:42] refer
to the days of creation in Genesis. Also there is a more ancient tradition
of septinity immediately reflected in the occult concept of
"the seven spheres", each reflecting a stage of emanation.
Without going into specific details of the system; every sphere is connected
to one universal principle symbolised by one of the seven planets. Each
sphere is a faculty of awareness and construction, possessing the potential
to organise reality accordingly. With the birth of every ability, reality
takes a new form.
The
first stage of emanation from is the framework of the mind. The
eternal mind… White as the snow [10:19-23] is an allusion
to the tabula rasa of John Lock’s psychology;
a 'blank slate' empty of intrinsic ideas, capable only of receiving
and combining external impressions. This is Fire, the Sun – the
Light of God –; the clear emanating creative force imprisoned
by the human skull – “A roof shaggy wild inclosed in
an orb” [10:33]. It is the highest of heavenly principle
in the human body seated at the highest point of the body. The Hindu
mystics call it sahasrara, "the lotus with a thousand
leaves", referring to the infinite nature of this power.
From
this centre all other forces descend and become more embodied
in matter. Attached to the skull the spine brings forth the whole
body structure, creating the solid framework of the spinal skeleton
[10:35-41]. In one copy at least these bones are touched with
dim green and gold colour; such a faint fierce tint as one might
look for on the cast scales or flakes of dragons left a strand
in the ebb of a deluge (»11).
The second stage starts
with the painful descent of the ‘life force’, which
the Gnostic called logoi spermatikoi, "the seed
of life". Blake describes it as a “round globe
hot burning deep” [11:3]. When it reaches the central
point of the physical framework it creates the heart and blood
vessels; “A red / round globe…ten thousand branches” [11:2-6].
This is Air – the
Human Soul. This is what the Sephirot Kabbalah calls Tiferet ("beauty"); the central seat of power residing in the
heart of the ‘Tree of Life’. It is the dividing line
between the higher- and lower- stages of existence linking the
superior and inferior sephiras. It is the ignition point harmonising
the creative and destructive forces.
The Hindu mystics call
it anahata-cakra, "the centre of the Heart",
while the Jewish mystics refer to it as the 'Throne of Solomon',
since it connects to the powers of Wisdom (Hokmah) and
Understanding (Binah) as well as the powers of Forgiveness
(Hesed) and Judgement (Gevurah). They also refer
to it as “You” or “May He be Holy”,
since it is the manifestation of divine presence in the 'Heart
of Being'. (» 12)
|
|
The
third stage of emanation creates the nervous system “Brain
shot branches” [11:11] and the primal perceptive sense; the
eyes. Stages four to seven generate the other four senses of perception;
the ears [11:21], the nose [13:1] and “A craving Hungry Cavern” [13:6] – the digestive system and tongue. Finally, in the Seventh
Age the limbs appear; arms and legs. The five sensual organs in every
hermetic tradition represent the five principle elements: limbs and
thus touch relate to Earth; tongue and thus taste relate to Water; nose
and thus smell relate Fire; ears and thus hearing relate Air; and finally
eyes and thus seeing relate to the fifth element: space. The development
of the five sensual organs does not only mean the birth of Urizen, but
also the birth of the physical universe. There is an endless line of
analogies where every existent constituent in the physical world relates
to one of the senses. This is the final world: the World of Action (Assiyah),
the Earth-sphere and the body of Men.
It
is interesting to note that Blake also describes Urizen’s body
as big as the created physical universe – “his right
Arm [reaching] to the north, his left Arm to the south… and his
Feet stamped the nether Abyss” [13:13-16]. It fits in perfectly
with the hermetic tradition: the creation of Men is also the creation
of the World – the micro- and macro-cosmos is the same.
“Verum
est, certum et verissimum, quod est,
superius, naturam habet inferioram et
ascendens naturam descendentis.”
“It
is without doubt, certain and true,
that what is above corresponds to what is below,
and what is below corresponds to what is above.”
[Hermes Trismegistos – Tabula Smaragdina (1-3.)] |
» poem chapter
Top or Chapters
|
Textof the poem:
Chapter V.
1. In terrors Los shrunk
from his task:
His great hammer fell from his hand.
His fires beheld, and sickening
Hid their strong limbs in smoke;
For with noises, ruinous, loud,
With hurtlings & clashings & groans,
The Immortal endur'd his chains,
Tho' bound in a deadly sleep.
2. All the myraids of
Eternity
All the wisdom & joy of life
Roll like a sea around him,
Except what his little orbs
Of sight by degrees unfold.
3. And now his eternal
life
Like a dream was obliterated.
4. Shudd'ring the Eternal
Prophet smote
With a stroke from his north to south region.
The bellows & hammer are silent now;
A nerveless silence his prophetic Voice
Siez'd; a cold solitude & dark void
The Eternal Prophet & Urizen clos'd.
5. Ages on ages roll'd
over them,
Cut off from life & light, frozen
Into horrible forms of deformity.
Los suffer'd his fires to decay.
Then he look'd back with anxious desire,
But the space, undivided by existence,
Struck horror into his soul.
6. Los wept obscur'd
with mourning,
His bosom earthquak'd with sighs;
He saw Urizen deadly black
In his chains bound, & Pity began,
7. In anguish dividing
& dividing,
For pity divides the soul
In pangs, eternity on eternity,
Life in cataracts pour'd down his cliffs.
The void shrunk the lymph into Nerves
Wandering wide on the bosom of night
And left a round globe of blood
Trembling upon the Void.
Thus the Eternal Prophet
was divided
Before the death image of Urizen;
For in changeable clouds and darkness,
In a winterly night beneath,
The Abyss of Los stretch'd immense;
And now seen, now obscur'd,
to the eyes
Of Eternals the visions remote
Of the dark separation appear'd:
As glasses discover Worlds
In the endless Abyss of space,
So the expanding eyes of Immortals
Beheld the dark visions of Los
And the globe of life blood trembling.
8. The globe of life
blood trembled
Branching out into roots,
Fibrous, writhing upon the winds,
Fibres of blood, milk and tears,
In pangs; eternity on eternity.
At length in tears & cries imbodied,
A female form, trembling and pale,
Waves before his deathy face.
9. All Eternity shudder'd
at sight
Of the first female now separate,
Pale as a cloud of snow
Waving before the face of Los.
10. Wonder, awe, fear,
astonishment,
Perify the eternal myriads;
At the first female form now separate
They call’d her
Pity, and fled.
11. ‘Spread a Tent,
with strong curtains around them!’
‘Let cords & stakes bind in the Void
That Eternals may no longer behold them’
12. They began to weave
curtains of darkness
They erected large pillars around the Void
With golden hooks fastened in the pillars
With infinite labour the Eternals
A woof wove, and called it Science.
|
Chapter
V. – Foundations of Life
Urizen
has become the created universe well ‘bounded in a deadly
sleep’ [14:27]. The divine powers of Urizen have manifested
in the body of the World conjured up by Los' enormous errand, obliterating
his eternal condition. The Chinese mystics know this stage of Creation
very well; they call it Pan Ku, "The Cosmic Man".
The Jewish mystics call the same condition of the form taken universe Adam Kadmon "The World Man". Having created this
stable dimension of existence, Los – the wisdom principle of Nature
(Sophia) – returns to the inactive condition of his primordial
passivity. “A nerveless silence, his prophetic voice seized” [14:38] Examining his own creation Los falls into exhaustion and attachment
with Urizen [13:40] – he is infatuated with what he has created.
Thus he unites with his complementary primordial power – now regulated
and ordered. His imaginative powers merge with Urizen’s creative,
rational powers: "The Eternal Prophet & Urizen closed" [13:40].
|
I will elucidate this
condition for the sake of simplicity with the help of Chinese
mysticism. This state is understood by Chinese mystics as "doubleness"
(t'ai-chi), represented by the black and white flames
rotating in the Wheel of Life ( ).
As Urizen divided himself from the other Eternals, so now Los
will divide into male (strong, active) and female (weak, passive).
This division does not exist in Eternity. Here it indicates passive
helplessness in the face of disaster. Although Blake and his interpreters
see this as a negative process, Chinese mysticism sees this progression
natural and identifies the two forces of division as yin (black, female) and yang (white, male). Los sees Urizen
"deadly black" too [13:50]. See plate 11. where Urizen (black) and Los (white) are
locked in the flames of Creation.
Los, the imaginative force
of Creation, now has space – the potential universe (the
body of Urizen) – and creative "mental" power
to fill in the void. It is the creation of the first "living"
organism; the active formation of the unified potential creative
powers into something definite. This process for Blake is triggered
by pity. In stanza no.7 pity is a patronizing emotion, as against love, which unifies
[13:51-2].
|
The
separation starts with the birth of "the globe of life"
[15:13], which all hermetic traditions describe as the "cosmic
egg". The Chinese call it Hun Tun, "the cosmic
egg", the Hindus Mula Trikona, "Great Womb",
the Sufi kashkul, "vessel", the Cabbalists Kelipot, "bubble", the Gnostic Zoé,
"life orb", and so on. The primal difference of this
existent is that it is material and definite. The formative creative
forces – Los and Urizen – can thus be identified as
'parents': "the universal father and mother of all living
things".The birth of the 'globe of life' is naturally identified
with the birth of the first female, since it is the origin of
all material life.
For
Blake the first female – Nature – is created from
a fluid, rather than a solid rib [18:1], since she emanates from
the supple state of Los. Time, divided against himself, brings
forth Space, the universal eternal female element. From the point
of view of the Eternals, the new-born material world is deceptive
and was generated by pity, therefore the first female form is
called Pity [19:1]. This topic is highly important for Blake,
well reflected in his separate piece of painting called 'Pity',
where the first female is represented lying on the ground in a
position of the dead with an angelic figure handing down a baby
– the symbol of life – to her thus giving her life.
Los's pity is a false love [19:10], which produces a whole range
of false reactions in the responsive material universe (Enitharmon). |
|
The
gods recoil in fear from the dawn of human creation and division and
therefore the material universe is shielded by the Eternals, in order
that it would not disturb the 'real' world [19:2-8]. This is what every
hermetic tradition calls "the veil", which blinds us from
seeing the eternal reality. The Gnostic call it "Curtain",
the Kabbalah Ruah ha Kodesh, "the shroud of the soul",
the Hindus maya, "the veil of illusion", and so on.
Blake calls it "Science" [19:9] reflecting his views on the
Newtonian universe, according to which the world is a dead piece of
machinery, operating in accordance with immutable laws leaving no space
for divine organization.
» poem chapter
Top or Chapters
|
Textof the poem:
Chapter
VI.
1. But Los saw
the Female & pitied;
He embraced her; she wept; she refus'd;
In perverse and cruel delight
She fled from his arms, yet he follow'd.
2. Eternity shudder'd
when they saw
Man begetting his likeness On his own divided image.
3. A time passed
over: the Eternals
Began to erect the tent,
When Enitharmon, sick,
Felt a Worm within her Womb.
4. Yet helpless it lay like a Worm
In the trembling womb
To be moulded into existence.
5. All day the
worm lay on her bosom;
All night within her womb
The worm lay till it grew to a serpent,
With dolorous hissings & poisons
Round Enitharmon's loins folding.
6. Coil'd within
Enitharmon's womb
The serpent grew, casting its scales;
With sharp pangs the hissings began
To change to a grating cry:
Many sorrows and dismal throes,
Many forms of fish, bird & beast
Brought forth an Infant form
Where was a worm before.
7. The Eternals
their tent finished
Alarm'd with these gloomy visions,
When Enitharmon groaning
Produc'd a man Child to the light.
8. A shriek ran
thro' Eternity,
And a paralytic stroke,
At the birth of the Human shadow.
9. Delving earth
in his resistless way,
Howling, the Child with fierce flames
Issu'd from Enitharmon.
10.
The Eternals closed the tent;
They beat down the stakes; the cords
Stretched for a work of eternity.
No more Los beheld Eternity.
11.
In his hands he siez'd
the infant,
He bathed him in springs of sorrow,
He gave him to Enitharmon.
|
Chapter VI. - Generation
With
the birth of the first female – Nature – the World of Generation
begins. Since the materialised world reflects divine nature and as a
result resembles true reality Los is succumbed and blinded by his "own
divided image" [19:16]. This process is described in occult philosophy
as "the mirroring". The essence of this teaching is that during
the emanative processes of Creation the creator is blinded by his own
reflection and becomes enslaved by it. He surrenders to false identification
and gradually comes to believe that he is identical with his false (physical)
image: the material body or Nature. As a consequence he loses his touch
with his own true nature and loses the connection with ultimate reality.
This is exactly what happens to Los [20:2].
|
Los
does not realise that the manifested world is a mere projection
of his own imaginative powers ordained by the 'satanic' rationalizing
powers of Urizen. As a result Los becomes a separated character
appearing in the anthropomorphic form of the first man. Accordingly
the first feminine power becomes embodied in the human form of
Enitharmon. They are identified with the first humans of the biblical
paradise [Genesis II.], so Enitharmon is associated with Eve,
while Los is related with Adam. Of these two divinities is born
the first man-child Orc. The imaginative creating force (Los)
unites with the power of Nature (Enitharmon) creating life (Orc).
According
to Platonic philosophy the division of the One (hen)
into male and female – active and passive powers –
results in constant movement or 'energy flow' and the eternal
desire for steadiness and oneness. The separation of active and
passive energies result in the unceasing world of motion; in nature
active powers flow towards the passive. Only in unity do they
come to a rest. This is what the Greeks called the "Wheel
of Ixion", the Gnostic "the circle of genesis"
(cyclostes genestos), the Hindus "the wheel of life"
(samsara) and so on. We can identify Enitharmon's attempt
to flee from Los [19:13] – just like Eve fleeing Adam at
first in Paradise Lost [IV.
477-82.] – as the expression of this idea. Sensing the separated
nature of the Female Los feels pity – as in contrast to
the platonic love (agapé) – and unites with
Enitharmon only to be separated again. |
Similarly
to the biblical story Los' intercourse with Enitharmon has fundamental
consequences: he commits the original sin and sets forth the generation
of living creatures. Enitharmon conceives an embryo, which is described
as a worm [19:20]. The worm is to become Orc, who is again
identified with the Serpent of Paradise, but the Bible legend is altered. For Blake, the Serpent is not the tempter to vice,
but repressed energy, chained by mankind's false perceptions. Here Orc
also recalls Cain, the cursed child of Adam and Eve [Genesis IV.].
There
is also a hermetic secret of the Serpent concealed in this symbolism.
The snake is not altogether a negative image, but the symbolic representation
of generative powers and all secret knowledge. The coiled snake is in
itself symbolizes the womb and the embryo, as the productive force of
life, as well as it's spiral motion connecting to the ascent and descent
of divine powers. Due to its constant change of skin it is the symbol
of eternal life and rejuvenation. In Christian mysticism for example
the snake is identified with the force of Immaculate Conception, while
in Greek mythology it appears as the Goddess of Earth with a snake tail, Erikhthonios. The serpent is seen as a protector-god in Hindu
mythology and is represented in the form of Mucilinda, coiled
around the neck of God Siva, and in other forms it is recognized
as the keeper of all secret knowledge; the king of the snakes (naga).
It is the power of fertility appearing in the form of the phallus –
the linga of Siva. There are endless representations of this principium,
but perhaps one more important aspect in connection to Blake is that
the Serpent is the symbol of Time locked in motion – the creative
forces bolted in the endless cycle of death and rebirth, of constant
revitalization. In this respect the Serpent is called Uroboros (= Phoenician Lotan, Hebrew Leviatan, Greek Ladon, Scandinavian Midgardrom, etc.) and is related to the powers of Time (Kronos-Saturnus).
Los
act of seduction sets forth the spinning wheels of Life – with
the creative powers now transferred into matter the world becomes a
self-generating existent, without having to rely on the continuous participation
and control of divine intervention. The unleashed powers of creation
begin their unfold to generate a whole new race of extant beings: the
Human race. Orc is the progenitor existent of all material beings [19:43]
and is clearly the ultimate life force stimulating dead matter. "Delving
earth in his resistless way" [19:44] of course means "irresistibly
digging through the mother's body" (» 13),
but on a higher level of interpretation it also means plunging into
the material world. The material world now powered by its own generating
force becomes a separate unit in Eternity – the Eternals close
it in a fixed place, and hide it from the rest of Reality [19:51-52].
» poem chapter
Top or Chapters
|
Textof the poem:
Chapter VII.
1. They named the
child Orc; he grew,
Fed with milk of Enitharmon.
2. Los awoke her. O sorrow & pain!
A tight'ning girdle grew,
Around his bosom. In sobbings
He burst the girdle in twain;
But still another girdle
Oppress'd his bosom. In sobbings
Again he burst it. Again
Another girdle succeeds.
The girdle was form'd by day,
By night was burst in twain.
3. These falling
down on the rock
Into an iron Chain
In each other link by link lock'd.
4. They took Orc
to the top of a mountain.
O how Enitharmon wept!
They chain'd his young limbs to the rock
With the Chain of Jealousy
Beneath Urizenes deathful shadow.
5. The dead heard
the voice of the child
And began to awake from sleep;
All things heard the voice of the child
And began to awake to life.
6. And Urizen,
craving with hunger,
Stung with the odours of Nature,
Explored his dens around.
7. He form'd a
line & a plummet
To divide the Abyss beneath;
He form'd a dividing rule;
8. He formed scales
to weigh,
He formed massy weights;
He formed a brazen quadrant;
He formed golden compasses;
And began to explore the Abyss;
And he planted a garden of fruits.
9. But Los encircled
Enitharmon
With fires of Prophecy
From the sight of Urizen & Orc.
10. And she bore
an enormous race.
|
Chapter VII. – Chains of Being
The
birth of Orc – the life force – sets off an avalanche of
changes in the materialized world. Orc developing on the milk of Enitharmon
gives rise to what every hermetic tradition calls "the great chain
of being". In Blake's description Orc suckling the power of Nature
creates in Los "a tightening girdle" – a heart-constricting
jealousy [20:9]. Orc represents unrestricted life power, of which Los
has no possession, therefore his aroused by longing and envy. Their
struggle – the struggle between the progenitor creative force
and materialized life – is described similarly to the Oedipus
legend. Like the infant Oedipus was abandoned on a mountainside because
of an oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother, so
is Orc abandoned. Blake's version of the Oedipus myth combines
the theme of incest-threat with the idea of adult authority restricting
youthful energy. [20:23]
"The dead
heard the voice of the child
and began to awake from sleep
all things heard the voice of the child
and began to awake to life."
[The Book of Urizen VII.5.] |
The
energy of life cannot be restricted by the power of imagination and
so it flows into the material world. The dead refers to matter coming
to life, but instead of finding a universe of freedom and imagination
materialized life faces a universe of limitation and dependence. Los
emanated girdles form an inseparable chain "in each other link
by link locked" [20:20]. Life is chained to the material world
with 'the Chain of Jealousy' [20:23-24].
In
renaissance symbolism the chained man is the allegory of the human bound
by his own desires, who is unable to break free from the world of yearning.
This is what Buddhist philosophy calls "dependent origination"
which means the interwoven connections between all things in existence:
nothing is without cause and causation. This is the earth-bound nature
of physical existence, locked in the everlasting cycle of life and death.
This idea is also reflected in Swedenborg's philosophy
of nature, especially in the Principia Rerum
Naturalium ("Principles of Natural Things"), where
he posited that matter consists of interdependent particles that are
indefinitely divisible, and that these particles are in constant vortical
(swirling) motion. Furthermore, these particles are themselves composed
of smaller particles in motion related to each other (» 14).
In neoplatonic philosophy the chain is an invisible cord by which the
Eternals govern the actions of mortals. Thus, the chain not only means
a bonding to the world of craving and dependence, but it is also a symbol
of punishment. We cannot help recall the figure of Prometheus –
also the representation of the life force (heavenly fire) – chained
to the rocks of the Caucasus by Zeus.
It
is interesting that like many hermetic traditions, Blake is also aware
of the secrets of the hidden aspect of Nature: "Los encircled
Enitharmon with fires of Prophecy from the sight of Urizen & Orc" [20:42-44]. From the corporeal reality of our existence, true nature
always stays hidden. Material beings are locked away from the true gnosis
– the secret wisdom of Nature.
The
arising of life in matter awakens the sleeping forces of generation:
Urizen. Urizen is awakened by "hunger and the odours
of Nature" [20:30]. As the objective, creative aspect
of the Father his powers manifest in the organization and stabilization
of the material world. He seeks to control by reason and natural
law, instead of enjoying by imagination. His main aspect is
forming dividing rules to distinguish all material manifestations.
This activity is seen by Blake as creating the natural laws
of modern science – scales to weigh, equipments for
measurement – and in the aspect of the Father creating
the biblical Garden of Eden [20:41], which is also
seen in every hermetic tradition as the symbol of the fixed
boundary of the existing universe.Urizen is represented as a
figure pushing the orb of the physical world in its set place;
setting the World as we know it. His figure clearly resembles
the figure of Sisyphus pushing the boulder of human
sin and trying to reach the summit of relief (» 15).
Urizen's labour is like Sisyphus': hopeless and without end.
|
|
» poem chapter
Top or Chapters
|
Textof the poem:
Chapter VIII.
1. Urizen explor'd his
dens,
Mountain, moor & wilderness,
With a globe of fire lighting his journey,
A fearful journey, annoy'd
By cruel enormities, forms
Of life on his forsaken
mountains.
2. And his world teem'd
vast enormities,
Fright'ning, faithless, fawning
Portions of life, similitudes
Of a foot, or a hand, or a head,
Or a heart, or an eye; they swarm mischevous,
Dread terrors, delighting in blood.
3. Most Urizen sicken'd
to see
His eternal creations appear,
Sons & daughters of sorrow on mountains
Weeping, wailing. First Thiriel appeared,
Astonish'd at his own existence
Like a man from a cloud born; & Utha,
From the waters emerging laments!
Grodna rent the deep earth howling
Amaz’d! his heavens immense cracks
Like the ground parch’d with heat; then Fuzon
Flam’d out! First begotten, last born.
All his eternal sons in like manner
His daughters from green herbs & cattle
From monsters, & worms of the pit.
4. He in darkness clos'd
view'd all his race,
And his soul sicken'd! he curs'd
Both sons & daughters; for he saw
That no flesh nor spirit could keep
His iron laws one moment.
5. For he saw that life
liv'd upon death:
The Ox in the slaughter
house moans,
The Dog at the wintry door;
And he wept & he called it Pity,
And his tears flowed down on the winds.
6. Cold he wander'd on
high, over their cities
In weeping & pain & Woe;
And wherever he wander'd, in sorrows
Upon the aged heavens,
A cold shadow follow'd behind him
Like a spider's web, moist, cold & dim,
Drawing out from his sorrowing soul,
The dungeon-like heaven dividing,
Where ever the footsteps of Urizen
Walked over the cities in sorrow ;
7. Till a Web, dark &
cold, throughout all
The tormented element stretch'd
From the sorrows of Urizen's soul.
And the Web is a Female in embrio.
None could break the Web, no wings of fire,
8. So twisted the cords,
& so knotted
The meshes, twisted like to the human brain.
9. And all call'd it The Net of Religion.
|
Chapter VIII. – The Material World
The
divine creative powers manifesting in existence can take the form of
many structures, but manifestation in the form of the material world
or Nature (pistis sophia or physis) can only take
one definite structure – the configuration of the 'garden' governed
by the forces of a quaternity. The idea of Paradise, something that
is surrounded (Avestan pairi+díz), is therefore the
idea of the world, the universe that God created. This is the den of
Urizen signifying the world of Materialism [20:46]. This structure is
called Gan Eden "world garden" or simply pardes "garden"
in the Hebrew tradition – revealing PRDS (» 16),
the universal tetrasomy: P stands for Pesat, R for Remez,
D for Drus and S for Sod.
|
The dens of Urizen, like
Paradise, are the symbolic representation of the material universe;
an allegory of the embodied secrets of the world. It is built
up of four organizing powers represented by the four sons of Urtizen:
And the children of Urizen were Thiriel, born from cloud; Utha, from water; Grodna, from earth; Fuzon "first-begotten, last-born, from fire-" and his daughters from green herbs and cattle, from monsters and worms of the pit [23:11-17]. Urizen's four sons are the four principle elements of air, water, earth and fire.
This tetrasomy is the
manifesting quaternity of materialised life energy, represented
by the great quarters in every tradition: the four basic principles
of Air, Fire, Water and Earth in all traditions. In Egyptian tradition,
the four guardians of the quarters of Heaven: Hapi (the
Monkey - north), Thamutet (the Jackal - east), Quebsenut (the Falcon - west), and Amset (the Man - south), or
the four main gods Re, Su, Geb and Apis. In Christian tradition, the four animate beasts:
the Bull, the Eagle, the Lion, and the Cherub or Man. In Hebrew
tradition, the Shem ha Meforash, the most special name of god,
with the four attributes, represented by the four letters of YHVH.
In the Kabbalist tradition along with the former, Hayot ha Kodesh,
the 'angels' with four faces around the Keter Sefirah.
The tetrakthus in the Pythagorean tradition; monas, dias, trias, and tetrad, or 1, 2, 3, 4. The four dimensions
in Latin tradition: cosmos, spiritus, anima and solum. In the Kübalion tradition: spiritual,
mental, astral, and physical nature. In Gnostic tradition the
emanated arkhons: gnosis, pneuma, psyché, and sarks, which
create the prison of the material body.
|
Urizen's
exploration of the physical world is a highly elaborated topic, greatly
expanded in the Four Zoas Night
the Sixth. The episode also parallels the journey of Satan through Chaos
in Milton's Paradise Lost. In the fallen world, everything lives on
something else (the Ox is food) and what one appropriates, another lacks
(the Dog goes hungry). Laws of unity are impossible in this world; the
central governing law of this condition of existence is suffering; "life
lived upon death" [23:27]. It is interesting how Blake's description
of the world of suffering and the 'web of religion' parallel the Buddhist
teachings of the 'wheel of life' (samsara) according to which
the interdependent origination and existence of all beings in the material
world leads to suffering (dhukha). In Hindu philosophy this
is referred to as all living things caught in the "Web of Brahman".
The "Web of Religion" Urizen leaves trailing behind him parallels
the highway built by Sin and Death in Satan's track [Paradise
Lost II:1024-9]. The sons and daughters of Urizen are cursed
because they are lost in the world of matter: "no flesh nor spirit
could keep his iron laws one moment" [23:25-26]. Then from his
sorrows for these his children begotten on the material body of nature,
the web of religion begins to unwind and expand, "throwing
out from his sorrowing soul, the dungeon-like heaven dividing" [25:11-12] – and the knotted meshes of the web to involve all
races and cities.
Blake
again touches on the root of the matter: "the Web is a Female
in embrio" [25:18] that is a growing conviction in the reality
of the material world. Blake consistently makes Churches female –
a generating force – since the church signifies a belief in the
predetermined actuality of the physical universe. Material beings bound
by the chains of being automatically create the general conviction that
their physical state of existence is real and singular. Thus "The
Net of Religion" [25:22] is a second enclosure for mankind, like
the "Tent of Science" [25:19]. This idea is clearly expressed
in the yogacara philosophy of Buddhism, according to which reality is
what we believe it to be; the material world is a mere projection of
the mind. Correspondingly Blake compares the web to the meshes of the
human brain [25:21]. This is what Hindu philosophy calls the 'illusion
of reality' (maya) and the Gnostic the 'force of corruption'
or 'faith' (pistis).
» poem chapter
Top or Chapters
|
Textof the poem:
Chapter IX.
1. Then the Inhabitants
of those Cities
Felt their Nerves change into Marrow,
And hardening Bones began
In swift diseases and torments,
In throbbings & shootings & grindings
Thro' all the coasts; till weaken'd
The Senses inward rush'd, shrinking
Beneath the dark net of infection;
2. Till the shrunken
eyes, clouded over,
Discern'd not the woven hipocrisy.
But the streaky slime in their heavens,
Brought together by narrowing perceptions,
Appear'd transparent air; for their eyes
Grew small like the eyes of a man,
And in reptile forms shrinking together,
Of seven feet stature they remain'd.
3. Six days they shrunk
up from existence,
And on the seventh day they rested,
And they bless'd the seventh day, in sick hope,
And forgot their eternal life.
4. And their thirty cities
divided
In form of a human heart.
No more could they rise at will
In the infinite void, but bound down
To earth by their narrowing perceptions
They lived a period of years;
Then left a noisom body
To the jaws of devouring darkness.
5. And their children
wept, & built
Tombs in the desolate places,
And form'd laws of prudence, and call'd them
The eternal laws of God.
6. And the thirty cities
remain'd,
Surrounded by salt floods, now call'd
Africa: its name was then Egypt.
7. The remaining sons
of Urizen
Beheld their brethren shrink together
Beneath the Net of Urizen.
Perswasion was in vain;
For the ears of the inhabitants
Were wither'd & deafen'd & cold,
And their eyes could not discern
Their brethren of other cities.
8. So Fuzon call'd all
together
The remaining children of Urizen,
And they left the pendulous earth.
They called it Egypt, & left it.
9. And the salt Ocean rolled englob'd.
THE END OF THE FIRST
BOOK OF URIZEN
|
Chapter IX. – The Human Race
"The
Senses inward rushed shrinking beneath the dark net of infection: till
the shrunken eyes, clouded over, discerned not the woven hypocrisy;
but the streaky slime in their heavens, brought together by narrowing
perceptions, appeared transparent air; for their eyes grew small like
the eyes of a man. Six days they shrank up from existence, and the seventh
day rested, and they blessed the seventh day, in sick hope; and forgot
their eternal life."
[The Book of Urizen IX.1-3.]
The
degeneration of the children of Urizen is a consequence of their belief
in the fixed and limited nature of the natural world. They take on definite
material forms; their soft, flexible powers hardening in shapes of matter
[25:25]. Nerves create a marrow around which a limited structure of
senses evolve, but of limited perception. The birth of the Human race
is paralleled to the creation of the universe [Genesis I.] and the birth
of Urizen [Chapter IV.], but in a degraded state and power. The materialisation
of life in the form of human beings also takes seven stages, but the
seven ages of Urizen's creation become seven days for the creation of
humans: "For six days they shrunk up from existence and on the
seventh day they rested" [25:39-40.] "And in reptile forms
shrinking together of seven feet stature they remained" [25:37-38].
The loss of height refers to "There were giants in the earth in
those days" [Genesis 6:4]. Primitive mankind recapitulates the
constriction and shrinking of Urizen's divine senses.
The
limitation of the senses is crucial, since sensual perception blinded
by the Net of Religion ("woven hypocrisy … streaky slime" [25:32-3]) is the major cause of the loss of Eternity and freedom. The
narrowing perceptions are responsible for the bound-to-earth nature
of humanity [25:47-48]. Hence grows the animal tyranny of gravitation,
and hence also the spiritual tyranny of the laws of prudence [28:6-7].
Laws of limitation replace the true laws of God, which allow absolute
freedom in every aspect. Law is the root of every human organization: "thirty cities divided in from of a human heart" [25:43-4] could relate to heart-formed Africa, [Song of Los 3:3] which
is the cradle of civilization (» 17).
The thirty cities also refer to the thirty organs of the human body
bounding the spirit of man to earth.
Blake
ends his vision in a very gloomy way. Seeing these his brethren degraded
into life and debased into flesh, the son of the Fire, Fuzon,
calls together the remaining children of Urizen and they leave the pendulous
earth [28:19-22]. (Fuzon parallels Moses leading the Exodus
from Egypt, a topic highly elaborated in The
Book of Ahania.) The freer and stronger spirits leave the
world of men to the dominion of earth and water; air and fire are withdrawn
from them, and they are left only with the heaviness of imprisoning
clay and the bitterness of violent sea. Accordingly humanity is left
without the divine elements of Fire, the creative power of the mind
and Air, the imaginative power of the soul. Humanity can no longer discern
the divine element in the universe [28:17-18].
If the doors
of perception were cleansed
Every thing would appear to man as it is,
Infinite. |
» poem chapter
Top or Chapters
|
| |
-
(1)
All Blake quotations are from Erdman, David V. - The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. [New York: Doubleday,
1988]. In-text references to poems cite first the plate then the
line number.
-
(2) Keep, Christopher & McLaughlin, Tim - William
Blake and the Illuminated Book. [robin.escalation@ACM .org, 1995]
-
(3) Hermetics: In a narrow sense –
from historical and philological point of view – the Hermetic
tradition refers to a well distinguishable cultural phenomenon,
starting from Egypt around the 2nd century BC. In general terms
it is a philosophical system organizing all religious, mystical,
magical, philosophical traditions and mythological ideas ever known
to mankind. Of course it is a tradition itself, more ancient than
any other systems known...
-
(4) Keynes, Geoffrey (ed.) - The Complete Writings
of William Blake. [Oxford: Oxford Universitiy Press, 1996.] (p.914.)
-
(5) Keynes, Geoffrey (ed.) - The Complete Writings
of William Blake. [Oxford: Oxford Universitiy Press, 1996.]
(p.914.)
-
(6) Stevenson, W.H. (ed.) – William Blake : Selected
Poetry. [Penguin, 1988.] (p. 282.)
-
(7) H.P. Lovecraft – At the Mountains of Madness.
(The H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus 1-3.) [Harper Collins, 1985.]
-
(8) Aleister Crowley – MAGICK in theory and practice.
[Castle Books, 1991.]
-
(9) MacGregor Mathers – The Kabbalah Unveiled.
[Arkana, reprint of 1926.]
-
(10)
Compare with Chapter II. : the alchemical state of albedo (page 54.)
-
(11) Swinburne, Ch. Algernon - William Blake.
- Chpt. III.: The Prophetic Books . [William Heinemann, London 1925.]
(p. 249.)
-
(12) Papus (Encausse, Gerard) – Kabbala. [Hermit:
Miskolc, 1999.]
-
(13) Keynes, Geoffrey (ed.) - The Complete Writings
of William Blake. [Oxford: Oxford Universitiy Press, 1996.]
(p.917.)
-
(14)
Swedenborg's Philosophy of Nautre in Encyclopaedia Britannica [1994-1998]
See: Emanuel Swedendorg
-
(15)
There is a possible influence of Tiziano's or Giordano's Sisyphus on the representation (author's comment).
-
(16)
Since the body of the word in Hebrew comes from the consonants,
only the consonants of pardes are written.
-
(17) Keynes, Geoffrey (ed.) - The Complete Writings
of William Blake. [Oxford: Oxford Universitiy Press, 1996.]
(p.918.)
|
| |
[« previous ] |
[» next ] |
|
Top |
