FOUR ZOAS I / 4:45-5:25


Semantic mirror phase
of the text is situated at
 the boundary between
 conversation and re-
 enactment.
















 Jerusalem's conflicting
relations to Tharmas and
 Enion





 First re-enactment:
 weaving


 Blake subliminally underscores this mutual interconstitution through
division by overlapping the transitional language of Tharmas and the
language of re-enactment that follows it: a barely noticeable semantic
mirroring emerges at the point in the text where the conversation under-
goes transformation into its first metaphoric re-enactment. At 5:3, a
period conveniently follows the phrase "female deaths." Reading selec-
tively backward and ahead from this period we find an approximate and
subliminal semantic (though not syntactic) mirroring that functions to
overlap the two phases and to transfer the plot from one phase to the next.
The correspondences are as follows:
line line
5:3 "female deaths" / "they die" 5:4
5:3 renewed / "revive" 5:4
5:2 "darksom grave" / "I die" 5:5
5:2 "hide them" / "I hide" 5:5
5:2 "Woven" / "weaving" 5:6
4:45 "groan" / grandn" 5:8
4:45 "weep" / "Weeping" 5:9
4:45 "feel" / "tears & bitter sighs" 5:11
4:45 "wish" / "Return 0 Wanderer..." 5:12
This semantic mirroring is partially obscured by the varying syntactic
functions of the word units themselves and by the presence of other syn-
tactic devices that interfere with an immediate perception of the inverted
order of words and phrases. Nevertheless, this subliminal mirror imagery
stands decisively at the threshold of the key transformation between the
Tharmas/Enion dialogue and the first re-enactment of that conversation
in Enion's weaving of the Circle of Destiny.
 The hiding place Enion begins to weave for herself (5:5) from her own
anatomy (the Sinewy threads of her bosom) becomes "A tabernacle for
Jerusalem" (5:7).14 This inadvertent consequence of Enion's attempt to
hide herself reverses what Tharmas had previously perceived as her
removal ofJerusalem from her hiding place: this action reveals explicitly
the extent to which Jerusalem is intimately connected with Enion's own
fate. Because Enion's weaving is accompanied by her "Singing her lamen-
tation" (5:8), this moment at the outset of her weaving intersects Enion's
later lamentation around the wedding feast (17:2-18:7).
 As the first re-enactment of the conversation proceeds, Enion weaves
her hiding place from the anatomy of Tharmas:
 In torment he sunk down & flowd among her filmy Woof
 His Spectre issuing from his feet in flames of fire
 In gnawing pain drawn out by her lovd fingers every nerve
 She counted. every vein & lacteal threading them among
 Her woof of terror.
 (5:14-18)
Thus the anatomizing which Tharmas previously felt as a searching for
and discovery ofJerusalem (the hidden secrets of his inmost soul) is now