FOUR ZOAS IX / 136:16-137:6 (10:4-137:6)


ranged in its appearance
over most of the poem,
 "Non Existence" has
 occurred only at the
 beginning of Night IX
 in the context ofJesus'
separation of Spirit from
body (117:4-5) and near
the beginning of Night
 II when Urizen
 glimpsed the abyss of
 Enion (23:3).

 Luvah's daughters act
 out the castration
 implicit in the Eternal
 Man's revulsion from
 the "horrible" separate
 female, "born to drink
 up all his powers."


Cf. Vala in Night II: "the
 furnaces where Luvah
 was clos'd / In joy she
 heard his howlings"
 (26:1-2)

 The "crown of thorns"
 (135:23) associates Lu-
 vah (who is possibly
 observing this orgy
offstage) with the Lamb
and withJesus, both of
whom (like Luvah) are
 conspicuously absent
 from this sequence.





The incorporation of the
small creatures sporting
around the wine presses
into voyeuristic torture


shepherds' request that Luvah's Bulls tread the Corn. The drunken brawl
that ensues begins to turn the environment, literally, inside out. The risen
Odors intoxicate the sons and daughters of Luvah, and death, rather than
clarity of vision, becomes possible through drowning (inverting the
drowning of confusion in the Black's song). As the sons and daughters of
Luvah become exhausted, it suddenly becomes clear that the friendly,
domesticated beasts of prey in 135:29-30 have merely become dead skins
on which to lie (136:19). In order for the desires of the disembodied voices
to achieve minimal (if intense) existence, Luvah's perverse and cruel
daughters appear as projections of the castrating separate female engen-
dered by the revulsion of the Eternal Men at the feast (where Luvah's
flames served the wine) and thus as the residue of Tirzah and Rahab,
associated with Mystery in Night VIII (106:26-107:6). While at first the
wish expressed by the voices in the wine presses seems to be fulfilled-the
Human Grapes "howl & writhe in shoals of torment in fierce flames
consuming"(136:22) -worse is yet to come: "Screws and Racks & Saws &
cords & fires & floods / The cruel joy ofLuvahs daughters lacerating with
knives" (136:25-26). The rapid degeneration into self-conscious joy in
cruelty forces to the surface the intense hostility and ("furious") frustra-
tion lurkingjust beneath the surface of the most "mild" states or processes.
Because these events spatialize the psycho-sexual implications of Jesus'
separation of body from Spirit, the extremity of the acts and their rapid
cataloguing raises the scandalous question: could Blake's hidden Jesus be
deriving sadistic, voyeuristic pleasure by beholding these events he has
made possible?
 The around/in dialectic swings from torture ("in") to sport ("round")
only to prepare for the utter reversal of these poles. Small natural creatures,
bound to the ground and associated with darkness-the Emmet, the Earth-
worm, the Centipede, the Spider, the Mole, the Earwig, the maggot,
the Slug-dance around the wine presses (where the Odors hang). At the
mention of the grasshopper, "that sings & laughs & drinks / The winter
comes he folds his slender bones without a murmur," which is clearly
contrasted to the "maggot emblem of Immortality," the dialectic begins to
shift, and the illusion of existing in joy apart from pain finds its limits
(136:28-34). For the grasshopper's actions parallel the actions of those
treading the grapes (sings, laughs, drinks), and this acknowledgment leads
to the appearance of the Nettle and the Thistle (incipient torture). Just as
pastoral musical imagery immediately gave way to the howlings of Mys-
tery's Legions, so the vision of these creatures' dancing in naked beauty
"round the Wine Presses" suddenly undergoes transformation:

 They Dance around the Dying & they Drink the howl & groan
 They catch the Shrieks in cups of gold they hand them to one another
 These are the sports of love & these the sweet delights of amorous play
 Tears of the grapes the death sweat of the Cluster the last sigh
 Of the mild youth who listens to the luring songs of Luvah
 (136:40-137:4)