THARMAS AND URIZEN (SYNTACTICALLY) MEET


only once before, in the report of the Messengers from beulah [21:29]) and
of an explicit relationship between Tharmas and Los signals the beginning
of a subtle transfer of information between Tharmas and Urizen, who have
thus far mutually excluded one another from the narrative. Urizen's act of
cursing his children in their rocky forms is their cursing Tharmas. In
ordering them to "Go forth" he unknowingly attempts to reverse the
actions that led to the binding of Orc, whom it is his desperate purpose
both to seek out and to repress. When he says that his children may "curse
& worship" the "obscure Demon of destruction," Urizen is inadvertently
revealing further his subconscious identity with Tharmas. He wants them
to curse Tharmas and worship Urizen; yet both acts are the same, for
Urizen had presented himself in Night I as "God the terrible destroyer"
(12:26); and throughout the binding of Urizen in Night IV, Urizen was
referred to as "the dark Demon." Thus the "obscure Demon of destruc-
tion" is both Tharmas and Urizen.
 As Urizen pours his "fury" on his children, Tharmas comes riding
across his watery world in "fury." Just as Urizen has begun to assume
Tharmas' characteristics so Tharmas begins to assume Urizen's:

 froze to solid were his waves
 Silent in ridges he beheld them stand round Urizen
 A dreary waste of solid waters for the King of Light
 Darkend his brows with his cold helmet & his gloomy spear
 Darkend before him. Silent on the ridgy waves he took
 His gloomy way before him Tharmas fled & flying fought
 (68:30; 69:1-5)

A central feature of this syntax, as usual, is the overlapping of clauses due
to lack of punctuation: attempts at separating out subjects and verbs prove
frustrating to the reader, in this case because there is no one else to witness
the words, but often because the characters (and narrator) seem either
unable to perceive ambiguity or able to entertain multiple syntactic and
semantic possibilities at once. The use of "for" and "with" (both of which
seem to bear causal weight) is extremely equivocal. The waves freeze "for"
(because?) Urizen darkens his brows "with" (by means of?) his cold hel-
met. The referents for the pronouns (Tharmas and Urizen) become in-
distinguishable toward the end of the passage that precedes Tharmas'
speech: darkened before "him"; silent on the ridgy waves "he" took "his"
gloomy way before "him." If the "he" in these lines refers to Tharmas, the
statement, "he took / His gloomy way before him" re-enacts Tharmas'
creation of spaces in Night IV ("outstretching an expanse where neer
expanse had been" [50:4]) by fleeing in battle, thereby constituting the
spaces through which he is moving. If, on the other hand, "he," "His," and
"him" refer to Urizen (which the adjective "gloomy" suggests), then Uri-
zen is in flight prior to Tharmas' speech which seems to initiate the chase.
Indeed, Blake inserts an easily overlooked clue that Urizen is already in
flight at the beginning of Night VI: "He threw his flight thro the dark air"


Tharmas referred to
Urizen in Night IVas a
primary agent of the fall
(42:8 and 50:30).














The intersection of Uri-
zen and Tharmas at their
"fury"


The difference in
ambiguity tolerance in
the reader and in the
characters/narrator.







The indeterminacy of
pronoun reference
becomes an ontological
gesture.