JERUSALEM: WEAVING


Blake first has the Shadowy Female undergo a transformation parallel to
that which Jerusalem undergoes in Night I:Jerusalem is scatteredd into the
indefinite" (19:3); in Night VIIb the Shadowy Female is rent "Into a
formless indefinite," strewn "on the Abyss" (93:27). In VIIb, however, the
narrator perceives this event to be "to her Supreme delight" (93:29).
Throughout the early appearances of Jerusalem the narrator excludes all
reference to her reaction to the horrible ruination, even though in VIIb the
narrator reveals that the parallel action yields intense delight to the
Shadowy Female. Prior to Jerusalem's re-entry in VIII Blake has "Satan"
(a name Urizen associated withJerusalem in the "Eternal" half of Night I)
appear as a "Shadowy hermaphrodite... hiding the Male / Within as in a
Tabernacle Abominable Deadly" (101:34-37). The word "tabernacle"
appears only twice in The Four Zoas, once in relation to Jerusalem in the
first primary bracket of Night I, and once in relation to Satan in Night
VIII. Thus in the materialization of the battle as a hermaphrodite Blake
incorporates associations with Jerusalem from both the Tharmas/Enion
and Eternal sections of Night I. Jerusalem reappears in VIII, after this
crucial hermaphroditic development and again after the "Shadowy
Female," who bears a structural resemblance to Jerusalem, has also reap-
peared and absorbed Urizen's sexual energy as she absorbed Orc's at the
very moment she was rent into a formless indefinite in VIIb. As Blake
returns to the weaving motif, he forces the reader back into the context of
the initial weaving of Night I. The labors of Los and Enitharmon create "a
Universal female form... From those who were dead in Ulro from the
Spectres of the dead / And Enitharmon namd the Female Jerusa[le]m the
holy" (103:38-39; 104:1). Ulro is the space the Daughters of Beulah create
for the Circle of Destiny which in Night I was precisely identified, in its
woven aspect, as "a tabernacle for Jerusalem."
 As soon as she names Jerusalem, Enitharmon perceives the Lamb of
 God "within Jerusalems Veil / The divine Vision seen within the inmost
 deep recess / Of fairJerusalems bosom" (104:2-4). This perspective inverts
 Tharmas' original contention that Jerusalem was dwelling in his "inmost
 Soul," "in the Soft recess of darkness & silence," and that Enitharmon
 "hath taken refuge in my bosom" (4:10-14), as well as Enion's response to
 Tharmas that Sin appeared in the "Dark recesses" of Tharmas'soul (4:27).
 It also reverses that relationship since the (structurally male) Lamb appears
 within the female Jerusalem, just as one form of Satan hides "the Male /
 Within as in a Tabernacle" (101:36-37). The narrative then focuses away
 from this image of the Lamb within Jerusalem to the male "Sons of Eden
 round the Lamb of God" (104:5). These Sons are the figures who sing of
 the weaving actions of Los/Enitharmon, the unweaving by "Satan Og &
 Sihon," and the reweaving by "Rahab & Tirzah."
 According to Urizen in Night I, "Satan & the Anak / Sihon and Og" are
 themselves the "Sons" of Jerusalem. In the Song of the Sons of Eden in
 Night VIII, these same names are associated with unweaving the very
 forms and processes that, to the narrator's perception, constitute Jerusalem


Parallel states ofindefi-
niteness: Jerusalem and
the Shadowy Female


























Convergence of con-
texts for erusalem's rela-
tion to Ulro








"structurally male": the
narrator usually evades
specifying the Lamb's
gender, though it possi-
bly appears in the
equivocal lines 105:3-4:
"his arms... all his
words were peace"