EVENTS: EQUIVOCAL MALE/FEMALE UNIONS


returns "like the harvest Moon" (125:26), not in spring as the Eternal Man
predicted (122:11). Blake emphasizes these discrepancies by situating the
events in moony Beulah, notorious throughout the poem for its sexual
delusions. In addition, the narrator immediately reveals that the Eternal
Man is far fromjoyous over the immediate consequence of this union: he is
"Sorrowful that he could not put off his new risen body" (125:37). The
Eternal Man's "new risen body," which did not consciously exist prior to
this point in the narrative, is one way the Eternal Man perceives the newly
risen Ahania. In his sudden desire to put off this "body," the Eternal Man
inadvertently acknowledges both the inappropriateness of Ahania's return
and the perceptual confusion that issues directly from it. Ahania disap-
pears from Urizen's (and the narrator's) consciousness as soon as she sits
beside him, thus holding in balance the possibility that her rebirth is a
dream easily forgotten (as she entered the poem being forgotten
[16:17-18]) and the possibility that she has been so fully integrated into
Urizen that she is no longer perceivable as a separate character.
 Luvah and Vala unite in a fleeting and concealed manner, as if their
union were an aside, buried in conflicting narrative details. The content of
the union itself requires reference to details whose explanation is far
beyond the scope and purpose of our argument at this point. Luvah and
Vala are briefly united when Urizen and his sons and daughters in a state of
exultation "pour" their light; Luvah and Vala see the light and "their
spirits were Exhald / In all their ancient innocence" (131:34-35). Instead of
producing a permanent union, however, this exhalation immediately
divides Luvah from Vala: Luvah emerges sitting "Above on the bright
heavens" while "Vala the sweet wanderer" (131:37, 39) again inhabits the
dark lower world she has haunted throughout the poem (even during the
pastoral "Garden" sequence that immediately precedes the "exhalation").
 Because all the characters and events of The Four Zoas have been gener-
ated out of the division ofTharmas and Enion at the beginning of Night I,
the union ofTharmas and Enion could well be the legitimate goal of Night
IX. Their joyous embrace parodies the "faint embrace" of the spectrous
components of Urthona at the beginning of Night IX (117:24-118:4): "Joy
thrilled thro all the Furious form of Tharmas humanizing / Mild he
Embracd her whom he sought" (132:36-37). This otherwisejoyous union
is immediately shadowed over by its narrative consequences. As soon as
Tharmas and Enion embrace, the Eternal Man welcomes them to the feast
and suddenly divides into "Many Eternal Men" who "see," not the primal
union of male and female, but, on the contrary, "see / The female form
now separate They shudderd at the horrible thing" (133:5-6). Precisely at
the moment the poem could have moved out of its cycle, Blake disturb-
ingly opens up the problematic of the cycle itself: the union of Tharmas
and Enion equals the primal separation of the female from the divided
Eternal Man. Far from resolving the persistent tensions of the poem, the
joyous embrace of Tharmas and Enion (which accompanies the sounding
of the trumpet of Last Judgment) creates the conditions of the possibility


The Luvah/Vala union
divides Luvah from Vala
(see below, pp. 414-15).











The Tharmas/Enion
union: narratively pro-
duces the division of the
female from the "Eternal
Men"