VALA

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 53

Erdman's comment on this image: "Nothing is as it seems in this icon of the high priestess of Deism or State Religion, Vala dressed as Rahab."

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This post is based on material in Discussions of William Blake edited by John E Grant. Karl Kiralis' chapter, Intellectual Symbolism in Blake's Later Prophetic Writings, is the final chapter in the book.

Kiralis' aim in his article is to facilitate the reading of Jerusalem by demonstrating the use of Blake's context in interpreting Blake's symbolism. These passages focus on his character Vala whom it is essential to grasp.

Kiralis's words are shown in blue. 

Page 105

Interpreting such a key symbol as Vala requires a careful study of the text. Since she is variously defined by different characters, her whole role in the work must be considered to determine what she represents.

She is identified with Nature by two of the sons of Albion:

Jerusalem, Plate 18, (E 163) 

"Babylon the City of Vala, the Goddess Virgin-Mother. 

She is our Mother! Nature!" 

This is the fallen sons' conception of her.

The fallen Albion seems to have the same misconception.

Jerusalem, Plate 30 [34] 

"art thou not Babylon? Art thou Nature Mother of all!" 

The temporarily 'unfallen' children of Albion call Vala Jerusalem's shadow as does Blake himself.

Jerusalem, Plate 45 [31], (E 195)

"And he beheld Jerusalem in Westminster & Marybone, 

Among the ruins of the Temple: and Vala who is her Shadow," 

Blake states:  

Jerusalem Plate 70, (E 224)

"Her name is Vala in Eternity: in Time her name is Rahab" 

 

Jerusalem, Plate 78, (E 234) 

"They took their Mother Vala, and they crown'd her with gold: 

They namd her Rahab, & gave her power over the Earth 

The Concave Earth round Golgonooza in Entuthon Benython, 

Even to the stars exalting her Throne, to build beyond the Throne 

Of God and the Lamb, to destroy the Lamb & usurp the Throne of God" 

Since she is the eternal prototype of Rahab, we must recall that Rahab was clearly defined:  

Jerusalem Plate 35 [39], (E 181)

"And here begins the System of Moral Virtue, named Rahab."

Vala, then, as she appears on earth is the system of moral virtue or rational morality. She is fallen man's conception of Jerusalem, who represents eternal standards of truth and beauty, but actually she is Jerusalem's opposite, the earthly standards of truth and beauty.

They are unaware of the true meaning of Jerusalem. The maximum of liberty is obtained by granting mutual forgiveness, for it inevitable that man will err with his freedom...To reduce the margin of error, man must not artificially bind himself with moral laws but rather become wise with the 'Gifts of Spirit' through the exercise of 'the Divine Arts of Imagination.'

...Of course Vala is also nature - man's conception of the natural world and its beauty - but this is only part of what she symbolizes. Her fight to preserve herself by continuing to delude man with her false beauty and with the veil of moral virtue as she admits:  

Jerusalem, Plate 80, (E 236)
"But I Vala, Luvahs daughter, keep his body embalmd in moral laws
With spices of sweet odours of lovely jealous stupefaction:
Within my bosom, lest he arise to life & slay my Luvah
Pity me then O Lamb of God! O Jesus pity me!"     

Page 114

The reader was not to be lulled into a vague feeling that he apprehended the symbol: he was to be shocked and thus led to genuine understanding. He would be forced to know what he did not know that he might learn.

...As T.S. Elliot put it when writing his Cocktail Party, for those with a sensibility 'a meaning...gradually reveals itself according to different degrees of consciousness.'

 

 

THE DIVINE IMAGE

Wikipedia Commons

Songs of Innocence

Plate 12, Copy G

Songs of Innocence, Plate 18, (E 12)
"The Divine Image.                

To Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
All pray in their distress:
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy Pity Peace and Love,  
Is God our father dear:
And Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is Man his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face: 
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine   
Love Mercy Pity Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk or jew.
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too"

The Divine Image expresses the inclusiveness of God with humanity. Man is created in the image of God so that he may express in the flesh the nature of God who is Spirit. Humankind's nature is a implementation of God his creator. Just as God is not isolated from his creation, man is not meant to be isolated from his fellow man. We are meant to feel mercy by being touched in our hearts by another's suffering. We are meant to see with pity the face of every face revealing the underlying humanity which joins man with man. We are meant to express the bonds of love which cement us into one body which incorporates all. We are meant to distinguish the inner truth which resides in each from the outer appearances which prevent us from being at peace with others.

This poem is Blake's plea that mankind not be deceived by the outward appearances of nationality, race or creed. Within us are the same avenues for being in communication with God, 'out father dear,' and recognizing ourselves as being as he is.

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION, (E 3) 

"Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is"

First John 4 

[4] Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. 

[5] They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. 

[6] We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. 

[7] Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 

[8] He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 

[9] In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 

[10] Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

[11] Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 

[12] No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 

Four Zoas, Page 126, (E 395) 

"Luvah & Vala henceforth you are Servants obey & live 

You shall forget your former state return O Love in peace 

Into your place the place of seed not in the brain or heart  

If Gods combine against Man Setting their Dominion above

The Human form Divine. Thrown down from their high Station 

In the Eternal heavens of Human Imagination: buried beneath

In dark Oblivion with incessant pangs ages on ages 

In Enmity & war first weakend then in stern repentance 

They must renew their brightness & their disorganizd functions  

Again reorganize till they resume the image of the human 

Cooperating in the bliss of Man obeying his Will 

Servants to the infinite & Eternal of the Human form"

Annotations to Swedenborg, (E 603) 

"Swedenborg: In all the Heavens there is no other Idea of God than that of a Man: . .

Blake: Man can have no idea of any thing greater than Man as a cup cannot contain more than its capaciousness But God is a man not because he is so percievd by man but because he is the creator of man"

The path of Innocence is not traveled by all. Blake sees that mankind is marked by his choices. In London from Songs of Experience, Blake shows us the consequence of stifling our ability to respond to the Divine Image with Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love. He sees it in the streets he walks, the faces he encounters, the cries of the helpless and in failures of human relationships.

Songs of Experience, Plate 46, (E 26)
"LONDON                                        

I wander thro' each charter'd street,          
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.     
And mark in every face I meet                  
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man, 
In every Infants cry of fear,                  
In every voice: in every ban,                  
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear                

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,                
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear 
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse"

ANOTHERS SORROW

Wikipedia Commons

Songs of Innocence

Plate 27

We have been following the motifs in the three poems from Innocence which first appeared in Island in the Moon. Michael Phillips, in William Blake: The Creation of the Songs, on Pages 13-14 comments thus:

"Each of these has been presented from a distinct point of view. And, within the songs themselves, each presents a different perspective upon the child and childhood. In Holy Thursday, it is that of the distant but moved observer, sung by Obtuse Angle, a name which itself is suggestive of a way of seeing and not seeing. In Nurse's Song we are taken aback, in reverie: 'it puts me in mind of my grandmothers song' by the singer and by the song. And in The Little Boy Lost sung by Blake's own persona, 'Quid the Cynic', in the first stanza the child speaks to us directly and poignantly, abandoned by his parent. We are brought full circle, back to the match seller's cries.

    [" I cry my matches as far as Guild hall
     God bless the duke & his aldermen all
...
     I ask the Gods no more
          no more no more"]

In Songs of Innocence, Blake will fully explore and modulate the contrary perspectives of innocence and experience first seen here.
...
In the pages that follow we are about to learn from the children, to reawaken a part of ourselves that in relation to the world of experience, to our world, has been diminished or altogether lost."

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So Blake is showing us innocent children who play with lambs and frolic on the Ecchoing Green, whose mothers and angels and wild animals watch over them. But we see also innocent children who are forced to sell matches, climb chimneys, go hungry and feel lost and abandoned.

It is not enough to feel empathy for those who suffer, Blake asks us to enter into the joy which is felt by infants, children, parents, birds, flowers, insects and animals. Blake has woven both aspects of emotions into his Songs of Innocence. There is delight in the beauties of a world where everything works together; and there is anguish when harm is visited upon the helpless. Blake asks us to look at the emotions which are felt by a child when he feel lost and when he feels protected and valued. In Providing images in words and pictures of alternating emotions, Blake makes us aware of the internal dynamics of our own emotions as well as the joy and woe that others experience. Our ability to empathize with others is enhanced by entering into the emotional states which he presents. Unless a person has a realistic understanding of his own emotions, his empathy for others will be inauthentic.    

Blake selected On Anothers Sorrow to be the final poem in Songs of Innocence in all of the copies which he collated after 1818. Although the poem emphasizes the pain which is felt when one sees another suffering, we are left with and image of joy which comes from the savior being ever present bringing his peace.

Songs of Innocence, Song 27, (E 17)    
"On Anothers Sorrow        

Can I see anothers woe,
And not be in sorrow too.
Can I see anothers grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrows share,
Can a father see his child,
Weep, nor be with sorrow fill'd.

Can a mother sit and hear,
An infant groan an infant fear--
No no never can it be.
Never never can it be.

And can he who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small birds grief & care
Hear the woes that infants bear--

And not sit beside the nest
Pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit the cradle near
Weeping tear on infants tear. 

And not sit both night & day,
Wiping all our tears away.
O! no never can it be.
Never never can it be.

He doth give his joy to all. 
He becomes an infant small.
He becomes a man of woe
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not, thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy maker is not by.
Think not, thou canst weep a tear,
And thy maker is not near.

O! he gives to us his joy,
That our grief he may destroy
Till our grief is fled & gone
He doth sit by us and moan"
   

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Philippians 4
[4] Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.
[5] Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
[6] Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
[7] And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

LITTLE BOY LOST

Wikipedia Commons

Songs of Innocence

Plate 13

The third poem which Blake composed when he was writing Island in the Moon is The Little Boy Lost.

Songs of Innocence, Song 13, (E 11)   
"The Little Boy lost      
Father, father, where are you going
O do not walk so fast.
Speak father, speak to your little boy
Or else I shall be lost,

The night was dark no father was there   
The child was wet with dew,
The mire was deep, & the child did weep
And away the vapour flew."

In The Little Boy Lost the child does not experience innocence in the sense of feeling secure and protected. This is a child who feels inadequate to deal with the outer world which is dark and confusing. I think of the autistic child who can't seem to make the connections with the outer world that he is expected to make. Blake tells us that it was the child's weeping, his expression of feeling emotional sadness, that clarified the obscuring conditions.

If this little poem is taken in the psychological sense it represents falling into the depths of the journey into the unconscious where a restructuring of the psyche is demanded. The adult experiences a conundrum for which no solution seems possible. Unless he starts again as a little child who weeps and begs for mercy he is stuck in the mire. 

To put the picture into more spiritual terms if one realizes that the image of God on which one has depended is false, one must be willing to to encounter the true God who will be revealed to those who are ready to receive. In the poem the child has lost sight of the father, he feels abandoned until he weeps and the cloudiness begins to dissipate. 

This passage in the Psalms is brought to mind by Little Boy Lost:

Psalms 69
[1] Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.
[2] I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
[3] I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.
[4] They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.
[5] O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee.
...
[13] But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O LORD, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation.
[14] Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.
[15] Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.
[16] Hear me, O LORD; for thy lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.

In the poem Blake indicates the response of the father to the pleas of the child only by the stating that the 'vapor flew' and by showing in the picture that the child is drawn to a light in the distance. However in the lower part of the plate surrounding the words are four angelic figures and two wingless supporting figures.

The images of rush, mire and water from this verse in the Book of Job seem to have been in Blake's mind also.

 Job 8
[11] Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water?

The copy of the plate which is shown above is Copy Y belonging to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Blake had added details which are not seen in other copies. Notably there are bulrushes on the lower borders of the image and behind the child. The wavy line across the bottom of the plate suggests water or mire.   

The impression given by this plate is of the plight of the innocent who seeks to be heard by the father. He receives little help, but hope that he will find what he seeks is not absent.

NURSE'S SONG

Wikipedia Commons

Songs of Innocence

Plate 24

The second of the three Songs of Innocence poems which Blake wrote for Island in the Moon is Nurse's Song. The first two lines are spoken by an observer. The Nurse reveals her own emotional state in the next six lines. She is content to do her duty rather than participating in the singing and laughter of the children. Although the Nurse is satisfied within herself, in the next verse she expresses apprehension for the children. However the children want to extend their joyful, carefree play. The Nurse relents, realizing that the light in which the children bask will soon fade and that they may sleep when the light is gone.

Innocence, Blake realizes, is a temporary state. Children grow up and are exposed to the demands of living. The nurse plays the role of the protective element in the Nurse's Song but she has not been given the knowledge or understanding to guide the children along the perilous path. The careless activity of the children playing on the green is contrasted with the Nurse's concern about fading night. We see the cyclical rhythm of night and day, play and sleep, childhood and maturity. 

It is not clear from the poem if the children are well provided for by families or if they are under the care of institutions for the poor as are the children in Holy Thursday. We wonder if the laughter and play are part of an innocent childhood or if they are a respite for children who have already been exposed to hunger, cruelty and harsh conditions such as Dickens and Bronte described and Blake wrote about in The Chimney Sweeper.

On Page 38 of Blake's Apocalypse Harold Bloom states:

"For Blake 'Innocence' is from the start an equivocal term.
...
So, by 1789, when he engraved the Songs of Innocence, Blake seems to have anticipated joining them together with songs that would show 'The Contrary State of the Human Soul,' as he did five years later. Innocence is a state that warms our hearts against and reproaches the errors of a supposed mature existence."

Songs of innocence, SONGS 24, (E 15)
"Nurse's Song          

When the voices of children are heard on the green       
And laughing is heard on the hill,                             
My heart is at rest within my breast
And every thing else is still

Then come home my children, the sun is gone down    
And the dews of night arise
Come come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies

No no let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep                                       
Besides in the sky, the little birds fly                          
And the hills are all coverd with sheep

Well well go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed
The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh'd  
And all the hills ecchoed"

HOLY THURSDAY

Yale Center for British Art

Songs of Innocence, Plate 19, (E 13) 
"HOLY THURSDAY          

Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean
The children walking two & two in red & blue & green
Grey headed beadles walkd before with wands as white as snow
Till into the high dome of Pauls they like Thames waters flow
   
O what a multitude they seemd these flowers of London town 
Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own
The hum of multitudes was there but multitudes of lambs
Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands
   
Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song 
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among
Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor 
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door"

Holy Thursday is the first of the three poems which Blake wrote in Island in the Moon and later included in Songs of Innocence. It is a link between Blake's musings on various subjects which he expressed in Island in the Moon and his concerted effort to present the complex view of the world which occupied his mind and took form in his illuminated books. 

On page 237 of Fearful Symmetry, Northrop Frye tells us that:
"The Songs of Experience are satires, but one of the things that they satirize is the state of innocence. They show us the butcher's knife which is waiting for the unconscious lamb. Conversely, the Songs of Innocence satirize the state of experience, as the contrast they present to it make its hypocrisies more obviously shameful. Hence the two contrary states of the soul, and in their opposition there is a double-edged irony, cutting into the tragedy and the reality of fallen existence."

We could hardly think that Holy Thursday represented naked innocence. After all these are orphan children marching into the cathedral under the supervision of beadles. The children themselves are innocent: their faces are innocent as are their hands. But we are left with questions about "Grey headed beadles" who "walkd before with wands as white as snow" and the "aged men wise guardians of the poor." Is it enough that the children "raise to heaven the voice of song?" Testimony to the neglect and abuse of London's children in Blake's day is abundant.

The type of satire of which Frye writes is explained in the article on Menippean Satire in Wikipedia:
"Critic Northrop Frye said that Menippean satire moves rapidly between styles and points of view. Such satires deal less with human characters than with the single-minded mental attitudes, that they represent: the pedant, the braggart, the bigot, the miser, the quack, the seducer, etc. Frye observed that, The novelist sees evil and folly as social diseases, but the Menippean satirist sees them as diseases of the intellect."

CREATING THE SONGS

Wikipedia Commons

Songs of Innocence

Plate 16

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Island in the Moon was written in 1784 when his brother Robert was alive and living with William and Catherine in the building which also served as the print shop of Blake and James Parker. The setting for these anecdotes are gatherings at the homes of participants. At first glance Blake's cynical and ironic account of the social interaction of caricatures of his friends and associates seems to bear little relationship to his later work. One exception to the light-hearted humorous nature of this sixteen page manuscript is the inclusion of drafts of three poems which Blake later incorporated in Songs of Innocence. In his book William Blake: The Creation of the Songs, Michael Phillips states  that, "Here, perhaps, is the inception of the Songs and clearly a harbinger of what is to follow."

Northrop Frey indicates that the context in which these "'delicate and fragile"' poems appear suggests that "parallel songs of experience was already in Blake's mind, and was in origin an idea connected with satire."

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Island in the Moon, (E 462)
 
           " Chap 11

  Another merry meeting at the house of Steelyard the Lawgiver
  After Supper Steelyard & Obtuse Angle. had pumpd Inflammable
Gass quite dry. they playd at forfeits & tryd every method to get
good song then he sung humour. said Miss Gittipin pray
Mr Obtuse Angle sing us a song   then he sung

     Upon a holy thursday their innocent faces clean
     The children walking two & two in grey & blue & green
     Grey headed beadles walkd before with wands as white as snow
     Till into the high dome of Pauls they like thames waters flow

     O what a multitude they seemd, these flowers of London town 
     Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own
     The hum of multitudes were there but multitudes of lambs
     Thousands of little girls & boys raising their innocent hands

     Then like a mighty wind they raise to heavn the voice of song  
     Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heavn among     
     Beneath them sit the revrend men the guardians of the poor
     Then cherish pity lest you drive an angel from your door

  After this they all sat silent for a quarter of an hour [&
Mrs Sigtagatist] <& Mrs Nannicantipot> said it puts me
in Mind of my [grand] mothers song

     When the tongues of children are heard on the green 
     And laughing is heard on the hill                 
     My heart is at rest within my breast
     And every thing else is still

     Then come home my children the sun is gone down     
     And the dews of night arise
     Come Come leave off play & let us away
     Till the morning appears in the skies

     No No let us play for it is yet day
     And we cannot go to sleep      
     Besides in the Sky the little birds fly      
     And the meadows are coverd with Sheep    

     Well Well go & play till the light fades away
     And then go home to bed
     The little ones leaped & shouted & laughd                    
     And all the hills ecchoed

Then [Miss Gittipin] [Tilly Lally sung]
[Quid] sung <Quid>

     O father father where are you going
     O do not walk so fast
     O speak father speak to your little boy
     Or else I shall be lost

     The night it was dark & no father was there                 
     And the child was wet with dew
     The mire was deep & the child did weep
     And away the vapour flew

  Here nobody could sing any longer, till Tilly Lally pluckd up a
spirit & he sung.

O I say you Joe
Throw us the ball
Ive a good mind to go
And leave you all"

Michael Phillips goes on to follow the development of Songs of Innocence and of Experience through the first drafts of the poems and the first sketches of the images to the final printing and coloring of the books. In William Blake: The Creation of the Songs From Manuscript to Illuminated Printing we follow in detail the meticulous process Blake followed in producing his works of Art:

"With the Songs, uniquely, we are in a position to be able to appreciate nearly every stage of their creation from writing to reproduction. In particular we have seen how difficult, often uncertain and demanding each stage in the creative process has been, from drafting the text, composing text and design on the copper plate, printing the plates in monochrome, hand colouring, and colour printing. That we are unable to trace this progress in the making of other illuminated books, should not lead us to believe that their creation came about more easily." (Page 113) 

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