FOUR ZOAS VIII / 106:14-116:6


"Rahab" is identified as
"Babylon" at 106:5-6.













 The inversion of
 Jerusalem's multiple
roles in Los's speech to
 Rahab


of the "Serpent" form of nature (in Night VIII the "serpent" form of Orc):
"Whether this is Jerusalem or Babylon we know not All is confusion All
is tumult & we alone escaped" (42: following line 17).10 The assumption
tion that Jerusalem and Rahab can be definitively differentiated from one
another in Night VIII suppresses the strategic order of entry andjuxtaposi-
tion Blake has employed to interconnect and differentiate these characters
simultaneously.
 Jerusalem's final action in Night VIII is included in Los's interpolated
speech to Rahab," in which Jerusalem's final role becomes (perhaps
surprisingly) the weaver of mantles for "Satan & his companions"
(115:39-41), a development that further links Satan and the Lamb in the
narrative proper. In Los's speech Blake displaces Rahab's (and the reader's)
interest away from the plot of the narrative proper and onto the story of
Palamabron and Rintrah (who are first named in the poem as both causes
and effects of the fabrication of bodies in VIIa) and Satan (identified vari-
ously as the form of the bursting spectres in VIIb and as the hermaphrodi-
tic forms of Night VIII). A central function Jerusalem has performed
throughout Night VIII is precisely inverted: instead of being the
aggregate woven form, she becomes the weaver of mantles in pity (much
as the Daughters of Enitharmon were) in an attempt to atone for the
condemnation of Satan by the "Solemn assembly" (which could be the
way Los perceives or fictionalizes the "Council of God"). Blake inserts
this inversion of Jerusalem's role between the two occurrences of
Jerusalem's weeping at Los's taking the Body from the Cross (106:14;
110:30-33), a strategy of simultaneity and embedding that purports to
disconnect this inverted account by Los from causal implication in the
events concerning the Lamb and Jerusalem in the narrative proper.
 Although Los's story functions as an analysis and revelation of details
unavailable in the narrative proper and inverts Jerusalem's function, Los's
account itself has direct causal impact. In recounting his "Generations"
(113:53) Los exposes the failure ofUrizen's plot to undermine Los's sexual-
ity. Furthermore, because his sons and daughters as a "family" in the
narrative proper constitute Jerusalem herself (103:34-39; 104:1), Los's
speech recapitulates or analyzes Jerusalem's primary role in Night VIII. In
the story within his speech, as we have seen, Los inverts many narrative
priorities, includingJerusalem's role, and magnifies female Satanic power,
revealing finally that thoughJesus "died willing beneath Tirzah & Rahab"
that act was insufficient to "set Jerusalem free." Los's speech confers
immediate power to Rahab who stupefies Urizen into numbness and then
into his exteriorized sexual dragon form. Structurally, Los's speech inad-
vertently (in that its outcome is not what he intends) issues in the descent
of Urizen into the dragonous lust-monster Urizen has so desperately
attempted to avoid and deny, by allowing Rahab to reveal herself to him as
"his secret holiness" (116:6).
 By inserting pages 113 (second portion) through 116 into page 106,
Blake locates Los's speech, which informs Rahab of his fall "six thousand