FOUR ZOAS IV / 48:20-51:15


 The complementary
 aspects ofTharmas'
 being: dual nature






The differences between
Tharmas' first and sec-
 ond speeches to the
 Spectre


Such withdrawal makes possible the existence of Beulah which is a "rest";
it also makes possible the conscious battle tactic of Urizen in Night I of
retreating from the battle in order to win his war against Luvah. Retreat is
possible only when the fiction of space is introduced, and there are now
two alternative accounts of its emergence: the spaces ofEno, and Tharmas'
fleeing the battle. Fleeing, withdrawing, and retreating are all types of the
central irony of Tharmas' original "mildness." He perceives himself as
embodying all the torture, pain, and agony of the fall, and therefore seeks
oblivion from it, whereas he is characteristically perceived as fleeing into
that oblivion, neither experiencing nor confronting it. This dual nature of
Tharmas accounts for his alternating consciousness in the beginning of
this Night between death and life impulses and for his initial division in
Night I into hiding and searching.
 In his first threat to the Spectre, Tharmas made no reference to Enion.
After the Spectre tells his tale (which includes a key reference to Enion
[50:23]), Tharmas becomes conciliatory, claiming to recognize the
Spectre as his old friend "Urthona," even though Tharmas "Doubt[ed]"
(48:20-21) when Los claimed that Urthona was his "shadow." As soon as
he accepts the Spectre as Urthona, Tharmas withdraws to a memory of the
"happiness" that existed prior to the division that the Spectre just
recounted; but since the Spectre's primal division was also his present
narrative division, the "happiness" Tharmas recalls should correspond to
his situation immediately before he separated Los and Enitharmon in the
narrative proper, when he was groaning in despair. While the Spectre said
his division took place in "The day of terror & abhorrence" (50:2), Thar-
mas remembers it as having occurred in "deadly night" (50:29). While the
Spectre made no reference to Urizen and Luvah, Tharmas reductively and
defensively projects all guilt for the present state of affairs onto Urizen and
Luvah,just as he did in confronting Los (48:2). His desire to "see" Enion
again resurfaces, mediated by the term "Shadow," as Tharmas now calls
the character he hadjust called "Urthona." Tharmas asks this "Shadow" to
"protect this Son / Of Enion & him assist, to bind the fallen King"
(51:2-3). The Spectre spoke of his own birth from Enion, as if it had
occurred in the dim past rather than in the immediate present of the
narrative proper; now Tharmas refers to Los as Enion's son. Enion herself
is, however, nowhere to be seen in the narrative proper: she must be
present but invisible or hidden.
 Tharmas attempts to mollify the Spectre by (apparently) referring to
Los as the "Son / Of Enion," but since that could as well be the Spectre,
who wasjust born from Enion's "Nostrils,"8 Tharmas implicitly identifies
the "Shadow" with Los. Thus, Tharmas' third request, to "bind the fallen
King," should be a transformation of his other requests, to rebuild the
universe and weave delusive forms. One of the central images of Uri-
zen's creation in Night II was binding, especially with chains: "Thus
were the stars of heaven created like a golden chain / To bind the Body of
Man to heaven from falling into the Abyss" (33:16-17).A central conse-