FOUR ZOAS VIIB / 93:39-94:15 (5:30-106:24)


 The overlapping, yet
 distinct, functions of
 Rahab, the Shadowy
Female, and the Shadow
 of Enitharmon

 Vala intersects Rahab;

 Vala intersects the
 Shadowy Female;







 Rahab intersects the
 Shadowy Female.
Differences between the
 Shadowy Female and
 Rahab

 Rahab: associated with
counter-weaving and the
Lamb of God/Satan plot

 The Shadowy Female:
 indefiniteness under-
 mining Urizen's woven
 web










 The emergence of the
 "dead" in Night Vila
 results from the sexual
 union of the Spectre of
 Urthona and the
Shadow of Enitharmon,


narrative events generate from the absorption into the narrative of the
"fainting & sleep & Sweet delusions of Vala" (82:36) of which the conclud-
ing sections of VIIa are perspective transformations.


 Rahab and The Synagogue of Satan.

 "Rahab" first appears in Night VIII via the interpolated song of the Sons
of Eden and is officially brought into existence in the narrative proper by
"The Synagogue of Satan." Though Rahab is a new character with distinct
powers and functions, her role significantly overlaps that of the "Shadowy
Female" (who, in Night VIII, is a residue of the Shadow of Enitharmon in
VIIa and the "Shadowy Female" in Night VIIb). These two female forms
intersect by virtue of their relationship to the name "Vala": Rahab is said to
be "Vala drawn down into a Vegetated body" (105:13), while "the
shadowy female Vala" (104:27) is said to be hiding within the male Satan.
In addition, the Shadowy Female's power to lure the dead males without
female counterparts (85:19-21; 99:19-21) parallels Rahab's role of "False
Feminine Counterpart" (105:11) in relation to Satan, the male without a
female counterpart (104:25). Also, the Shadowy Female gathers the fruit of
the Tree of Mystery (101:24) while Rahab is made from the fruit (105:20).
This complex overlapping culminates late in VIII when it is Rahab who
initiates Urizen's descent by standing before him as his "secret holiness"
(116:6) or repressed lust, but (due to Blake's rearrangement of the text) it is
"the Shadowy Female" he begins to embrace (106:23-24).
 Although in Night VIII Rahab seems to evolve out of and virtually
absorb the Shadowy Female's role, Blake disrupts this process of overlap-
ping by keeping certain functions of these characters distinct. For exam-
ple, the Shadowy Female plays no role in Rahab's counter-weaving plot
(creating webs of torture) that originates in the songs of the Sons of Eden;
instead, the Shadowy Female is a force of cloudy, shapeless indefiniteness
that infiltrates and saturates Urizen's "woven darkness...Steeping the
Direful Web" (103:21-26). Except when glimpsed as a form hidden inside
Satan, the Shadowy Female also does not enter by name into the plot
concerning the Lamb of God, whereas Rahab (and her daughter Tirzah)
are implicated directly in smiting the Lamb (in the song of the Sons of
Eden) and nailing the Lamb to the tree (in the narrative proper). Thus
Rahab is made possible simultaneously by the evolving power of the
Shadowy Female (that is, the Sons' account does not occur until after the
Shadowy Female has first confronted Urizen) and by a specific redirecting
of the Shadowy Female's power into the weaving and Lamb of God plots.
 The Shadowy Female begins to assume power in Night VIIb when she
is rent by Ore. While this event gives an alternative account of the
emergence of Orc's serpent form, her rending by Ore in VIIb is simultane-
ously a version of the sexual union of the Spectre and the Shadow in VIIa in
that both sexual unions produce a bursting forth of the "dead" (85:18;
95:10). Night VIIa, however, re-enacts the bursting forth of the dead