INVERSION IN THE WINE PRESSES


Although this reversal should not have been unexpected, it nevertheless
brings some surprising things to light. Because the space these lowly
creatures inhabit is circumferential-the transformed world "above"-
these lowly creatures enact aspects of the elitist world that has hovered
with relative indifference throughout Night IX. Second, the image of
"Drink[ing] the howl & groan" reverberates against not only the
immediate context of the drinking of wine at the feast and the multiple
Eternal Men's perception of the separate female's drinking ofMan's power,
but also against Los and Enitharmon's drinking of life (in the form of the
Spectre) from Enion in Nights I-III. Each of these forms of drinking is
fundamentally a parasitic, even vampiric, act, though some characters
remain virtually unaware of the parasitic implications of their actions.
Because it is most explicit, and because it is enacted by characters who
unite features of the world above and beneath, the version at the wine
presses forces into the reader's consciousness how thoroughly this para-
sitic incorporation, denial, or repression of others pervades the world of
the entire poem. Further, this radical shift to the incorporation of those
"round" into the torture is characterized as the "sweet delights of amorous
play," the tantalizing pastoral voyeurism and denial of sex, which have
pervaded the poem ever since Los and Enitharmon first drew in "sweet
delights" while absorbing the Spectre in Night I (10:4). The narrator
asserts (though in an offhanded way which suggests he is unaware of its
significance) that it is precisely the "mild[ness]" of the "youth" that makes
him vulnerable to the "luring songs of Luvah." Since the primary song
Luvah has sounded is "the Song of Los," Luvah subverts Los's creativity in
order to lure mild youths into psycho-sexual orgies.
 Now the dialectic of above/beneath enters surreptitiously to conceal the
absorption of the feast into the torment around the presses. This happens
slowly and detours through several transitions. When the Eternal Man
darkens (again), "a wintry mantle / Coverd the Hills" (137:5-6). This
event reveals that the Eternal Man is unintentionally enacting part of the
grasshopper's fate, and in so doing identifying the vulnerability of the
grasshopper with his own weakness.
 When the Eternal Man calls on Tharmas and Urthona to "rise" in
response to the crisis in the wine presses (137:6), it is not surprising that
Tharmas explicitly rises from the "feast," even though his most recent
appearance was in the "winnowing wind" (134:32), for the Eternal Man
had earlier welcomed Tharmas and Enion to the feast (though their
names were omitted) (133:1). It is a surprise, however, that Urthona rises
from the feast. The "bodies" of Urthona's spectrous aspects were earlier
buried under the ruins of the universe (117:24-118:6), and Urthona's name
has appeared only once since then, specifying the "Gates" through which
Luvah and Vala passed into "the shadows of Valas Garden" (126:18-19).
Urthona's sudden, previously unsuspected presence at the feast makes it
seem as though the wine press sequence brings Urthona into existence at
the feast.


Prior contexts of drinking
as parasitic and sadistic























The above/beneath
dialectic returns.






Not only Tharmas but
Urthona rises from the
feast.

Urthona first came into
existence as a character
in the narrative proper
(as opposed to a charac-
ter remembered in inter-
polated visions) in
Night VIII, accom-
panied by Tharmas, as a
reflex to Urizen's
"stupor" (106:21-32).
"Urthonas Sons" appear
at 124:20.