RAHAB: AND THE SHADOWY FEMALE IN VIIB AND VIII


delusively cruel tale to Tharmas, for only one page earlier the narrator
knew that her indefinitenesss" functioned as her "Supreme delight"
(93:27-29). She does "joy" in pain, and thus the glorious descriptions of
nature constitute the way the Female experiences her scattering (which at
times seems painful to the narrator): the narrator's divided account is an
unsuccessful attempt to repress the Shadow's joy in pain. Her rousing
hidden sensual delights to life parallels her act of drawing the dead from
their tombs.
 In Night VIII the dead are lured out ofBeulah into "Urizens temple" by
the Shadowy Female because Urizen's temple (which emerged in VIIb)
likewise reverses the "order of delight"; as such, his temple embodies and
reifies, in its inner sanctum, the perversion of sexual enjoyment into
"secret" forms from which the Shadow derives power (and thereby makes
explicit the sexual perversion implicit in Urizen's repressive inner hall in
Night II). Thus it is "in the temple of the Sun" (modulated from VIIb) that
the Shadowy Female mystifies Urizen with the story of the "robes of
blood" in order to absorb "The enormous Sciences of Urizen ages after
ages exploring / The fell destruction" (102:27-28). This narrative event
presupposes that an aspect of Urizen is still travelling the exploratory
journey of Night VI chasing Tharmas, but the destruction of his world is
now associated with the Shadowy Female who, in seducing Tharmas in
VIIb, stretchd thro all the worlds of Urizens journey" (95:1). The
Shadowy Female is thus the subversive element in Urizen's machinery of
war and religion. She embodies the sexual delight he has been repressing,
and the forms of his repression are his war and his religion, both of which
are now tied into his "Web."
 The Shadowy Female who confronts Urizen and spreads[] herselfthro
all the branches [of the tree] in the power of Orc... Steeping the Direful
Web of Religion swagging heavy it fell" (103:24-26) overlaps the Shadowy
Female who "labour[s] the food of Orc" which exudes in "fruit" as the
serpent form of Orc (101:16-22), and who spreads[] herself thro all the
branches in the power of Orc" (101:25). Her ability to appropriate, under-
mine, and destroy Urizen's sciences by absorbing Orc's energy permits a
narrative glimpse at what is to come when Urizen fully grasps the sexual
implications of his creation:

 Misplacing every Center hungry desire & lust began
 Gathering the fruit of that Mysterious tree till Urizen
 Sitting within his temple furious felt the num[m]ing stupor
 Himself tangled in his own net in sorrow lust repentance
 (103:28-31)

 As we have seen, Blake significantly overlaps the Shadowy Female with
Rahab while assigning each of them distinct functions and powers. Blake
first introduces Rahab's name in the interpolated song of the Sons of Eden.
In the narrative proper the Shadowy Female develops a powerful sexual
lure, "sweet delusive cruelty," to draw the dead out ofBeulah. The Sons of


Night VIIb creates the
preconditions for the
Shadowy Female's sub-
version of Urizen's
machinery of war and
religion in Night VIII.























The Shadowy Female's
subversion of Urizen's
web in Night VIII re-
veals Urizen's sexual de-
sire and leads to his fall
into a Dragon form.