NOTES


superimposes the confused language Tharmas used in his first speech over the
"englobing" Circle of Destiny. In this Song the birth of Los and Enitharmon is
explicitly separated from Tharmas' division into a fleeing figure and a sinking dark
confusion. The Demons connect the two acts syntactically with "Mean time Los
was born... [.]" The events are treated as quite separate, simultaneous, and there-
fore causally independent, a connection which forces the reader to a crisis of
perspective. Enion is nowhere to be seen in this Song, and none of the action
associated with the battle has been hinted at as causally related to Los and Enithar-
mon's birth.
 The tension between discontinuous appearances of Tharmas becomes intensi-
 fied when he appears again in the account of the Messengers from Beulah. The
 Messengers insist that Los and Enitharmon emerge from "Urthona" and not
 Tharmas. At the moment the battle begins, Urthona's sons "fled from his side to
 join the conflict," and he hears "The Eternal voice"-a transformation of the
 "voice" that called out in the Demons' Song-and he is paralyzed:
 dividing from his making bosom fled
 A portion of his life shrieking upon the wind she fled
 And Tharmas took her in pitying Then Enion in jealous fear
 Murderd her & hid her in her bosom embalming her for fear
 She would rise again to life Embalmd in Enions bosom
 Enitharmon remains a corse
 (22:20-25)
 These events directly controvert, in at least two ways, the previous narrative
 account given earlier in Night I. First, there is again no mention whatsoever ofLos
 and Enitharmon being born of Enion. Although these events do not contradict
 what Tharmas says in his opening statements of Night I-pitying Enitharmon and
 giving her refuge in his bosom-these actions are now perceived as the precondi-
 tion of Enion's murdering and embalming Enitharmon. Since the actions here
 intersect both the present moment of the opening conversation ("I cannot cast her
 out...") and the moment of battle (described in the Nuptial Song) when Los and
 Enitharmon are born, Blake opens up the option of interpreting the event the
 Messengers perceive as Enitharmon's death and embalming as her birth from the
 earlier perspective of the narrative proper. The Messengers' reference to fleeing
 appears as a further transformation of the Demons' Song in which Tharmas was
 said to flee the battle, while Urthona's female portion, Enitharmon, "fled" to
 Tharmas who gives her refuge. This action both re-enacts Tharmas' prior state-
 ment that the "Emanations are fled /To me" (4:15-16) and inverts Tharmas' fleeing
 the battle and sinking down in "dark confusion," an act which was, in the context
 of the Feast Song, simultaneous with the birth of Los and Enitharmon. In the
 Messengers' account, Tharmas' act of hiding Enitharmon becomes virtually
 equivalent to his fleeing from the battle.
 Blake loops us back in time again for the final appearance ofTharmas in Night I,
after the division of Enitharmon from Urthona:
 Urthona stood in terror but not long his spectre fled
 To Enion & his body fell. Tharmas beheld him fall
 Endlong a raging serpent rolling round the holy tent
 The sons of war astonished at the Glittering monster drove
 Him far into the world of Tharmas into a cavernd rock
 (22:27-31)