Primer - Myth

British Museum
Illustration of the Prodigal Son.

Blake Archive
The Prodigal Son's return to his father.


Fitzwilliam Museum
The father's reception of his son.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Plate 45, (E 26)

"And God like a father rejoicing to see,

His children as pleasant and happy as he:

Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the Barrel

But kiss him & give him both drink and apparel."

Myth -This passage is from Larry Clayton's book, Chapter Nine:

"Many people have called William Blake unique among English poets as the creator of a complete mythology. In a standard dictionary "without foundation in fact"  appears as the fifth meaning of 'mythical', but this is probably what the term conveys in common parlance. Therefore we must begin our study of Blake's myth by raising our consciousness of the word. 'Logos', 'myth', 'epic'--these three words have a common root. In literary and theological language myths are statements about the non-material ultimate . Some people of course avoid the non-material, considering it to be without foundation in fact; it's doubtful that any such reader has endured to his point of our study.

Blake considered the non-material to be the real; his art centered around the  endeavour to express the reality of the non-material. The meaning of his entire  artistic enterprise we may call his myth. His object was to fit all of experience into a total framework of meaning that will inform life. Our object is to grasp that total  framework; once we do that, we have a myth of meaning.

The diagram below schematically represents the shape of Blake's myth. All his  poetic and artistic work fits into this scheme of cosmic/psychic meaning. 

Only four of an infinite number of possible examples are included. The first is a general statement of Blake's scheme. Second with his story of the Prodigal Son in which Jesus gave us a personal paradigm of the history of the Chosen People and of the Human Race. Third is the career of alcoholism's progressive deterioration until the sufferer hits bottom, followed by recovery, providing a striking modern analogy, although not Blakean per se. Blake did use as a recurring motif the story of Lazarus found in the Gospel of John. But the primary paradigm of this myth is the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ. However Blake did not express this, probably did not fully realize it, until 1800 when he experiened an awakening.

This chapter illustrates the application of this fundamental myth in Blake's major poetic works. The development of Blake's epic will be traced through the various stages of his spiritual journey. In essence it's the same journey we all take; you could call it the history of Man. Blake called it the Circle of Destiny."

LIFE AS METAPHOR

First Posted March 2015

Few people who read Blake would deny that he is attempting to make his reader change the way he perceives his world. Our minds have been trained to see separate entities which are clearly differentiated. We have learned that things are either one thing or another. We measure and define, explain and rationalize. 

But what if words were pointers to ideas which were too big to be contained in words. What if each word opened the mind to ever expanding vistas of movement and activity. What if there were gates through which you could pass to enter unknown worlds. What if the world to which imagination can take us were all around us and inside us as well. What if we traveled through images of reality in a body which belongs to Eternity. Such a world would be the environs in which William Blake lived.

Blake's life can be thought of as a metaphor which he was using to describe the world which senses cannot access. He lived the joy and woe which permeates his poetic and visual images. He lived the death and the resurrection, and the journey of experience which connects the two. It was not enough to him to portray the Eternal, Infinite, Invisible world, he wanted to give access to that world to the brotherhood of man.

You are given the opportunity of viewing your own life as metaphor. You can become conscious that what we call reality is a mask which covers an "an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five". Your imagination will be expanded as was Blake's by exercising your "immortal Eyes ... inward into the Worlds of Thought".

Jerusalem, Plate 5, (E 147)
"Trembling I sit day and night, my friends are astonish'd at me.
Yet they forgive my wanderings, I rest not from my great task!
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes
Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity
Ever expanding in the Bosom of God. the Human Imagination        
O Saviour pour upon me thy Spirit of meekness & love:
Annihilate the Selfhood in me, be thou all my life!"

Four Zoas, Night VIII, Page 114, (E 385)
"he [Man] rises to the Sun
And to the Planets of the Night & to the stars that gild
The Zodiac & the stars that sullen stand to north & south
He touches the remotest pole & in the Center weeps
That Man should Labour & sorrow & learn & forget & return
To the dark valley whence he came to begin his labours anew
In pain he sighs in pain he labours in his universe
Screaming in birds over the deep & howling in the Wolf
Over the slain & moaning in the cattle & in the winds
And weeping over Orc & Urizen in clouds & flaming fires  
And in the cries of birth & in the groans of death his voice 
Is heard throughout the Universe whereever a grass grows
Or a leaf buds   The Eternal Man is seen is heard   is felt
And all his Sorrows till he reassumes his ancient bliss

Such are the words of Ahania & Enion. Los hears & weeps  
And Los & Enitharmon took the Body of the Lamb 
Down from the Cross & placd it in a Sepulcher which Los had hewn
For himself in the Rock of Eternity trembling & in despair 
Jerusalem wept over the Sepulcher two thousand Years"

Songs of Innocence & of Experience, Plate 9, (E 9)
"And we are put on earth a little space, 
we may learn to bear the beams of love,
...
SONGS 10  
For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear
The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice.
Saying: come out from the grove my love & care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

HUMAN FORM

Blake Archive
Morgan Library and Museum
Jerusalem
Plate 99

 Genesis 1

[26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Since man is created in the image of God he/she has the potential for being as God is - an Eternal expression of Life in all of its dimensions. By placing his Image within man God gave Life Eternal to humanity.

Blake uses the term Divine Humanity to identify God - to identiy man he uses the term Human Form Divine. Both share the same nature. Blake wants man to realize that God has entered his creation and dwells within each individual, calling each to hear his voice and act his will. 

Blake realized that although each is created in God's image, each also has an individual will and individual characteristics. Blake looked within himself and within other people and saw internal divisions which separated humans from following God's will. Blake wrote in order to understand and to share the wisdom he acquired by following the truth he discerned. Blake's gift to us is to gain from him tools to preceive the working of the spirit within that we might give expression to that divine image planted within. 

Four Zoas, Night IX, 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"
Luvah & Vala descended & enterd the Gates of Dark Urthona
And walkd from the hands of Urizen in the shadows of Valas Garden
Where the impressions of Despair & Hope for ever vegetate        
In flowers in fruits in fishes birds & beasts & clouds & waters
The land of doubts & shadows sweet delusions unformd hopes
They saw no more the terrible confusion of the wracking universe
They heard not  saw not  felt not  all the terrible confusion"

Auguries of Innocence, (E 492)

"Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born 
Every Morn & every Night
Auguries of Innocence, (E 492)

Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night
We are led to Believe a Lie 
When we see not Thro the Eye 

Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night 
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day"

Milton, Plate 33 [35], (E 131)

 (And thus the Seven Angels instructed him (Milton) & thus they converse.

We are not Individuals but States: Combinations of Individuals   
We were Angels of the Divine Presence: & were Druids in Annandale
Compelld to combine into Form by Satan, the Spectre of Albion,
Who made himself a God &, destroyed the Human Form Divine.
But the Divine Humanity & Mercy gave us a Human Form      [Hebrew text]
                                                                                                  as multitudes
Because we were combind in Freedom & holy Brotherhood     Vox Populi 

While those combind by Satans Tyranny first in the blood of War
And Sacrifice &, next, in Chains of imprisonment: are Shapeless Rocks
Retaining only Satans Mathematic Holiness, Length: Bredth & Highth
Calling the Human Imagination: which is the Divine Vision & Fruition
In which Man liveth eternally: madness & blasphemy, against      
Its own Qualities, which are Servants of Humanity, not Gods or Lords[.]
Distinguish therefore States from Individuals in those States.
States Change: but Individual Identities never change nor cease:
You cannot go to Eternal Death in that which can never Die.
Satan & Adam are States Created into Twenty-seven Churches       
And thou O Milton art a State about to be Created
Called Eternal Annihilation that none but the Living shall
Dare to enter: & they shall enter triumphant over Death
And Hell & the Grave! States that are not, but ah! Seem to be.

Judge then of thy Own Self: thy Eternal Lineaments explore       
What is Eternal & what Changeable? & what Annihilable!

The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself
Affection or Love becomes a State, when divided from Imagination
The Memory is a State always, & the Reason is a State
Created to be Annihilated & a new Ratio Created                  
Whatever can be Created can be Annihilated Forms cannot
The Oak is cut down by the Ax, the Lamb falls by the Knife
But their Forms Eternal Exist, For-ever. Amen Hallelujah

Thus they converse with the Dead watching round the Couch of Death.
For God himself enters Death's Door always with those that enter 
And lays down in the Grave with them, in Visions of Eternity
Till they awake & see Jesus & the Linen Clothes lying
That the Females had Woven for them, & the Gates of their Fathers House"

 Letters, To Butts, (E 712)

     "I each particle gazed
     Astonishd Amazed
     For each was a Man
     Human formd.  Swift I ran
     For they beckond to me
     Remote by the Sea
     Saying.  Each grain of Sand
     Every Stone on the Land
     Each rock & each hill
     Each fountain & rill
     Each herb & each tree
     Mountain hill Earth & Sea
     Cloud Meteor & Star
     Are Men Seen Afar"

Milton, Plate 19 [21], (E 112)

"Urizen emerged from his Rocky Form & from his Snows,
And he also darkend his brows: freezing dark rocks between
The footsteps. and infixing deep the feet in marble beds:
That Milton labourd with his journey, & his feet bled sore
Upon the clay now chang'd to marble; also Urizen rose,
And met him on the shores of Arnon; & by the streams of the brooks    

Silent they met, and silent strove among the streams, of Arnon
Even to Mahanaim, when with cold hand Urizen stoop'd down
And took up water from the river Jordan: pouring on
To Miltons brain the icy fluid from his broad cold palm.
But Milton took of the red clay of Succoth, moulding it with care
Between his palms: and filling up the furrows of many years
Beginning at the feet of Urizen, and on the bones
Creating new flesh on the Demon cold, and building him,
As with new clay a Human form in the Valley of Beth Peor."

Four Zoas, Night VIII, Page 100 (FIRST PORTION), (E 372) 
"From out the War of Urizen & Tharmas recieving them
Into his hands. Then Enitharmon erected Looms in Lubans Gate
And calld the Looms Cathedron in these Looms She wove the Spectres
Bodies of Vegetation Singing lulling Cadences to drive away
Despair from the poor wandering spectres and Los loved them
With a parental love for the Divine hand was upon him
And upon Enitharmon & the Divine Countenance shone
In Golgonooza Looking down the Daughters of Beulah saw
With joy the bright Light & in it a Human form 
And knew he was the Saviour Even Jesus & they worshipped
Astonishd Comforted Delighted in notes of Rapturous Extacy 
All Beulah stood astonishd Looking down to Eternal Death
They saw the Saviour beyond the Pit of death & destruction
For whether they lookd upward they saw the Divine Vision
Or whether they lookd downward still they saw the Divine Vision
Surrounding them on all sides beyond sin & death & hell"

Jerusalem, Plate 99, (E 258) 

"All Human Forms identified even Tree Metal Earth & Stone. all
Human Forms identified, living going forth & returning wearied
Into the Planetary lives of Years Months Days & Hours reposing
And then Awaking into his Bosom in the Life of Immortality.

And I heard the Name of their Emanations they are named Jerusalem

                                    The End of The Song 

                                          of Jerusalem"

                                                                                                                                                      

CREATIVE FANTASY

 First posted Feb 2019

Wikipedia Commons
Milton's Mysterious Dream,
Watercolor Illustration to Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso

Since the unconscious is an aspect of the mind to which the conscious mind has little access, there is difficulty in discerning its content. If an individual behaves in a way which is inconsistent with the values to which he consciously ascribes, he may be under the control of unconscious forces which are unacceptable to the society in which he lives. The apostle Paul said, "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." If a person is seeking to understand why he fails to measure up to the standards which he consciously sets for himself, he may find some answers in myth and dreams for these are ways the unconscious makes itself known to the conscious mind.

By seeking to understand what messages are conveyed to his own psyche by dreams and myth one learns to assimilate a broader range of experience which applies to him and to the world consciousness to which he belongs.

Kathleen Raine on Page 126 of Defending Ancient Springs quoted Jung as recalling 'the unending myth of death and rebirth, and of the multitudinous figures who weave in and out of this mystery': 

"Of this story no single life can realize more than a part; but beneath our individual experience is the pooled experience of our inheritance, Jung's 'collective unconscious' which discloses itself so he says, only through the medium of creative fantasy. 'It comes alive in the creative man, it reveals itself in the vision of the artist, in the inspiration of the thinker, in the inner experience of the mystic.' the mythologies of all races are its embodiment; the psychologists are newcomers in a field long known to the poets; a fact they are apt to forget.
...
Dreams resemble myths in their personification and symbolic forms and enactments; and the knowledge which myths and dreams alike mediate and embody is not conceptual knowledge; in symbols the soul can speak, but not the discursive reason. Explanations come afterwards and are far less fundamental; one has only to think of the countless expositions given some myth, which always survives these attempts to throw light upon its mystery. But the sign of the initiate of the ancient Mysteries was the finger laid upon the lips, the sign of silence. The Mysteries cannot be divulged because they elude verbal formulation."

---

Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Song 41, (E 24)
"The Angel  

I Dreamt a Dream! what can it mean?
And that I was a maiden Queen:
Guarded by an Angel mild:
Witless woe, was ne'er beguil'd!

And I wept both night and day
And he wip'd my tears away
And I wept both day and night
And hid from him my hearts delight

So he took his wings and fled:
Then the morn blush'd rosy red:
I dried my tears & armed my fears,
With ten thousand shields and spears,

Soon my Angel came again;
I was arm'd, he came in vain:
For the time of youth was fled            
And grey hairs were on my head." 

Europe, Plate 9, (E 62)
"Enitharmon slept,                                                
Eighteen hundred years: Man was a Dream!
The night of Nature and their harps unstrung:
She slept in middle of her nightly song,
Eighteen hundred years, a female dream!"

Milton, Plate 15 [17], (E 109)
"As when a man dreams, he reflects not that his body sleeps,
Else he would wake; so seem'd he entering his Shadow: but
With him the Spirits of the Seven Angels of the Presence
Entering; they gave him still perceptions of his Sleeping Body;
Which now arose and walk'd with them in Eden, as an Eighth   
Image Divine tho' darken'd; and tho walking as one walks
In sleep; and the Seven comforted and supported him.

Like as a Polypus that vegetates beneath the deep!
They saw his Shadow vegetated underneath the Couch
Of death: for when he enterd into his Shadow: Himself:           
His real and immortal Self: was as appeard to those
Who dwell in immortality, as One sleeping on a couch
Of gold; and those in immortality gave forth their Emanations
Like Females of sweet beauty, to guard round him & to feed
His lips with food of Eden in his cold and dim repose!           

But to himself he seemd a wanderer lost in dreary night."

FURNACE

 

Blake Archive

Morgan Library and Museum

Jerusalem

Plate 6

We turn again to Northrop Frye's last major work, Words With Power: Being a Second Study of "The Bible and Literature." 

In Part 2 of his book Frye devotes the four chapters to four metaphoric topics: the Mountain, the Garden, the Cave and the Furnace. He calls these chapters "essays on comparative mythology, organized around four primary concerns: the concern to make and create, the concern to love, the concern to sustain oneself and assimilate the environment, with its metaphorical kernal of food, and the concern to escape from slavery and restraint." (Page 139) 

From Fearful Symmetry by Northrop Frye, Page 290

"But there is no image of an inscrutable fate which may not be also an image of creative power, and the winepress and mill may represent not only the disintegration of form, but the reuniting of all nature into the body and blood of a universal Man. Thus the gathering-in of life to prevent its death may be a symbol of apocalypse...In Night IX Blake expands this apocalyptic aspect of his bread and wine symbolism into a superb fantasia in which Luvah gathers the vintage and Urizen the harvest, Tharmas winnows the grain and Urthona grinds it in the mill... The process is part of the great communion feast in which human life is reintigrated into its real form. 

The same regenerative meaning belongs also to the furnace. Man's body may remain a natural hell of unsatisfied desire, or it may become an imaginative purgatory, a crucible from which the purified mind emerges. In that case the furnace, the body of Luvah, is operated by Los, which is the fiery furnace shown us in the Book of Daniel." 

Daniel 3

[23] And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
[24] Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellers, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.
[25] He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
[26] Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth of the midst of the fire.
[27] And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counsellers, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.
[28] Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.

On page 296 of Words with Power Frye wrote:

"The image of the furnace may be used for either the negative or
positive aspects of the lower world. The negative or demonic world
is the traditional hell which is a furnace of heat without light.
The positive one is purgatorial, a crucible from which the redeemed
emerge purified like metal in a smelting operation."

 

The importance of the furnace to Blake as an agent of change is indicated by the fact that the word furnace occurs 171 times in his writings. Although several of Blake's characters are associated with furnaces, Los the blacksmith is the principle operator. His is the job of shaping the raw materials into the human form. 

Frye indicates that there a two sides ot the image of the furnace. In the hymn "How firm a foundation" we sing in the fourth verse: 

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”

The hymn is stating that our life's journey will not always be easy or pleasant; that our experience will force us into arduous situations that will try our endurance. For this the hymn writer uses the metaphor of the furnace whose intense heat removes that which can be annihilated from the pure, indestructable material which will enable us to achieve the goal of our journey. That which can be relinquished must be subjected to the testing of the fire so that we may learn to rely on God's wisdom and love to guide us.  

In the Books of Genesis and  Exodus we follow the journey of the children of 
Abraham as they pass through the furnace of Egypt which became progressively more onerous as the years passed.

Exodus 2

[23] And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
[24] And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
[25] And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.

Exodus 3

[9] Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.
[10] Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Exodus 6

[11] Go in, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land.

Exodus 12

[41] And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.

Blake's use of the furnace:

Jerusalem, Plate 8, (E 151)
"He saw that Los was the sole, uncontrolld Lord of the Furnaces
Groaning he kneeld before Los's iron-shod feet on London Stone,
Hungring & thirsting for Los's life yet pretending obedience.
While Los pursud his speech in threatnings loud & fierce.
Thou art my Pride & Self-righteousness: I have found thee out:
Thou art reveald before me in all thy magnitude & power
Thy Uncircumcised pretences to Chastity must be cut in sunder!
Thy holy wrath & deep deceit cannot avail against me
Nor shalt thou ever assume the triple-form of Albions Spectre
For I am one of the living: dare not to mock my inspired fury
If thou wast cast forth from my life! if I was dead upon the mountains
Thou mightest be pitied & lovd: but now I am living; unless
Thou abstain ravening I will create an eternal Hell for thee.
Take thou this Hammer & in patience heave the thundering Bellows
Take thou these Tongs: strike thou alternate with me: labour obedient"
Jerusalem, Plate 9, (E 152)
"I saw terrified; I took the sighs & tears, & bitter groans:
I lifted them into my Furnaces; to form the spiritual sword.
That lays open the hidden heart: I drew forth the pang
Of sorrow red hot: I workd it on my resolute anvil:
I heated it in the flames of Hand, & Hyle, & Coban
Nine times; Gwendolen & Cambel & Gwineverra
Are melted into the gold, the silver, the liquid ruby,
The crysolite, the topaz, the jacinth, & every precious stone,
Loud roar my Furnaces and loud my hammer is heard:
I labour day and night, I behold the soft affections
Condense beneath my hammer into forms of cruelty
But still I labour in hope, tho' still my tears flow down.
That he who will not defend Truth, may be compelld to defend
A Lie: that he may be snared and caught and snared and taken
That Enthusiasm and Life may not cease: arise Spectre arise!"
Jerusalem Plate 10, (E 152) t
"Into the Furnaces & into the valleys of the Anvils of Death
And into the mountains of the Anvils & of the heavy Hammers
Till he should bring the Sons & Daughters of Jerusalem to be
The Sons & Daughters of Los that he might protect them from
Albions dread Spectres; storming, loud, thunderous & mighty
The Bellows & the Hammers move compell'd by Los's hand."

CHARIOT

 First posted March 2018

Yale center for British Art 

 Jerusalem
Plate 46 

 Man sits in his chariot, weak and drowsy. Beside him sits with his emanation, slumped in detached despair. Let's call them Albion and Jerusalem who have been wounded in the battles to preserve their integrity in the onslaught of falsity.

They should be carried by a chariot of fire but instead in their depleted condition, they are in vehicle constructed of three serpents, symbols of demonic intent who also guide their direction. The motive power of their vehicle comes from oxen with human faces, and the manes of lions, and the twisted horns of unicorns.

There are two human faces, both bearded old men who look troubled. Let's call them Urizen and Luvah whose contentions plagued Albion.

The small creatures on the backs of the oxen have wings and heads which could be those of eagles. Their bodies are human. They appear to be messengers giving instructions to the serpents. The scroll is passed to the hand reaching out which is connected to the brain of the human faced being through the unicorn's horn.

The overall impression is of fear and hope. Albion and Jerusalem have no control in the situation. The divisions within them have given power to entities which draw them away from recovery of their wholeness. But they, like Ezekiel's Israel, have been delivered a message which can restore their unity with the Eternal.

The whole chariot scene is surrounded by flames suggesting that it takes place in the Furnace of Affliction and may have a beneficial outcome.

---

Ezekiel 1
[5] Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.
...
[10] As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.
[21] When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

Ezekiel 2
[2] And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me.
...
[9] And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein;
[10] And he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.

Ezekiel 3
[11] And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.
[12] Then the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, saying, Blessed be the glory of the LORD from his place.

Revelation 20
[2] And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

---

Milton, Plate 1, (E 95)

     "Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
     Bring me my Arrows of desire:                     
     Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
     Bring me my Chariot of fire!

     I will not cease from Mental Fight,
     Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
     Till we have built Jerusalem,                     
     In Englands green & pleasant Land."

Jerusalem, Plate 36 [40], (E 182)
"They have perswaded him of horrible falshoods!
They have sown errors over all his fruitful fields!              

The Twenty-four heard! they came trembling on watry chariots.
Borne by the Living Creatures of the third procession
Of Human Majesty, the Living Creatures wept aloud as they
Went along Albions roads, till they arriv'd at Albions House.

O! how the torments of Eternal Death, waited on Man:     
And the loud-rending bars of the Creation ready to burst:
That the wide world might fly from its hinges, & the immortal mansion
Of Man, for ever be possess'd by monsters of the deeps:
And Man himself become a Fiend, wrap'd in an endless curse,
Consuming and consum'd for-ever in flames of Moral Justice."

Jerusalem, Plate 55, (E 205)
"(& their Words stood in Chariots in array
Curbing their Tygers with golden bits & bridles of silver & ivory)"      

Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 257)
"The Four Living Creatures Chariots of Humanity Divine Incomprehensible
In beautiful Paradises expand These are the Four Rivers of Paradise   
And the Four Faces of Humanity fronting the Four Cardinal Points
Of Heaven going forward forward irresistible from Eternity to Eternity"

Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 258)
"And I heard Jehovah speak 
Terrific from his Holy Place & saw the Words of the Mutual Covenant Divine
On Chariots of gold & jewels with Living Creatures starry & flaming
With every Colour, Lion, Tyger, Horse, Elephant, Eagle Dove, Fly, Worm,
And the all wondrous Serpent clothed in gems & rich array Humanize
In the Forgiveness of Sins according to the Covenant of Jehovah."

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 560)
"If the Spectator could Enter into these Images in his
Imagination approaching them on the Fiery Chariot of his
Contemplative Thought"

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 560)
   By the side of Seth is Elijah he comprehends all the
Prophetic Characters he is seen on his fiery Chariot bowing
before the throne of the Saviour.

Letters, To Hayley, (E 714)
Happinesses have
wings and wheels; miseries  are leaden legged and their whole
employment is to clip the wings  and to take off the wheels of
our chariots.  We determine,  therefore, to be happy and do all
that we can, tho' not all that  we would."

Jerusalem, Plate 96, (E 256)
"So Albion spoke & threw himself into the Furnaces of affliction 
All was a Vision, all a Dream: the Furnaces became
Fountains of Living Waters Howing from the Humanity Divine
And all the Cities of Albion rose from their Slumbers, and All
The Sons & Daughters of Albion on soft clouds Waking from Sleep
Soon all around remote the Heavens burnt with flaming fires    
And Urizen & Luvah & Tharmas & Urthona arose into
Albions Bosom: Then Albion stood before Jesus in the Clouds
Of Heaven Fourfold among the Visions of God in Eternity" 

CAVE

 

Fitzwilliam Museum

Visions of Daughters of Albion

Plate 1

In Part 2 of Words with Power, Frye devotes the four chapters to four metaphoric topics: the Mountain, the Garden, the Cave and the Furnace. He calls these chapters "essays on comparative mythology, organized around four primary concerns: the concern to make and create, the concern to love, the concern to sustain oneself and assimilate the environment, with its metaphorical kernal of food, and the concern to escape from slavery and restraint." (Page 139)  

Cave

The study of the Cave or the lower world begins with where we left off. In the post titled Mountain,  Jacob's ladder stretched between two levels of consciousness, 'planted in Jacob's dreaming brain.' The cave signifies the sub-conscious or supressed energies which are nearer the surface in the dreaming state. To reach the deeper levels of the lower world we are required to make a descent.

Frye

"the concern to sustain oneself and assimilate the environment, with its metaphorical kernal of food" (Page 139)

"We have now to consider the relation this world to a lower world. Here again we shall find both an enlarging and expanding of consciousness, corresponding to Jacob's ladder, ideological adaptations of it like the chain of being, and demonic parodies of it, corresponding to the Tower of Babel." (Page 229)

"The waking consciousness is considerably more docile than the more repressed forms of awareness, and consequently most structures of authority tend to focus on it and try to make sure that repressed impulses remain repressed. As usual there are resistance movements among poets...They drew also on a largley repressed oral tradition, repressed because the art of writing was controlled  mainly by more official authority." (Page 236)   

"The original descent is complemented by a creative assent, in the form of a revolutionary release of repressed elements, whether political of psychological...In the Old Testament the central image of this emancipating revolt is the Exodus; in the New Testament it is the Resurrection, Christ's escape from death as well as hell." (Page 238)

Blake was "the first person in the modern world to see the events of his day in their mythical and imaginative context. He realized the old mythical universe, in its ideological form as a rationalizing of traditional authority, was dead, and that it was time for a new emphasis in mythology that would accomodate the revolutionary movements he saw rising all around him. Being a poet and not a dialecticion, Blake also understood better than most others the metaphorical shape that the new construct would have...Blake saw that as long a man lives within a hierarchical myth without really knowing it, his whole behavior will be conditioned beyond the point of resistance: a rebellion against one hierarchy will mearly set up another one." (Page 243)

The work of the Printing house in Hell takes place not in the conscious mind of the ego but in the deeper recesses of the brain where supressed memories have been hidden. Blake is suggesting that before he has anything to transmit through words and images he must search through the contents of the brain which resides within the cave of his skull where Dragons do the word of clearing away 'All that can be annihilated' for it 'must be annihilated.' The internal process will continue in stages until the contents which germinate within his psyche find a receptive audience in the external world.

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 15, (E 39)
                            "A Memorable Fancy
   I was in a Printing house in Hell & saw the method in which
knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation.
   In the first chamber was a Dragon-Man, clearing away the
rubbish from a caves mouth; within, a number of Dragons were
hollowing the  cave, 
   In the second chamber was a Viper folding round the rock & the 
cave, and others adorning it with gold silver and precious
stones.
   In the third chamber was an Eagle with wings and feathers of
air, 
he caused the inside of the cave to be infinite, around were
numbers  of Eagle like men, who built palaces in the immense
cliffs.
   In the fourth chamber were Lions of flaming fire raging around
&  melting the metals into living fluids.
   In the fifth chamber were Unnam'd forms, which cast the metals 
into the expanse.
   There they were reciev'd by Men who occupied the sixth
chamber,  and took the forms of books & were arranged in
libraries."

The following passage indicates that it is Vala, the exterior world, that brings forth the Imaginative Human Form from her secret Cave. As the emanation of Luvah she is an expression of human emotions which are as likely to be destructive as constructive.

Jerusalem, Plate 29 [33], (E 176)

"The Imaginative Human Form is but a breathing of Vala
I breathe him forth into the Heaven from my secret Cave          
Born of the Woman to obey the Woman O Albion the mighty
For the Divine appearance is Brotherhood, but I am Love"

Four Zoas, Night VI, Page 74, (E 351)

"Four Caverns rooting downwards their foundations thrusting forth
The metal rock & stone in ever painful throes of vegetation
The Cave of Orc stood to the South a furnace of dire flames
Quenchless unceasing. In the west the Cave of Urizen             
For Urizen fell as the Midday sun falls down into the West
North stood Urthonas stedfast throne a World of Solid darkness
Shut up in stifling obstruction rooted in dumb despair
The East was Void. But Tharmas rolld his billows in ceaseless eddies
Void pathless beat with Snows eternal & iron hail & rain     
All thro the caverns of fire & air & Earth, Seeking
For Enions limbs nought finding but the black sea weed & sickning slime
Flying away from Urizen that he might not give him food
Above beneath on all sides round in the vast deep of immensity
That he might starve the sons & daughters of Urizen on the winds 
Making between horrible chasms into the vast unknown
All these around the world of Los cast forth their monstrous births
But in Eternal times the Seat of Urizen is in the South  
Urthona in the North Luvah in East Tharmas in West"

The emptiness of the void is not unproductive. It has the potential of becoming a womb in which the spirit may be nutured and grow into a fully developed fourfold human.

Milton, Plate 41[48], (E 143)

"Hence arose all our terrors in Eternity! & now remembrance
Returns upon us! are we Contraries O Milton, Thou & I            
O Immortal! how were we led to War the Wars of Death
Is this the Void Outside of Existence, which if enterd into
PLATE 42 [49]                  
Becomes a Womb? & is this the Death Couch of Albion
Thou goest to Eternal Death & all must go with thee

Jerusalem Frontispiece