FOUR ZOAS I / 12:1-5


The interlocked fictional
 system of Man/
 Urizcn/Luvah/Vala





























 This reading assumes
 incorporation of revi-
 sions from manuscript
 page 143.


names (clearly Blake's favorites) are launched into the narrative proper
they cannot be called back into their initial status as merely elements in an
interpolated vision. In this regard Blake's perspective ontology resembles
a complex game with high ontological stakes.
 Urizen, the character Enitharmon calls out of her vision, entered the
poem bound up with the Fallen Man and with sleeping in the porch; in
Los's vision the name Urizen was associated with the Brain, with Hosts,
and with immortal lamps. In the two previous interpolated visions Urizen
functioned like a syntactic element that interlocked the parables Los and
Enitharmon uttered or like a cipher that occupies the place of an unknown
quantity in a mathematical equation. When Enitharmon suddenly calls
upon Urizen as the unclaimed term in her verbal standoff with Los, she is
unable to wrench Urizen out of his elliptical role in their interpolated
visions until the other three characters she has introduced in her vision
have entered the narrative proper as preconditions ofUrizen's descent. The
primarily sexual and bodily imagery of the visions is suddenly forced
outward into imagery of warfare as Enitharmon commands Urizen him-
self to emerge and descend. Yet Blake had already hinted that Enithar-
mon's emphasis on hearing re-enacts the "warlike clarions" (10:7) that Los
and Enitharmon heard prior to recounting their visions.
 Because her stated motive is to rouse Los from his repose (by perversely
inducing sleep in him) so that together they can absorb the Spectrous life
(sweet delights) from their parents, Enitharmon's speech act brings into
the immediate narrative proper the auditory "war" that Los and Enithar-
mon previously perceived to be happening in some distant space as they
viewed the "turning spheres." As such, her act of calling for Urizen's
descent both overlaps certain previous phases and reverses others. As soon
as Enitharmon finishes speaking, new information suddenly floods to the
surface: "Night darkend as she spoke! a shuddring ran from East to West /
A Groan was heard on high. The warlike clarions ceast. the Spirits / Of
Luvah & Vala shudderd in their Orb: an orb of blood!" (12:1-3). This
sequence immediately calls attention to itself by containing an unusual
number of discrete phrases separated by two periods and two exclamation
points. These lines, with their halting forward movement, push back
Enitharmon's "false morning": the present "darkning" incorporates Los's
own emotional "darkning" (11:4) into the exterior landscape and con-
stitutes a shift away from "dewy morn" toward "Night," precisely re-
establishing sunset, the initial landscape of the Tharmas plot. As Enithar-
mon's false morning recedes, the "shuddring" which had accompanied
Enion's weaving of the Circle of Destiny (5:19) now rattles all across the
space through which the sun travels. The "Groan" re-enacts both Thar-
mas' "groaning" in the sky "among his Clouds"(5:8) and Enion's "groan-
ing" at the textual point of intersection between her physical ravishing by
the Spectre of Tharmas and her giving birth to the two Infants (7:10). The
"warlike clarions" associated with Enitharmon's false morning suddenly
cease, suggesting the disappearance of her auditory power at the precise