FOUR ZOAS VIIA / 82:25-84:6


The significance of the
Shadow/Spectre confer-
ence: the re-emergence
of the hiding/searching
 dialectic
















 The Spectre says it is
 Ore's desire to rend his
 mother, but it is equally
 the Spectre's desire to
 rend the Shadow.


birth and thus is a version of Los's brooding Eggs (81:8-9) and of the
bursting forth of the dead (85:18-19), the concealed aspect of Orc's assum-
ing a serpent form.
 As in Nights IV and V, the Spectre of Urthona appears as a residue of
Los's sexual jealousy. Los's "jealous lamentation" in VIIa (81:22-82:15) is
thus as much a cause of the Shadow's descent as is Urizen's hypocritical
pity. Though the narrator says Los feels Urizen's "Envy" of Orc, Los
seems to experience this Envy as a form of "Jealousy" over Enitharmon.
Los's intersection with Urizen is encapsulated in his belief that he "alone
exempted from the joys of love / Must war with secret monsters of the
animating worlds" (82:6-7). Although, unlike Urizen, Los is consciously
obsessed with his sexual desire, he has taken on the role Urizen acted out
in Night VI, wandering "many a dreary way / Warring with monsters of
the Deeps" (74:9-10). The descent of the Shadow of Enitharmon is simul-
taneous with Los's lamentation and the Tree's bearing fruit, "in throes of
birth." This simultaneity further reveals how Urizen's self-deceptive
hypocritical envy is an aspect of Los's self-pitying jealousy.
 The Spectre and the Shadow act out the repressed sexuality of Los and
Enitharmon, distorted by Urizen's creation of the Mundane Shell in Night
II, and modulated through the transformations of Nights II-VI. The
poisonous fruit of the Tree now becomes sexual food: "the Demon strong
prepared the poison of sweet Love" (82:25). The action here in VIIa acts as if
it were filling in the gaps in the Los/Enitharmon interchanges in Night II.
The Spectre, operating partially as a mode of Urizen's plot to destroy Los's
sexuality and partially as a fulfillment of Los's sexual desires, confronts the
"hidden" aspects of Enitharmon, concealed from Los in his "jealous
lamentation." Thus this confrontation also re-enacts and inverts the Thar-
mas/Enion confrontation at the beginning of the poem. The Spectre,
applying sweet love's poison, says the Shadow is "hiding / In secret places
where no eye can trace thy watry way / Have I found thee have I found
thee" (82:28-30). The desperation of hiding and searching is played out in
a bizarre context, completely hidden from both Urizen and Los who
invisibly participate in it. The Spectre predicts that, though Orc has "rent
his discordant way / From thy sweet loins of bliss" (82:31-32) -in direct
contrast to the narrative account of Orc's rending his way from Enithar-
mon's "heart" in Night V (58:17)--the Shadow's next joy "shall be in
sweet delusion / And its birth in fainting & sleep & Sweet delusions of
Vala" (82:35-36). This utterance is crucial, for it twice pushes "delusion" (a
form of deception as well as of play) into the open.
 The Spectre's utterance sets up an expectation that is immediately re-
pressed because of the unusual quality of the information the Shadow
imparts. In the Shadow's response, the "fruit" syntactically mediates be-
tween Orc's desire to rend her (sexually, as the Spectre says Orc has
already rent her in birth) and her inability to flee. Her frozen posture forces
her to gesture in language in response to her dilemma, but this verbal
gesture, as usual, is bodily as well. Her shift in tone signals a shift in bodily