INCOMMENSURABLE SPATIAL RELATIONS OF LUVAH AND VALA


Although "they" are striving for control above the "Body where Vala was
inclos'd" (41:13), neither can see that smiting the Body involves smiting
Vala also. Neither can perceive Vala's (the female's) relation to the Body.
Similarly, when the now "Fallen Man" casts out Luvah "Saying, Go & die
the Death of Man for Vala the sweet wanderer" (42:1), he is not aware that
he cannot cast out Luvah without casting out Vala also, for although Vala
is "inclos'd" in Albion's Body, Luvah is surprisingly contained in Vala's
"bosom" from which Luvah falls when he is cast out (42:16). This event
both intersects and inverts Luvah's account from the furnaces in Night II,
where he carried Vala (the Dragon turned infant) in his "bosom" (27:3).
Thus Vala embodies a structural inversion between Luvah and Albion that
retroactively transforms the spatial account of the conflict: Luvah must
have been simultaneously "above the Body where Vala was inclos'd" and
in Vala's bosom.
 At the point where the "Fallen Man" projects responsibility for the boils
on Albion's dark Body exclusively onto Luvah, thereby denying the Man's
culpability, Ahania calls forth a response from Urizen: "Then frownd the
Fallen Man & put forth Luvah from his presence / (I heard him: frown not
Urizen: but listen to my Vision)" (41:17-18). Since the "Fallen Man" in
Ahania's vision is covertly playing out Urizen's hidden role, when the
"Fallen Man" frowns, Urizen frowns: it is the same frown. There is no way
Urizen can hear her vision and not frown. The "Fallen Man" responds to
what he sees (and needs to see) as Luvah's guilt by casting Luvah (and
necessarily, though inadvertently, Vala) from his presence. In so doing, he
projects the suffering of his Body (boils that are possibly sexual, venereal)
onto Luvah by consciously turning Luvah's senses downward and out-
ward, an expanded repetition of what was happening to Albion (by the
agency of his "Sons") when he gave the sceptre to Urizen at the outset of
Night II. The imagery of shrinking and withering that the Fallen Man uses
brings to the surface in greater detail the response of Luvah and Vala
when, in Night II, they heard the "Word" ofUrizen, "trembling & shrink-
ing" (24:5-6) as they now hear the "Fallen Man's" "voice." The earlier
rolling outward of the senses (25:22) that resulted from Urizen's creation
in Night II is now a consequence of the "Fallen Man's" punishment of
Luvah: to the extent that the "Fallen Man" equals Urizen at this point,
Urizen's architectural creation equals Luvah's punishment in the furnaces.
 At line 42:7 Ahania again interrupts her speech to ask Urizen why he is
 so "pale at the visions of Ahania" (42:7). Yet allegorically the "Fallen Man"
 is Urizen in her account; he is re-enacting under a fictional guise Urizen's
 actions in Night II, which are now seen as mistaken, pathetic, and desper-
 ately catastrophic. In a final inversion Ahania reveals that Luvah (who
 strove with his opponent "above the Body") had actually been enclosed in
 Vala's bosom all the while: "Vala shrunk in like the dark sea that leaves its
 slimy banks / And from her bosom Luvah fell far as the east & west / And
 the vast form of Nature like a Serpent roll'd between" (42:15-17). Ahania's
 concluding utterance drastically alters our spatial memory: how could


Another incommensur-
able spatial perspective:
Luvah resides in Vala's
bosom.









The covert parallel be-
tween the Fallen Man's
actions in Night III and
Urizen's actions in
Night II




























Recounting the incom-
mensurable perspectives
in the context of the Uri-
zen allegory