THE SPECTRE'S ACCOUNT OF HIS NARRATIVE EMERGENCE


in the narrative proper. The Spectre is not, apparently, aware of Los as a
separate character at this point, for he makes no mention of him what-
soever, only of the way it felt to emerge into the narrative. Struggling
down the "tide" of "goary blood" Urthona (so the Spectre refers to his
objectified self) broke "forth, / A shadow blue obscure & dismal from the
breathing Nostrils / OfEnion I issued into the air divided from Enithar-
mon" (50:20-23). While the phrase, "A shadow blue obscure & dismal," is
almost an exact transcription of the Spectre's first appearance in Night IV
(49:13), the airy image of being breathed forth from Enion's nostrils opposes
the lead statue quality of the Spectre in the narrative proper. Further, in
claiming to have protected Tharmas' corpse "rotting upon the Rocks"--
the precise condition, "rotting," with which Tharmas has just threatened
the Spectre, and the exact place, "the Rocks," where Los has just fallen--
the Spectre supplies an alternate causal background for their relationship
following the Spectre's division. The Spectre perceives Tharmas as if
Tharmas were Los. This perspective transformation, which accounts for
the absence of Los from the Spectre's story, makes Tharmas a version of
Los,just as the Spectre is a version of Tharmas.
 These contrasting versions of Urthona's division in Night IV are thus at
once the same and two different events. Since memories operate as
mechanisms to repress present relationships, the Spectre's claim that he
"well rememberss" signals that in his words he is going to analyze the
event that just occurred in the narrative proper-his emergence and divi-
sion from Enitharmon. One key difference between the narrative version
and the Spectre's version is the difference between an interior and an
exterior experience of the same event which transforms temporal and
causal relations: the major gaps between the versions are thus Tharmas'
role (and Enion's hidden role) in the division, the results of the division,
and the language appropriate to characterize it. Tharmas' role of fleeing (in
the Spectre's memory) is derived from the Demons' Song of Night I:
"Tharmas endurd not, he fled howling" (15:18). Two pages after the
Spectre's remembrance, Tharmas re-enacts this fleeing in the narrative
proper, a fleeing which is perceived by Tharmas as the act of engaging in
the battle itself. Tharmas' language at that point reveals that he believes he
is defeating Los, since he concludes with, "Now thou dost know what tis to
strive against the God of waters"(52:6). In the narrative proper, however,
"So saying Tharmas on his furious chariots of the Deep / Departed far into
the Unknown & left a wondrous void / Round Los" (52:7-9).
 In choosing the participial form, Blake reveals that Tharmas' act of
saying is the act of departing, and the departing is the battle. Tharmas'
bullying and cowardice is ridiculed in the excessively alliterated line in
Night VI: "Tharmas fled & flying fought" (69:5). Tharmas' fleeing is his
fighting. On crucial occasions throughout The Four Zoas Tharmas is
portrayed as fleeing or withdrawing: Tharmas' explicit fleeing dramatizes
(enacts, is a repository of) the tendency of all the characters at some point
to withdraw from recognition, to seek oblivion, rest, and forgetfulness.


Incommensurables in
the narrative and inter-
polated accounts of the
Spectre and the division
from Enitharmon




Interchangeability of
roles in a field of
difference





(50:1)


A key difference in the
two accounts is that in
the narrative proper the
Spectre seems to have
come into existence by
virtue of the separation,
while in his memory he
has always existed and
now exists in a new,
deformed state.









Characters flee/
withdraw: Beulah

Tharmas as master of
flight is a primary aspect
of all the characters.