FOUR ZOAS / 22:16-35


 The inversion of the
Tharmas/Enion bracket


















 When the sexual plot
 intrudes into the war
plot (inverting the Song
at the Feast [see above, p.
 85]), the Messengers'
 account most closely
 intersects the narrative
 proper of the first pri-
 mary bracket.


 Discontinuity at the
 points of intersection
 between the first and
second primary brackets


functions in the messengers' report as a response to the division of Ur-
thona, directly inverts the prior account in the narrative proper in which
Los and Enitharmon emerge out of Tharmas and Enion, while the charac-
ter "Urthona" appears as a blacksmith, the role he filled in his most recent
(i.e., narratively derivative) appearance in the Nuptial Song (16:10-11).
Thus the most derivative character of the unfolding Los/Enitharmon plot
(Urthona) emerges here as theprimary character from whom both his sons
(22:18) and a "shrieking" female "portion of his life" (22:21), Enitharmon,
flee; and this fleeing, moreover, neatly separates the division of Urthona
between the two competing plot structures of Night I: his sons flee to the
"conflict" (the central action of the second primary bracket) while Eni-
tharmon flees to Tharmas (generator or "Parent power" of the first pri-
mary bracket) .
 The information in the first half of the messengers' report (relaying the
conference between Urizen and Luvah) subverts primarily the inter-
polated visions of the Los/Enitharmon bracket-most notably the conflict
between Luvah's seizing the horses and chariot in Enitharmon's vision
(10:13) and his refusal to seize them (21:26ff) in the Urizen/Los confer-
ence. The information in the second half of the messengers' report, how-
ever, subverts the narrative proper of the Tharmas/Enion bracket itself:
 And Tharmas took her in pitying Then Enion injealous fear
 Murderd her & hid her in her bosom embalming her for fear
 She should arise again to life Embalmd in Enions bosom
 Enitharmon remains a corse such thing was never known
 In Eden that one died a death never to be revived
 (22:22-26)

Here, at the major point (following the reference to the chariots) where the
two narrative fields of the first and second primary brackets intersect, the
messengers' report undermines the very basis for the narrative generation
of the Los/Enitharmon embedded structure. Rather than being born from
Enion, Enitharmon exists within her as an unrevivable dead corpse;
instead of being enclosed in Tharmas' "bosom" out of "Pity" (4:13),
Enitharmon is permanently embalmed in Enion's "bosom" out of
jealousy.35
 Surprisingly, the next phase of the messengers' account does not
directly undermine Los's birth from Enion in the narrative proper (8:1ff);
instead, it evasively represses Los's name while structurally replacing Los
with the image of a residual "body" that falls as Urthona's "spectre" flees
to Enion:

 Urthona stood in terror but not long his spectre fled
 To Enion & his body fell. Tharmas beheld him fall
 Endlong a raging serpent rolling round the holy tent
 The sons of war astonishd at the Glittring monster drove
 Him far into the world of Tharmas into a cavernd rock
 (22:27-31)