CONSEQUENCES: ENTRANCES OF THE DEAD


fruit than as a response to the appearance of the dead (though Los
answerr" [87:40], apparently, the Spectre, he could be answering Eni-
tharmon with the Spectre acting as a "medium" [87:27]). Los, in fact, does
not refer to the dead at all in this part of the conversation but rather shifts
attention to the Lamb of God descending to redeem. Although Enithar-
mon does make reference to the Spectres of the Dead, she does so in a way
that makes it uncertain whether or not the Spectres have actually burst
forth yet or are still dormant, as in the Spectre's earlier account (84:40-42):
she sees the Lamb "descending / To Meet these Spectres of the Dead"
(87:53-54). By referring to the dead indirectly as piteouss victims of
battle" who "sleep" on Enitharmon's bosom of "soft repose" (90:6-7),
however, Los responds to Enitharmon's statement in a way which
suggests that from his perspective at least the dead have indeed not yet
burst forth visibly into the narrative proper. Their conversation thus pro-
vides the third causal background for the entrance of the spectrous dead
into the narrative proper.
 In this complex play of re-enactment and progression, Blake seems to
be experimenting with a formula somewhat like the following: if the
Spectre tempts the Shadow beneath the Tree, then the dead males without
female counterparts burst forth out of an ambiguous birth of/through the
shadow; if the Spectre and Enitharmon tempt Los above the Tree (involv-
ing the fruit), then the dead males without counterparts appear explicitly
as "Spectres" to Urthona's Spectre, which forces him to blame himself for
their existence and (by the agency of the fruit) crave redemption; if Los and
Enitharmon directly confer together (with the Spectre offstage or acting
as a medium), then the dead emerge (breathed from Enitharmon) only on
the precondition of Los's fabricating sublime forms (which bring "Female
forms" into existence).
 Explicit repetition narratively overlaps these three accounts of the emer-
gent dead. We have already noted how, after the Tree takes root in Los's
world, "the Spectre entered Los's bosom" (85:26); then, later, Los says to
the Spectre "Come then into my Bosom" (86:10). In this section, Enithar-
mon is on her "couch,"just as she was at the end of Night IV (55:28) and in
Night Vat Ore's birth (58:4-5). The transition from the Shadow/Spectre
to the Spectre/Los meeting is mediated by a change in tone and an increase
in information which constitutes Blake's first narrative extension beyond
the original end of Night VIIa:
 But then the Spectre entered Los's bosom Every sigh & groan
 Of Enitharmon bore Urthonas Spectre on its wings
 Obdurate Los felt Pity Enitharmon told the tale
 Of Urthona. Los embraced the Spectre first as a brother
 Then as another Self; astonishd humanizing & in tears
 In Self abasement Giving up his Domineering lust
 (85:26-31)
 The complex events compressed into these lines (which lie on the
 threshold between the earlier and later segments of Night VIIa) undergo


The appearances of the
"dead" as a causal se-
quence versus analytic
re-enactment and narra-
tive branching




























Narrative overlapping in
the three accounts of the
emerging "dead"