THE SHADOW: A WONDER HORRIBLE


Emanations" (85:16-19). Is the "wonder horrible" the "Cloud" that grew?
Or is the growing Cloud an image of the expanding pregnant shadow who
grows until she brings forth the dead from their tombs? As in the inter-
change between the Shadow and the Spectre this "shadow" must simul-
taneously be Enitharmon's shadow and a form of Vala. This event is
exactly the opposite of what the Spectre wanted: the males emerge "Cruel
and ravening with Enmity & Hatred & War" (85:20), releasing the dis-
torted energy Orc repressed in being unbound and transformed into the
worm; and they emerge embodying a form of the Spectre's own state: "a
ravening devouring lust continually / Craving & devouring" (84:37-38).
The bursting forth of the dead narratively intersects Orc's assuming ser-
pent form, though as readers we cannot immediately grasp this relation,
just as Urizen seems to be nowhere in sight though he is concealed in the
males without female counterparts. These males emerge "In dreams of
Ulro dark delusive drawn by the lovely shadow" (85:21). This action
inverts the Shadow's being drawn down to Orc (81:11-12) and covertly
fulfills the Spectre's prophecy that the Shadow's next joy would be "in
fainting & sleep & Sweet delusions of Vala" (82:36).
 Though the bursting forth of the dead is manifestly conditioned by the
Tree of perceptual mystification and intoxication, the unusual nature of the
events that are transpiring at this point tends to undermine the reader's
ability to assess that condition. In giving charge of the now "howling Orc"
to the "lovely shadow" (85:21-22) the Spectre establishes the narrative
preconditions for the Shadow being rent by Orc in VIIb and retroactively
creates the structural preconditions of the shadow's power to draw forth
the dead males, the "Cruel and ravening" repressed human remains of
Orc. In Blake's first (unrevised) version of this event the "Spectre smild &
gave her Charage over the howling Orc": Blake revised "smild" to "terri-
fied." This alteration makes the Spectre's response exactly congruent with
Urizen's response upon confronting the serpent form of Ore: "Terrified
Urizen heard" (80:43). In giving the shadow charge over Orc (who is
suddenly again "howling" after being "sweet" and a serpent), the Spectre
(still associated with the residue lust and jealousy of Los) is functioning as
an aspect of the shift from jealousy to envy, and from the Shadow/Spectre
confrontation to the Los/Spectre/Enitharmon sequence.
 At this point in the narrative, the Shadow of Enitharmon explicitly
disappears from the poem's surface never to appear again under that name.
In VIIb and VIII Blake tends progressively to suppress the connection
between the Shadow and Enitharmon and focus on the connection be-
tween the Shadow and Vala. In VIIb when the Shadowy Female first speaks
after being rent by Orc, she identifies herself as Vala, and Tharmas accepts
this identification. The narrator refuses to make this reduction, however.
Blake's complex overlapping of the Shadowy Female (who is a residue of
Nights VIIa and VIIb) with Rahab (the new character with multiple roles
and named sub-divisions) culminates in Night VIII when "Rahab" lures
Urizen's secret lust into the open (116:3-6), but it is "the Shadowy Female"


Both Ore and Urizen are
hidden in the birth of the
"wonder horrible."






























(93:39-42)



Three points ofnarrative
convergence between
"Vala" and