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| British
Library Four Zoas Manuscript Page 7 |
"I thought Tharmas a Sinner & I murderd his Emanations
His secret loves & Graces Ah me wretched What have I done
For now I find that all those Emanations were my Childrens Souls
And I have murderd them with Cruelty above atonement
Those that remain have fled from my cruelty into the desarts
And thou the delusive tempter to these deeds sittest before me
[Missing Lines]
Tharmas all thy Soft delusive beauty cannot
Tempt me to murder my own soul & wipe my tears & smile
[Continuation]
In this thy world not mine! tho dark I feel my world within
Mingling his horrible brightness with her tender limbs then high she soard
Above the ocean; a bright wonder that Nature shudder'd at
Half Woman & half Spectre, all his lovely changing colours mix
With her fair crystal clearness; in her lips & cheeks his poisons rose
In blushes like the morning, and his scaly armour softening
A monster lovely in the heavens or wandering on the earth,"
Enion was jealous of Tharmas' ability to express himself. She failed to realize that what he produced was through her. When she facilitated the drawing out from Tharmas of his Spectre, which in his case was an attitude toward his sexuality which abstracted it from its human dimension, she destroyed her own creative ability. The missing lines tell us that Enion still has the self-knowledge to refuse unfeelingly to destroy what she retained of her divine nature.
The female consciousness expresses her awareness of her responsibility for the changes which have occurred in the male's attitudes. In contemporary society we see this pattern occurring. We see males and females attempting to manipulate each other. The shifting of attitudes of attractiveness, attempts to dominate, rejection and guilt, is followed by a return to the original attempts to lure the attention of the other. Behaviors observed in the outer world are not divorced from conditions within the individual's mind. If within the psyche predictable behaviors cannot be consistently produced, a corresponding distortion appears in relationships in the phenomenal world.
Blake's visionary portrayal of these fractures in the psyche shows us Enion entering the delusive world of the tempter. The deceptive appeal of the serpent mingles with her psychologically. Only contradictory terms can describe the situation - 'A monster lovely in the heavens or wandering on the earth.'
Apparently the final verse on this page intimates the mating of the Emanation and Spectre of Tharmas which will produce Los and Enitahrmon.
As in most of the pages of the Four Zoas, there are deleted lines. The Textural Notes for Page 7 shows these lines were deleted from the end of text:
"With Spectre voice incessant wailing; in incessant thirst
Beauty all blushing with desire mocking her fell despair
Wandering desolate, a wonder abhorr'd by Gods & Men".
The beginning of the printed text is from the third line of the first paragraph of Page 7.
From the Textural Notes by David V Erdman:
"The undeleted original lines appear also on p 143 (a
smaller leaf but neatly written as if begun as fair copy, perhaps
of a draft preceding the large copperplate pages) and are there
revised." (E 821)
.
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