FOUR ZOAS VI / 75:5-18


Tharmas comes full cir-
cle and brings Urizen to
the Spectre who returns
to the narrative surface.
























The syntax involved in
 the description of the
 Spectre is even more
 difficult to negotiate
 than was that of Orc
 (61:24-62:8).


he can see Ore as a single consolidated field of images rather than as
multitudes of monstrous slaves or a rocky landscape. The battle which is
treated as if it is now just beginning has been happening in submerged
form throughout the poem: the suppressed war between Urizen and Los
in Night I; the "war of Tharmas" (52:17) in which Los and the Spectre
bound Urizen; the binding of Orc which involved "warring with the
waves of Tharmas & Snows of Urizen" (61:4).
 At the circumference of the "narrow vale," the structure of activity that
Urizen has been experiencing suddenly consolidates into images of the
"Shadow of Urthona" and Tharmas. Tharmas "stays his flight" when he
reaches the Spectre, making his cycle complete by arriving at the point
where he fled from Los and left the Spectre in Night IV, a flight which
appeared to Tharmas to be a battle with Los. Aspects of this moment in
Night VI structurally intersect with those in Night IV when Tharmas and
the Spectre conversed, concluding with Tharmas' request that Los bind
Urizen, the fallen King. The moment of the Spectre's confrontation with
Tharmas in Night VI is analyzed into a sequence of actions. The warfare
submerged throughout the poem is over in a flash from the perspectives of
Nights I-V, and "Endless" from Urizen's perspectives in VI. Tharmas'
"staying his flight" literally freezes the action, visualized by Tharmas'
frozen waves at the beginning of Night VI. The linear action stops so that
another action which orthogonally intersects this moment can be revealed
and analyzed.
 The Spectre re-enters the poem guarding that part of Urthona's world
that holds Orc. Though he is stamping his feet (75:8) (much as Tharmas
did when he reappeared in Night III and as Los did as he was shrinking in
Night IV), the Spectre's form here bears little resemblance to his form in
Night IV. His features intermingle images associated with Tharmas, Los,
Orc, and Urizen, and the syntax and imagery that characterize the Spectre
call attention to themselves, making his form nearly impossible to grasp,
conceptually or visually:

 Round his loins a girdle glowd with many colourd fires
 In his hand a knotted Club whose knots like mountains frownd
 Desart among the Stars them withering with its ridges cold
 Black scales of iron arm the dread visage iron spikes instead
 Of hair shoot from his orbed scull. his glowing eyes
 Burn like two furnaces, he called with Voice of Thunder
 (75:13-18)

This description scrambles characteristics of all the central male characters
in the plot, and thus calls attention to their overlapping interrelatedness at
this point of division. The "girdle" which grew around Los's "bosom"
and became the chain of jealousy now "glows" around the Spectre's
"loins," implying that the sexual energy is both more severely repressed
and about to burst forth: the "ridges cold" of his Club are those of Thar-
mas' waves; the "iron spikes instead / Of hair" transform the "furious