FOUR ZOAS IX / 118:27-119:31 (26:14-131:34)


The flight of the beasts of
prey intersects Tharmas'
 fleeing in Night IV.
















 The deluge of blood
 through gates intersects
 the bursting of Enithar-
 mon's heart gates (85:13)
which itself re-enacts the
 Shadow's account of
 blood flowing around
the holy tent at the dislo-
 cation of Beulah's
 "hinges" (83:25-26).


narrated invites the reader to experience the sounding of the trumpet as an
effect of the beasts' fleeing. Because the beasts' flight re-enacts Tharmas'
distant fleeing at dawn like a raven, drawing down the Sons of Beulah in
Night IV, it implicitly associates the trumpet sound with Tharmas and
lays the narrative foundation for Tharmas' subsequent emergence as the
apocalyptic trumpeter. In 118:38-40, the "Sons of Men" are replaced by/
transformed into the "Sons of Eternity" as they descend into Beulah in the
context of the trumpet sounding. This event-complex intersects the even-
tual calling of Morning into Beulah (133:30) by the Eternals who, after
attempting to distinguish themselves from "Man" (133:10-28), begin
"sounding loud their instruments ofjoy" (133:29). The temporal setting
of the Lion's speech-"This night / Before the mornings dawn"-con-
spires with these other overlapping clues to resurrect the possibility that
the coming morning (to be associated with blood) could, like Enithar-
mon's in Night I, be false.
 These attempts to flee away or descend from the approaching gory,
violent upheaval merely lead the reader back into it, for Blake's tour de
force of bloody gore that "pour[s]" in "torrents black" "From out the
flood gates of the Sky," which now "burst," absorbs the imagery of Orc's
"volumes," indiscriminately drowns kings and shepherds, floats their
dead carcasses "on waves / Of foaming blood" (119:5-12), and also seems
to move backward in time since it is precisely "from the clotted gore" that
the millions must "Start forth." The unfolding events thus predict a
repeated cycle every phase of which delineates the gore in more graphic
detail. The image of "the flood gates of the Sky" recalls Luvah's reference
to his opening "all the floodgates of the heavens" to quench the thirst of the
Dragon (associated with Vala) in Night II (26:14). Similarly, the bursting
of these "gates" in Night IX (119:6) recalls Enitharmon's burst "Gates" in
Night VIIa when the Shadow (also associated with Vala) emerged. This
bursting of the gates in Night IX, which issues in a bloody deluge, specifi-
cally anticipates the bursting of Ahania's blood vessels (121:38) and, sub-
sequently, of the universe itself(122:26). Also, "down pour / The torrents"
(119:6-7) anticipates, minus the blood, "Down pour the torrent Floods"
(131:29), which precedes the crucial scene in which Urizen "pour[s]" his
light and Luvah and Vala are exhaled (131:32-34).


 Bracket 1, phase 1 is suppressed (119:23): Los/Urthona


 Bracket 2, phase 1 opens (119:24): Eternal Man

 A sudden shift in tone, locale, and plot orientation marks a radical jump
in perspective, ushering in a new consciously experienced embedded
structure, unusual in its sheer obviousness of transition.
 Beyond this Universal Confusion beyond the remotest Pole
 Where their vortexes begin to operate there stands