FOUR ZOAS VIIA, VIIB, VIII / 85:18-104:2 (75:33-115:28)


 A first analysis of the
 emergent "dead"






























 Relations between the
accounts of the origin of
 the "dead" in Nights
 Vila and VlIb


 which Urizen is no longer able to perceive reductively as his own Shadowy
 Feminine Semblance, Ahania. It is in this context that the Shadowy
 Female of Night VIII "spread herself thro all the branches [of the tree of
 Mystery] in the power of Orc" (103:24). And this action accompanies
 Urizen's "Web," itself a form woven by the war now become a "Web of
 Religion," swagging heavy, misplacing all the centers of the Vortexes he
 created in Night VI. Because this Web is called Urizen's "woven darkness"
 (103:22) and refers to the war between Urizen, Tharmas, and the Spectre
 in Night VI, where the war's form is literally "weaving the dire Web"
 (75:33), the imagery of weaving links several strands of action of Nights
 VIla, VIIb, and VIII by connecting the weaving with the war, with the
 sexual fall of Urizen, and with the Tree of Mystery.
 The imagery of weaving makes possible the re-surfacing of previously
 suppressed characters, as well as the emergence of new characters, speci-
 fically the multiple "dead" (often "spectres" or male forms without female
 counterparts) at the end of both VIIa and VIIb. Though conflicting, the
 accounts concerning the origin of these "dead" are structurally related. In
 their spectrous aspect, the "dead" are related to the "Spectre of Tharmas" that
 Los and Enitharmon drew out ofEnion in Nights I-III and to the "Spectre
 of Urthona," the character who entered the narrative proper as the con-
 solidated and separated form of the Spectrous power Los and Enitharmon
 had been absorbing. Second, in their aspect as males without female counter-
parts, the "dead" are a covert product of the transformation Urizen under-
goes in the Shadow of Enitharmon's account, in which Urizen is "First
born of Generation" (83:13), as Luvah divides sexually from Vala. Urizen
is thus an unacknowledged male without a female counterpart because
Ahania, whom he cast out in Night III accusing her of daring to be a
"counterpart" (43:9) is nowhere in the Shadow's account. Further, Uri-
zen's birth from the union of Vala and the Eternal Man is structurally
re-enacted when the narratively ambiguous birth of the "shadow" pro-
duces the "dead" as males without female counterparts. Finally, the emer-
gent "dead" are a direct product of the transformations Orc undergoes in
Nights VIIa, VIIb, and VIII. In Night VIIa, the multiple dead enter the
narrative as 1) an unconscious aspect ofOrc's transformation into a serpent
through Urizen's "hypocrisy" and 2) a conscious consequence of the sex-
ual tryst between the Spectre ofUrthona and the Shadow of Enitharmon.
In Night VIIb the "dead" emerge from a similar double causal
background: Orc's rending of the Shadowy Female and the Shadowy
Female's sexual temptation of the fleeing Spectreless Tharmas. In the
former episode in VIIb, Orc, in rending the Shadow, dissipates his human
energy as he is reduced to nothing more than a serpent form, yet rises in
power. In the latter event in VIIb, the Shadow disguises herself as Thar-
mas' long lost sexual counterpart (or Emanation) Enion, an action that
parallels (by inversion) the Spectre ofUrthona's temptation of the Shadow
of Enitharmon (in VIIa), for the Spectre treats the Shadow of Enitharmon
as the shadowy hidden form of his lost female counterpart. The Spectre