FOUR ZOAS VIIA / 82:25-84:34


 In the Shadow's story,
 Urizen is implicitly a
 male without a female
 counterpart and is thus
 implicated in the emer-
gent spectrous dead who
 are also aspects of Orc.








The Shadow of Enithar-
 mon is unaware of the
role of the Lamb of God
in creating Beulah; she is
also unaware that it is a
 "feminine" universe
 (5:29-32).


 Though the Shadow's
 account combines the
 sexual and political ori-
 gins of the fall, it omits
 reference to the "horses
 flight" plot.











The Shadow's account of
Luvah's violent triumph
intersects Ahania's vis-
 ion in Night III
 (39:1-41:16) -Ahania,
who is absent from both
 the Shadow's and the
 Spectre's accounts.



In line 83:21, "his" could
 refer to Urizen or to
 Man.


and Female forms immediately after Urizen's birth. Vala's pregnancy pre-
supposes sexual division; yet the birth produces sexual division as its
outcome. This circular structure of sexual division is grounded in its
playful and deceptive "delusion." Urizen's birth opens up his previously
implicit vulnerability to his own plot (since in the Shadow's vision he is
himself the first sexual offspring, structurally a male without a female
counterpart) and simultaneously paves the way for Urizen's complex
transformation into an infant son of Los at the end of Night VIIa. After the
Shadow of Enitharmon literally becomes pregnant by engaging in this
verbal conference, the ambiguous multiple births (ofspectrous dead males
without female counterparts) that take place are alternative narrative ver-
sions of the Shadow's vision of birth and sexual division.
 In the final phase of her vision, the Shadow recounts her perception of
the fall of Beulah: to her, Beulah is the pastoral inheritance of Urizen and
Luvah, a form of sexual existence which Shadow and Spectre perversely
act out in the narrative present; and Beulah falls as a result of a political
power struggle and not a sexual division. The Shadow's vision connects
sexual division and political usurpation, while suppressing her own role.
Yet her description of the fall of Beulah inadvertently overlaps the
Shadow's own sexual activity. For example, the Spectre reminds the
Shadow that at the birth of Ore, "red flowd thy blood" (82:32); and in the
fall of Beulah "blood flowd round the holy tent" (83:25). As in the
Shadow's vision, when Beulah falls it is "rivn / From its hinges"
(83:25-26), so as the "shadow was deliverd... [Enitharmon's] golden
hinges were broken" (85:11, 14). Thus the sexual and political segments of
her account are aspects of one another, both depicting a violent separation;
the first (with Vala and the Eternal Man) explicitly sexual, the second
(with Urizen and Luvah) only implicitly so. Significantly, Urizen is
implicated in both the sexual and political stages of the Shadow's account.
He is a product of sexual generation as well as the occasion for sexual
division that brings Luvah into existence. He is also implicated in the
political conspiracy with Luvah to overthrow the father. He thus becomes
doubly a victim of his own plot to use the Shadow to destroy what he
perceives to be Los's sexual appetite. Indeed, the Shadow perceives Los and
herself enslaved not to Urizen but to "the Will of Luvah who assumed the
Place / Of the Eternal Man & smote him" (83:31-32). This final phase of
her story reflects back on the sexual phase, for in her story Luvah is the
Male aspect of the Eternal Man; the Fallen Man's naming of Luvah reifies
his own masculine sexuality as a separate entity. Thus, when the Shadow
projects all blame onto Vala the irony is double: for in her story the
Shadow is Vala.
 When the Spectre's response reinterprets the Shadow's gesture, it con-
fuses "mild Eternity" with pastoral Beulah. Like Urizen who, in the
Shadow's speech, "forgot Eternity delighted in his sweetjoy" (83:21), the
Spectre identifies Eternity with fields, garden, delight, joy-features
which the Shadow has just associated with Beulah. The Spectre recounts