FOUR ZOAS I / 16:10-17:1


The Spectre of Urthona
momentarily crystallizes
 at the close of the
 Demons'song but does
 not materialize by name
 in the narrative proper
 until Night IV (49:24).





















 The syntax at the Song's
 close frustrates attempts
 to determine who is
 responsible for the cur-
 rent state of the narrative
 -"the fiend who drew
 us down."


Fig. A.4: pp. 90-91


 Go howl in vain, Smite Smite his fetters Smite O wintry hammers
 Smite Spectre ofUrthona, mock the fiend who drew us down
 From heavens ofjoy into this Deep. Now rage but rage in vain
 (16:8-12)

Instead of Urizen descending at Enitharmon's command after she was
smitten in the loins by Los, as in the narrative proper, Luvah bursts forth
from her loins: thus Enitharmon, who has just been deprived of sexual
parentage by Tharmas and Enion, herself violently becomes a parent, a
victim of the war as sexual division. This section of the Nuptial Song
began by a shift of address toward Enitharmon; now the direction of
address shifts once again, toward the "fierce Terror," but the syntax over-
laps this term with all the separate characters, rendering indeterminate
who is being addressed. Tharmas was previously the one who "endurd
not" and "fled howling" while the "Mighty Father" was the one "reddning
with rage." Now these same features ("no longer can endure," "rage,"
"howl") attach through multivalent syntax to the name "Luvah." The
Demons seem to be taunting Luvah when they say "Go howl in vain" or
"rage in vain"; but they seem to be commanding a totally new character,
"the Spectre of Urthona," when they give the order to "Smite" and "mock
the fiend...." Syntactically the construction at this point is so ambiguous
that the "fierce Terror" might not be Luvah at all, but Los who is being
asked to smite the fetters of the "Spectre of Urthona," who in this confus-
ing context could well be another name for or aspect of Luvah. It is even
possible-though more unlikely-that the Demons are still addressing
"Enitharmon, Thou fierce Terror." In any case the identity of "the fiend
who drew us down" is at best syntactically obscure. Blake's equivocal use
of the participial form ("Bursting forth from the loins of Enitharmon") at
this point both increases the interfusion of the supposedly separate charac-
ters and relates Luvah to Los and Enitharmon in a way that allows sexual
division to return to the surface: Luvah/Vala and Los/Enitharmon thus
emerge from the Song even more deeply interconnected with one another
than before.
 The "Spectre of Urthona" who appears as an aspect of Luvah's bursting
forth from Enitharmon's loins resurrects a version of the vanished Spectre
of Tharmas and superimposes that character over "the Spectre" in Uri-
zen's dictum "the Spectre is the Man." The Song, however, completely
eliminates Urizen as a separate character. Although the thousand
thousand spirits of the upper world began the Song, singing of a rebellion
of the landscape against "the harvest & vintage," the Song concludes with
"Demons of the Deep" (16:13) singing of an intertwining of the Los/
Enitharmon and Luvah/Vala narrative components by means of the only
new character, the "Spectre of Urthona." This shift within the Song
results (in the narrative proper) in Los and Enitharmon having grown
"Enormous" from absorbing the Spectrous food this Song provides while
Urizen's "radiance" has faded. The structure of the Nuptial Song is
mapped out in Fig. A.4.