WEAVING 8

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem 

Plate 100

Apparently Blake perceived Eternity as dynamic rather than static. The soul was capable of receiving a covering shaped by Los and woven by Enitharmon even in the Resurrected Body. The Infinite could still be hidden in finite revolutions. The final page of Jerusalem bears no text. The image can be read as an allegory of a state beyond the senses ability to comprehend.

On page 138 of Blake's Sublime Allegory, in his chapter titled The Figure of the Garment, Morton B Paley stated: 
"If the garment is a mediator between humanity and the forces 'without' and 'within' - let us say cosmic forces and biological drives - we would expect the figure to be dispensed with at the Last Judgment. Yet in Jerusalem Blake's attitude is more complex than this. 'Man in the Resurrection changes his Sexual Garments at will' [Jerusalem, Plate 62]. 
Also on the ultimate plate of Jerusalem we see Enitharmon with a spindle in her upraised left hand and a distaff in her right, weaving, as Damon says, 'the dark garment of the flesh.'" 

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 3, (E 301)
Los was the fourth immortal starry one, & in the Earth
Of a bright Universe Empery attended day & night                 
Days & nights of revolving joy, Urthona was his name

PAGE 4  
In Eden; in the Auricular Nerves of Human life
Which is the Earth of Eden, he his Emanations propagated
Fairies of Albion afterwards Gods of the Heathen, Daughter of Beulah Sing
His fall into Division & his Resurrection to Unity
His fall into the Generation of Decay & Death & his Regeneration 
     by the Resurrection from the dead 

Europe, Plate 1, (E 63)
Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent; that which pitieth:   
To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid
In forests of night; then all the eternal forests were divided
Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean rush'd
And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh.            
Then was the serpent temple form'd, image of infinite
Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel;
Heaven a mighty circle turning; God a tyrant crown'd.

Jerusalem, Plate 13, (E 157)
"And all that has existed in the space of six thousand years:

Permanent, & not lost not lost nor vanishd, & every little act,  
Word, work, & wish, that has existed, all remaining still
In those Churches ever consuming & ever building by the Spectres
Of all the inhabitants of Earth wailing to be Created:
Shadowy to those who dwell not in them, meer possibilities:
But to those who enter into them they seem the only substances   
For every thing exists & not one sigh nor smile nor tear,
PLATE 14
One hair nor particle of dust, not one can pass away."

Jerusalem, Plate 71, (E 225)
"For all are Men in Eternity. Rivers Mountains Cities Villages,
All are Human & when you enter into their Bosoms you walk
In Heavens & Earths; as in your own Bosom you bear your Heaven
And Earth, & all you behold, tho it appears Without it is Within
In your Imagination of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow."

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 if he could Enter into Noahs Rainbow or
into his bosom or could make a Friend & Companion of one of these
Images of wonder which always intreats him to leave mortal things
as he must know then would he arise from his Grave then would he
meet the Lord in the Air & then he would be happy   General
Knowledge is Remote Knowledge it is in Particulars that Wisdom
consists & Happiness too.  Both in Art & in Life General Masses
are as Much Art as a Pasteboard Man is Human Every Man has Eyes
Nose & Mouth this Every Idiot knows but he who enters into &
discriminates most minutely the Manners & Intentions the
Characters in all their branches is the
alone Wise or Sensible Man & on this discrimination All Art is
founded.  I intreat then that the Spectator will attend to the
Hands & Feet to the Lineaments of the Countenances they are all
descriptive of Character & not a line is drawn without intention
& that most discriminate & particular as Poetry admits not a
Letter that is Insignificant so Painting admits not a Grain of
Sand or a Blade of Grass Insignificant much less an
Insignificant Blur or Mark"

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The parallels between Blake's uses of the symbol of clothing and the way it is used in the Bible is shown in a passage on Page 381 of Fearful Symmetry by Northrop Frye:

"Most of the references to clothing in the Bible represent the transparent 'net' which the fallen world flings around us, woven by Vala, who weaves armor of conflict, shells of stupidity, or coverings of concealment and shame, like the fig leaves of Adam and Eve. The swaddling clothes of the infant Jesus are a sign of his descent to a fallen world; and the curtians of the ark, and the veil in the temple concealed the nothingness if the Pharisees' God and which are rent by Jesus, need no further explanation. As the story of Joseph is an account of the Fall, the coat of many colors is a symbol corresponding to the coats of skin made for Adam and Eve and to what those coats represent, their exile from a Paradise of innocence now guarded by the Covering Cherub, the monstrous dragon who glitters in gold and precious stones."
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