FOUR ZOAS 1 / 20:1-11


 In Erdman's text, line
 20:1 immediately fol-
 lows 19:15.






















 In their reappearance,
the Daughters of Beulah
are no longer associated
 with vegetating the
 Spectre and only
 obliquely with protect-
 ing sleepers from falling
 into Eternal Death.


 Los, absent by name
 from the Messengers'
account, reappears in the
context of the Daughters
of Beulah, barred from
 entering Enitharmon's
 gates. Cf. Night IV
where Los claims he was
Urthona, "keeper of the
 gates" (48:19)


 Eternity Bracket: Second Embedded Structure: The Daughters of
 Beulah Spread a Couch

 At line 20:1, the Eternity bracket splits into two contrasting actions-
one primarily male, the other primarily female-both emanating from
Beulah. The first action, as we have just seen, derives from the report
delivered by the "messengers from Beulah" concerning the male warfare
between Urizen and Luvah (to which the "Family Divine" problemati-
cally responded); the second action shifts focus to the female "Emana-
tion," as perceived and responded to by "The Daughters of Beulah." This
plot involving the Daughters is overtly sexual and reaffirms in the
perspective of Eternity itself the sexual division that dominated the Thar-
mas/Enion bracket but was subordinated from the Messengers' tale and its
narrative consequences. In the Eternity bracket, male and female events
behave as if they are completely independent of one another: though
"Jerusalem" appears in both phases of the Eternity bracket, her role is
vastly different in each. In the Messengers' phase, she is a dispersed victim
of the war between Urizen and Luvah (19:1-5); in the Daughters' phase she
is intertwined with the jealousy plot between Los and Enitharmon.
 The Messengers ofBeulah closed their account with a description of the
captivity and scattering of "Jerusalem his Emanation" (19:1-5), and the
Daughters re-enter the poem beholding the condition of "The Emana-
tion" who is, at this point, not unambiguously "Jerusalem":

 The Daughters of Beulah beheld the Emanation they pitied
 They wept before the Inner gates of Enitharmons bosom
 And of her fine wrought brain & of her bowels within her loins
 Three gates within Glorious & bright open into Beulah
 From Enitharmons inward parts but the bright female terror
 Refusd to open the bright gates she closed and barrd them fast
 Lest Los should enter into Beulah thro her beautiful gates
 (20:1-7)

Though Jerusalem has been referred to as "the Emanation" by Urizen
(21:30) and "his Emanation" by the Messengers (19:1), there is little reason
to suspect that throughout this passage "the Emanation" is any character
other than Enitharmon herself. Enitharmon's definitive and self-conscious
closing of her sexual gates to prevent Los from entering into Beulah comes
into narrative existence for the first time at this point: its appearance here
retroactively transforms the meaning of the "discontent & scorn" that
bracketed their Nuptial Song (13:19; 16:18) by undermining the possibil-
ity of marital consummation, and it re-enacts, as an explicit sexual repres-
sion, the Family Divine's drawing up of the "Universal tent" and closing
the Messengers in clouds (19:6-8). The action occurring here with the
Daughters of Beulah is cut off from the Family Divine because they are
enclosed in the Universal tent; since, in one of his functions, "the Lamb of
God" is the creator of "Beulah" (5:29-32), it is ironic that this present
action involving the Daughters of Beulah is also narratively cut off from