All these things he sees and feels. But he alone is joyless, filled with insatiable passions, with longings for the infinite, budding desires nipped before they can blossom, unquenchable energies checked by the eternal "Thou shalt not." In vain does the tyrant himself repent of his work: in vain do Los and Enitharmon bewail the momentary impulse of jealousy which made them chain down the "ruddy boy" upon the rock. Such a law, once it has been promulgated, is irrevocable. Jealousy, like love, is stronger than death, and its effects endure for ages. The chain fastens itself upon the limbs of Orc and grows into them, rooting them to the rock : it becomes a luxuriant vegetation-the " Tree of Mystery "-covering the whole mountain, from the caves at its base up to the summit where the immortal child lies bound. Neither the tears nor the death of Enitharmon, nor Los's efforts, nor the bulls of Luvah, can break it. It is a "living chain, sustained by the Demon's life."1 Orc in his struggles shakes the earth, and wraps it in the flames that rise higher about him. Urizen trembles upon his throne, and goes forth to discover what is the cause of this disturbance. Then Luvah, who is overmastering desire and all-powerful love, hides himself in the person of Orc, and strives against Urizen-passion striving against law. Orc" organises a serpent-body," which exudes from his limbs," silent as is despairing love, and strong as jealousy," 2 and which rears its vast form against the Tree of Mystery, to destroy it in the end. At the same time, in his furious excitement, his inextinguishable passion for the beauty of Vala, he breaks his chains, mingles with Vala, and is consumed, with her, in his own flames. Strong passion, so long restrained, has burst its bonds at last; and desire satisfied has brought about its own extinction. Blake had expressed the same idea some years before when he said that the whole creation would be consumed at the end of six thousand years, and that this would "come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.' ."3 The destruction of Vala is the dissolution of worldly beauty possessed by desire, entirely absorbed in it, and perishing with it in the moment of consummation. (3) The quarrels of Los and Enitharmon occupy, with those of the three other Zoas and their Emanations, all the "Nights" of Vala, and symbolise the struggles that are always going on in the artistic spirit. Enitharmon is now no longer merely Pity or Artistic Pleasure she has become the Ideal, the vision that always floats 1 Vala. Night V, 169. 2 id. Night VII, 622. & Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 14. before his eyes, flying from him like a shadow when he pursues her. She is still the joy that he feels in work accomplished; but she is also the wife of Los, a capricious woman, an inconstant lover. Scarcely had she separated from Los when He embrac'd her she wept, she refus'd, In perverse and cruel delight. She fled from his arms, yet he follow'd. 1 Even while they wandered as little children in the world of Tharmas Enitharmon delighted in evoking visions of Albion, the Fallen Man, despite Los's love. And she it was who called to Urizen in the human heart, and decided the wars between him and the other Zoas. In vain Los struck her in his anger. He soon felt love for her reviving in his heart, and summoned her to return to him. But their marriagesong, sung by all nature, is a discordant cry of rebellion against man. The Mountain called out to the Mountain, Awake, O brother Mountain. Let us refuse the Plough and Spade, the heavy Roller and Spiked Harrow. Burn these cornfields all, throw all these fences down. Fattened on blood and drunk with wine of life is better far Than all these labours of harvest and vintage. 2 Nevertheless, for a time the newly wedded pair remain happy, watching the labours of Urizen and the sufferings of Luvah. They alone have kept a little of the eternal, and can still expand their senses into the infinite, and step from star to star. But Enitharmon again refuses to give herself to Los, in spite of his pleading. Lo, the lily pale and the rose reddening fierce Reproach thee, and the beamy garden sickens at thy beauty. Los dies in despair; but, after one night of sorrow, she calls him back to life with a love-song. The Joy of woman is the death even of her most beloved, Who dies for love of her, In torments of fierce jealousy and pangs of adoration. O, I am weary. Lay thy hand upon me or I faint, I faint beneath these beams of thine, Urizen, VI, 1. 2 Vala. Night I, 357. 3 id. Night II, 293. For thou hast touched my five senses and they answered thee. And fall on the bed of solemn sleep till thou awakenest me. 1 Thus she sang "in a rapturous delusive trance." Los heard, and revived. But alas! scarcely had he taken Enitharmon once more in his arms when she fled " outstretched upon the immense like a bright rainbow, weeping, smiling, fading." Elsewhere, we see her revealing the secret of woman's power, her gross, proud and jealous love, which overrules the higher love of man. I will create A round Womb beneath my bosom lest I also be overwoven And the Spectre of Los tells him the bitter truth: 3 The Man who respects Woman shall be despised by Woman, And deadly cunning and mean abjectness only, shall enjoy them. Here the goddess has fallen from heaven, and become the woman of flesh and blood, who subdues man to her will. It is useless to recapitulate, as Blake does, the many recurring phases of this history. Till time shall end, woman will always attract man and fly from him, will kill him and call him back to life with her tears. And always, too, the artist's ideal of love and beauty will hover before his eyes, unattainable, and filling him with alternate joy and grief; an eternal Eurydice, pursued and lost among the shadows of the infinite, "weeping, smiling, fading." (4) The struggles between Urthona-Los and his Spectre are as infinite in number and as varied in kind as his quarrels with Enitharmon. The whole book of Vala was written to describe his division into Spectre and Emanation and the changes he passed through as a consequence of it. Daughters of Beulah, sing His fall into Division and his resurrection into Unity, In Vala, the Spectre of Los, who is Urthona, appears for the first time assisting Tharmas to check the progress of Urizen. In other 1 Vala. Night II, 341. 4 Vala. Night I, 16. 2 Jerusalem, p. 87, 13. 3 id., p. 88, 37. M words, the proud prophetic spirit joins with the natural instinct of life in resisting the despotic laws imposed by a false god. But his chief achievement is his conquest of Enitharmon, who, not knowing who he is, surrenders herself to him beneath the Tree of Mystery. He reveals to her their mysterious common origin in the dividing of the Universal Man, and tells her that it is she only whom he desires, because he is Urthona, a spirit and " the Spectre of the Living." From their union, she gives birth to a "horrible monster," Error, "in dreams of Ulro," the "State" of Moral Death. Then he enters into the bosom of Los, who now for the first time becomes aware of his identity with Urthona. Thou art united with thy Spectre, to consume by pains That mortal body, and by self-annihilation come Back to Eternal Life to be assured I am thy self. For thou art but a form and organ of life, and of thyself Art nought, by Mercy and Love Divine continually created. 1 Thus the prophet learns that he is nothing. He must perish: only the spirit which breathes in him, the spiritual " State " represented by Urthona, remains for ever. It is by only his complete identification of himself with this spirit, by abandoning all thought of self and becoming simply the voice of God, that the prophet can accomplish his destiny and attain to perfect union with his ideal. Otherwise, all must be error. But once Los recognises and loves his Spectre, Enitharmon can come back to him; only, however, after many adventures, when, at the end of six thousand years of abnegation and repentance, the Lamb of God shall appear. And with the regeneration of man will come their final reunion. Urthona is arisen in his strength; no longer now Divided from Enitharmon-no longer the Spectre of Los. 2 'There will be no more need of prophecy, because God and man will be but one; no more need of an ideal, because the ideal will be life itself. In Jerusalem, the conception of Los's Spectre is somewhat different. Here he is, above all, the prophet's deadly enemy. He seems to have entirely forgotten that he is Urthona until Los recalls him to himself. He is only Los's pride and his sense of self-satisfaction. He hovers above the forge of Los, trying now to subjugate him and now to 1 Vala. Night VII, 339. 2 Vala. Night IX, 843. persuade him to leave Albion, the Eternal Man, whose salvation he has undertaken, to his fate. Wilt thou still go on to destruction? . All the Spectres of his Sons mock thee. I saw it indignant, and thou art not moved! This has divided thee in sunder: and wilt thou still forgive? 1 In all ages men have justified the condemnation pronounced by Christ. They have slain the prophets, and stoned those who were sent to convert them. But still the Prophetic Spirit remains unshakeable, and continues his work through all the ages. He does not merely resist the arguments of his Spectre, the biddings of his pride and his egoism, but he subdues the Spectre, and compels him to labour in the furnaces, to obey him and help him, or to drive away the sons and daughters of Albion, so that they may not interrupt his work. So even the least exalted impulses of the artist are made to serve his ideals. The Spectre is sent abroad over the four points of heaven In the fierce desires of beauty and in the tortures of repulse. He is The Spectre of the Living pursuing the Emanations of the Dead. 2 Art never shrinks from appealing to the earthly passions and affections of men, in order to gain their attention. And thus the Spectre also assists the work of Eternity. The Sons of Eden will praise him" because he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble," 3 and Los will receive him into his bosom. (5) All this while, Los has been building Golgonooza, the Palace or the World of Art. This has been Inspiration's chief work throughout the whole history of mankind. It is through Art alone that we can obtain a glimpse of the Divine Vision, since Art is all that remains to man of his lost Eden. Los builds the City of Art continually, with the unwilling aid of his Spectre and Enitharmon's gladly given help. He began it as a Universe of the Ideal to oppose the material world built by Urizen; and Blake gives us a minute description of it in Jerusalem, though in Vala he barely mentions it. + We could almost draw a picture of it, as we might make one of the 1 Jerusalem, p. 7, 9. 2 Jerusalem, p. 17. 11. id. p. 30, 15. 1 Vala. Night V, 76. |