NOT SO WITH ME [36]

British Library
Four Zoas Manuscript
Page 36

Four Zoas, Night II, PAGE 36, (E 325) 
"To listen to the hungry ravens cry in wintry season
When the red blood is filld with wine & with the marrow of lambs

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan
To see a god on every wind & a blessing on every blast           
To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies house
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, & the sickness that cuts off his children
While our olive & vine sing & laugh round our door & our children bring fruits & flowers

Then the groan & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave grinding at the mill
And the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier in the field
When the shatterd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity
Thus could I sing & thus rejoice, but it is not so with me!

Ahania heard the Lamentation & a swift Vibration
Spread thro her Golden frame. She rose up eer the dawn of day 

When Urizen slept on his couch. drawn thro unbounded space
Onto the margin of Non Entity the bright Female came
There she beheld the Spectrous form of Enion in the Void   
And never from that moment could she rest upon her pillow

          End of the Second Night"

The focus of Enion's lament turns to the suffering in the world among its creatures and in the destruction brought about by natural disasters. Next she turns to the suffering inflicted on humans by other humans.

Tharmas is the 'parent power' the originator of the proliferation of entities man perceives. Tharmas symbolically is represented by the father, his emanation Enion bears the characteristics of the mother. She is led to lament over the fallen world because it is her children who comprise it. The irony of Enion's position is that her inclination to grieve over the straits of her children created a vast distance between her and them. Her original function would have included rejoicing in the instinctual output of the psyche; her fallen appearance is the mourner blinded by her grief.

Her lamenting led to a further decline in the unity of Albion. Ahania, Urizen's emanation, responded to Enion's song by discarding her role as the pleasure enjoyed by the reasoning mind. Having empathized with the suffering world, Enion could not 'rejoice in the tents of prosperity'. Ahania resonated to Enion's realization and had her consciousness simultaneously transformed.

We have seen Albion incrementally losing the ideal functioning of his psyche. He loses:
Tharmas - his instinct to live as a finely tuned body;
Enion - his ability to maintain an image of himself as healthy and happy;
Enitharmon - his impulse to create forms which could embody his thoughts;
Ahania - his delight in forms which his mind created.