FOUR ZOAS I-VIIA / 5:27-87:60


The text of lines 5:29-37
 is written in the right
margin with a guideline
 leading to the primary
 text.














 The term "Lamb of
 God" appears as such
only three times prior to
Night Vila but occurs in
 abbreviated or
 associated forms on
 other occasions.












The reflexive "himself"
 calls attention to the
 problematic agency
 involved in putting on
 "the robes of blood."







The problematic recur-
rences of the "robes of
 blood"


 Blake inserts (by textual addition) the first appearance of the Lamb in
 Night I after Enion, "viewing her woven shadow / Sat in a dread intoxi-
 cation of Repentance & Contrition" (5:27-28, line 28 also involving a
 textual revision), making it seem almost as if the appearance ofBeulah and
 the Lamb were a reflex to these two lines. In VIIa the Lamb reappears in a
 similar verbal context. As soon as Los and Enitharmon have both eaten of
 the "fruit" of the Tree of Mystery (which has just "Intoxicated" Enithar-
 mon's shadow [83:1]), Los immediately sits down (87:24); he and Enithar-
 mon immediately recoil from their act with "bitter Contrition" (87:29),
 and Los utters the "weight of stern repentance" (87:40). These events
 reunite on the surface of the text the words "shadow," "sat," "intoxica-
 tion," "contrition," and "repentance" which first invoked the Lamb into
 the poem in Night I: shortly after these words appear, the Lamb of God
 reappears (87:44).
 Although the Lamb of God appears only three times by name in Nights
I-VI, this enigmatic figure continuously lurks in the background. As we
saw in Night I, Blake overlaps terms and images associated with the Lamb
in order to produce a structural indeterminacy concerning the relation
between the "Lamb of God" who is called "Jesus" when referred to as the
"Seventh" Eye of God (19:9-12); the "Council of God" which is also called
"Jesus the Christ" when it is operating as the "One Man" (21:1-5); and
"Eternity" which is the "One Man" clothed in "Luvah[s] robes of blood"
(13:8-9). In Night II, Blake complicates this semantic overlapping further
by having Luvah (who is, according to the narrator, "Reasoning from the
loins in the unreal forms of Ulros night" [28:2] and therefore supposedly
making confused or untrue statements) say that the "Lamb / Of God [is]
clothed in Luvahs garments," (27:9-10) then having the narrator interrupt
Urizen's "wondrous work" to complicate, but not deny, Luvah's state-
ment: "the Divine Vision appeared in Luvahs robes of blood" (32:14). This
perceptual overlapping intensifies the dialectical malleability or instability
of the Lamb of God and issues in lines that purport to reify the providential
role of the Lamb but in fact call attention to the conflicting contexts into
which he has been entering:

 the Divine Lamb Even Jesus who is the Divine Vision
 Permitted all lest Man should fall into Eternal Death
 For when Luvah sunk down himself put on the robes of blood
 Lest the state called Luvah should cease. & the Divine Vision
 Walked in robes of blood till he who slept should awake
 (33:11-15)

 Up to this point in Night II only Tharmas and the "Man" have been
known to have "sunk down." Luvah has been associated with the Lamb
and the robes of blood only when "suspended" in an "orb of blood" or
when speaking from the "furnaces of Urizen." The tight overlapping of
prior contexts makes the first line (33:11) seem to be an iteration of redun-
dancies. At the same time, in this passage the Man is functionally