FOUR ZOAS IX / 117:24-139:5 (16:17-139:5)


Possible Resolution through Male/Female Union


The problematic dimen-
sions of the male/female
 unions in Night IX










 The Enitharmon/
Urthona union: a confu-
 sion of Spectres


















 See below, pp. 459-62.






 The Urizen/Ahania
 union: death, rebirth,
 and disappearance


 Of all the events that could constitute a resolution in the plot itself, one
of Blake's most tempting options is to unite the central male figures with
their female Emanations. By presenting these attempted unions in an
apparently calculated progression in Night IX, Blake lures the reader
(even at this late date) into hoping that each of these unions is acting as a
stage in a process of narrative integration. Blake invokes these unions,
however, only to undermine their positive potential as unambiguous
phases of an integrative scheme.
 For instance, given the important role Los and Enitharmon played in
Nights VIIa and VIII and in the beginning of IX, their union could well
function as a dramatic moment of resolution. Following Los and Enithar-
mon's eating the fruit of the Tree of Mystery in Night VIIa, the narrator
predicted that they would unite after "six thousand Years of self denial and
of bitter Contrition" (87:29), a period of time that coincides with that
which Los asserted in his speech to Rahab in Night VIII had passed since
his fall (113:48-49): Los's utterance could thus signify the imminence of
their integration. In Night IX, however, Los is suddenly replaced by the
Spectre ofUrthona who "Reciev[es]" with merely a "faint embrace" "The
Spectre of Enitharmon" (a problematic new figure that fuses male func-
tion with female name); this faint embrace allows them to unite only two
dimensionally as "Two shadows mingle." This union does not issue in
uninterrupted joy; rather these aspects of Urthona experience "joy mixd
with despair & grief/ Their bodies buried in the ruins of the Universe"
(117:24-118:5). This event constitutes more a dissolution than a union,
since as soon as they embrace the two Spectres vanish from the poem,
remaining narratively buried until the end of Night IX. Even in the last
few lines of the poem the narrator is unable to affirm, except through
negative, passive, and problematic syntax, that the conventional aspects of
Urthona apparently integrate. The narrator does not assert that Los is
united with Enitharmon but rather, Urthona is "no longer now / Divided
from Enitharmon" (139:4-5). In the detailed analysis of this passage we
shall see how the account of this union near the poem's end calls attention
to the narrator's evasive assertion itself.
 The union ofUrizen and Ahania comes in two stages, each with its own
center offrustration. As soon as Urizen delivers a repentance speech under
threat of being cast out by the Eternal Man, Urizen undergoes a miracu-
lous and instantaneous physical reversal, and Ahania reappears running
toward him in joy, only to drop dead of burst blood vessels (121:35-37).
Blake clouds the second phase of their union in two more subtle ways.
First, Ahania does not return until Urizen and his sons have sat down to
their "repose" at the emerging feast, opening up the possibility that
Ahania's second rebirth is technically a dream which the narrator fails to
distinguish as such. (The fact that Urizen rises from his couch as if awak-
ening when she reappears does not erase this possibility.) Second, she