FOLDING THE THARMAS PLOT INTO THE URIZEN/LUVAH PLOT


These events re-enact, under a retroactive perspective transformation, as a
consequence ofwar, the sexual union ofEnion and the Spectre ofTharmas
that generated Los and Enitharmon in the narrative proper of the first half
of Night I; but due to the non-sexual bias of the messengers, they here treat
the union itself from a distance, off-stage, as if it never happened. From
their perspective, it is Urthona's spectre (not Tharmas'-of which they
seem to have no awareness) who flees to Enion, and at the moment Ur-
thona's spectre flees to Enion (structurally setting the stage for the sexual
ravishing), the messengers shift attention to Tharmas who is himself look-
ing away from the spectre and Enion and focusing instead on the falling
"body." Ironically, this "body" itself immediately assumes a phallic form
("Endlong a raging serpent") and explicitly takes on the "Glittring"
characteristics of the Spectre ofTharmas (6:5-8). In driving this "Glittring
monster" into a "cavernd rock" in the world ofTharmas, the "sons ofwar"
actively deny the overt sexual imagery generated by their war and thus
directly invert Los and Enitharmon's act of drawing the Spectre out of
Enion for their own perverse sexual pleasure (9:2ff). In addition, the
"body" or "Glittring monster," in "rolling round the holy tent," is itself
both a form of the war between Urizen and Luvah that is (identically)
occurring "around the holy tent" (21:12 and 22:14) and a version of"Eter-
nal Death" which "Exud[es]" "Without the body of Man" (18:9-10) and is
associated with another rock, "The Rock of Ages" (18:15).
 Immediately following this abrupt intrusion of the Urthona plot featur-
ing Enitharmon, Tharmas, Enion, and the spectre, the messengers' report
returns to its major focus, the conflict between Urizen and Luvah, as if the
events they had just narrated concerning the divisions of Urthona were
merely an aside to, or consequence of, the central action of the war. Just
before the Urthona episode (22:13-14), Urizen was casting darkness
around Luvah who was pouring the Lances of Urizen from chariots;
immediately following the Urthona episode (22:32ff) Urizen continues
spreading darkness (begun in 22:12) but responds to Luvah's aggressive
attack by secretly commanding his "sons" to depart. Throughout this
segment, which condenses into six lines Urizen's strategy of retreating
and Luvah's victimization by Urizen's plot, there is no reference what-
soever to the events of the Urthona inset that immediately preceded it,just
as there is no reference by name to Urizen or Luvah in the Urthona
segment.
 The shift back to the Urizen/Luvah conflict is introduced by "But"
 (22:32), not to acknowledge the causal impact of the intrusion of the
 previous Urthona segment on the war, but to indicate that the key feature
 of that battle is Urizen's surprise strategy of secretly "depart[ing]" (22:33)
 and "Retreat[ing]" (22:35), when he had indicated to Luvah he would
 "remain" (21:29). Thus the thunderous sound with which Urizen's mul-
 titudes retreat (22:34-35) functions as an ironic fulfillment of the "trumpet
 sounding loud" (21:32) he promised Luvah and a re-enactment of his
 pretentious auditory descent into the sexual plot of Los and Enitharmon in


The intrusion of the Ur-
thona/Tharmas plot
into the Urizen/Luvah
plot





























The disconnection be-
tween the political and
sexual plots in the Mes-
sengers' account







Cf. the "depart[ing]"
possibilities at the close
of Night IX (139:7-9)