europe 10

PLATE 10

In thoughts perturb'd, they rose from the bright ruins silent
     following     
The fiery King, who sought his ancient temple serpent-form'd
That stretches out its shady length along the Island white.
Round him roll'd his clouds of war; silent the Angel went,
Along the infinite shores of Thames to golden Verulam.           
There stand the venerable porches that high-towering rear
Their oak-surrounded pillars, form'd of massy stones, uncut
With tool; stones precious; such eternal in the heavens,
Of colours twelve, few known on earth, give light in the opake,
Plac'd in the order of the stars, when the five senses whelm'd   
In deluge o'er the earth-born man; then turn'd the fluxile eyes
Into two stationary orbs, concentrating all things.
The ever-varying spiral ascents to the heavens of heavens
Were bended downward; and the nostrils golden gates shut
Turn'd outward, barr'd and petrify'd against the infinite.       

Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent; that which pitieth:   
To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid
In forests of night; then all the eternal forests were divided
Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean
     rush'd
And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh.            
Then was the serpent temple form'd, image of infinite
Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel;
Heaven a mighty circle turning; God a tyrant crown'd.

Now arriv'd the ancient Guardian at the southern porch,
That planted thick with trees of blackest leaf, & in a vale      
 
Obscure, inclos'd the Stone of Night; oblique it stood, o'erhung
With purple flowers and berries red; image of that sweet south,
Once open to the heavens and elevated on the human neck,
Now overgrown ith hair and coverd with a stony roof,
Downward 'tis sunk beneath th' attractive north, that round the
     feet        
A raging whirlpool draws the dizzy enquirer to his grave:

(Erdman 63-4)

Commons Wikipedia
Europe 10

About the Text
"they" are Albion's Angels, associating him with The fiery King. 

ancient temple serpent-form'd: that of course is amply illustrated by
the left border of the Plate.

to golden Verulam: Verulam was where Francis Bacon lived; Blake loved to  hate Bacon.

In the lines that follow Blake mentioned ancient temples going back to the Druids and beyond.
Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent;

With the second paragraph Blake universalized the British scene to the World as we know it.
man became an Angel; Heaven a mighty circle turning; God a tyrant crown'd.

Now arriv'd the ancient Guardian at the southern porch, (research 4Z
and get an idea of the early (before the Fall) zoa in the South;
we have reason to believe that after the Fall it was Urizen.

We read about the the Stone of Night in a later Plate as
well as in America.
In this reading it appears that it refers to Urizen's skull.
(Look at plates 11-13 of the Book of Urizen.
For the Stone of Night look at page 387 of Damon's Blake Dictionary.

About the Image

The dominating figure is of course the reptile (Dragon?) with seven coils.
At the top it's mouth emits flames.

From Works we learn that

"This is probably the serpent-form of Orc, the spirit of revolution, 
although a more immediate  textual context on this plate appears in line 18: 
"Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent."

europe 9

Commons Wikipedia
America 9

---

PLATE 9
Enitharmon slept,                                                
Eighteen hundred years: Man was a Dream!
The night of Nature and their harps unstrung:
She slept in middle of her nightly song,
Eighteen hundred years, a female dream!
             _______________________________ 

Shadows of men in fleeting bands upon the winds:                
Divide the heavens of Europe:
Till Albions Angel smitten with his own plagues fled with his
     bands
The cloud bears hard on Albions shore:                           
Fill'd with immortal demons of futurity:
In council gather the smitten Angels of Albion
The cloud bears hard upon the council house; down rushing
On the heads of Albions Angels.

One hour they lay buried beneath the ruins of that hall;
But as the stars rise from the salt lake they arise in pain,     
In troubled mists o'erclouded by the terrors of strugling times.

(Erdman 63)

---

About the Text

Eighteen hundred years, a female dream!: Blake sums up history of 'Christianity'.

Till Albions Angel: the 'till' brings us up to Blake's day.

Angels of Albion: multiple angels represent the government in the 'council house'

"One hour they lay" ???

About the Image

Works shows images with marked differences in the color ot the two portions.
A gigantic 'S' beginning at the upper left divides the Image into upper and lower portions.

The general shape of the image suggests that we have to do with a dream.

In the upper half are two figures; Erdman (Illuminated Blake p.167) calls them "fairies... 

He spoke of an 'S curve' of ripe grain". (How he gets ripe grain I don't know; explain it to us.)
Other images in Works show pronounced differences in the color of the two portions.

The lower half contains the Text, announced by a flower (Lilly?) at the middle right where the
big  'S' makes its turn down.

The first five lines are separated by strange figures from the rest of the text.

The Illustration description  of Works sees the C for the lower portion of the Image. In the bottom
if reveals grain stems that go beyond the C and through to the rest of the S.  The female has a horn; her male companion also blows a trumpet.

To Blake the trumpets represent the course of the last 18 centuries. The black spots of the grain seem to come from the trumpets.

Blake is telling us of the misery: war, famine, plague, etc that have characterized our world.

The Word within the Word

Northrup Frye was a famous literary critic and a great deal can be found about him on the
web. A Canadian,  Frye went to seminary and became a parish minister; then  he went to 

Oxford and got an M.A. in English Literature. He wrote his thesis on William Blake.

Many books came from his pen; the first one was Fearful Symmetry (1944). Frye opens the
door to a depth understanding of Blake's poetry (and pictures).  It took five readings of Fearful 

Symmetry (30 years ago) to begin to open my mind to William Blake.

In the eighties, near the end of his life, Frye published two monumental volumes of  "The Bible as
Literature";  they speak directly to the depth understanding of our poet.

Some of the statements in 'The Word with the Word' (chapter five of Fearful Symmetry) may sound
enigmatic;  just stay with them, and light will come.  This chapter is a lucid description of Frye's 

primary gift to literature, to meaning and religion.

All words are metaphors; the meanings they convey depend upon the author's mind - and frame 

of mind when he writes them; and upon the reader's (or hearer's) mind when he reads or hears 

them. (Most of the purposeless arguments over virtually anything stem from failure to understand 

this basic  fact.)

For Western culture the Bible is the Great Code of Art; it embodies the Universal Myth, basically
fourfold: Creation, The Fall, Redemption, Apocalypse. Blake believed that it was the guiding 
myth undergirding virtually all discourse.

(From Fearful Symmetry, p. 109):
"Blake's poetry is all related to a central myth... and the primary basis of this myth is the Bible.
...
The Bible is  the archetype of Western culture, and the Bible...provides the basis for most
of our major art."

The word of God was Jesus (cf John 1). Anything that you say or write may be the Word of  
God--  the Jesus in you (Paul).

In Plate 3 of Jerusalem (Erdman p. 145) we may read:
"I also hope the Reader will be with me, wholly One in Jesus our Lord, who is the God [of Fire] 
and Lord [of Love] to whom the Ancients look'd and saw his day afar off, with trembling & 
amazement. The Spirit of Jesus is continual forgiveness of sin".

This is the Word in Blake's consciousness.

From Jerusalem, (Erdman p. 180):
"Saying. Albion! Our wars are wars of life, & wounds of love,
With intellectual spears, & long winged arrows of thought:
Mutual in one anothers love and wrath all renewing
We live as One Man; for contracting our infinite senses
We behold multitude; or expanding: we behold as one,
As One Man all the Universal Family; and that One Man
We call Jesus the Christ: and he in us, and we in him,
Live in perfect harmony in Eden the land of life,
Giving, receiving, and forgiving each others trespasses.
He is the Good shepherd, he is the Lord and master:
He is the Shepherd of Albion, he is all in all,
In Eden: in the garden of God: and in heavenly Jerusalem."

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Europe 8

Wiki Commons
Plate 8

"Arise O Rintrah eldest born: second to none but Orc:
O lion Rintrah raise thy fury from thy forests black:
Bring Palamabron horned priest, skipping upon the mountains:
And silent Elynittria the silver bowed queen:
Rintrah where hast thou hid thy bride!
Weeps she in desart shades?
Alas my Rintrah! bring the lovely jealous Ocalythron.
Arise my son! bring all thy brethren O thou king of fire.
Prince of the sun I see thee with thy innumerable race:
Thick as the summer stars:
But each ramping his golden mane shakes,
And thine eyes rejoice because of strength O Rintrah furious king."
(Erdman 62)

About the Text

Rintrah, "the just wrath of the prophet",
appears first at the beginning of MHH:
 "Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep"?????"
"Rintrah is said to be the "eldest born" of Enitharmon.
Palamabron is Rintrah's brother; as Rintrah connotes wrath,
Palamabron connotes pity.
Several other of Blake's characters grace this text:
Ocalythron (see 'Milton,' extra page 8, line 19) is the portion
of God's jealousy that narrowed the sun into a globe, as
we usually see it, and hid the visionary sun — the sun of the mind.
Elynitria did the same to the moon, giving us the natural
sight and taking the imaginative sight away through that
jealousy which narrowed all creation, forbade the tree of life
in Eden, and always 'gains feminine applause.' — See the
verses to ' Nobodaddy.' Elynitria' s guard is Palamabron.
In the early part of 'Milton' much is to be read about
Palamabron, and a little in 'Jerusalem.'
But Rintrah is here called Prince of the Sun. This is
Urizen's title when in his right place. But 'feminine
delusion' has broken loose over the world. In the book of
' Urizen' we are told about the origin of the 'net of religion,'
which is the result of Urizen' s feminine mood, —
his pity — and in Night V. and following in ' Vala.' "
Prince of the sun: this phrase appears nowhere else in Blake's poetry.

About the Image

The old man is identified by various artists in various ways 
(Erdman's Alluminated Blake p. 166) 
as King Tiriel and as Albion's Guardian Angel in America a Prophecy. 
He's facing the West and seems to be warding off something 
He's facing the West and seems to be warding off something (fear,revolution, famine, plague?)
A gowned woman kneels and hugs the old man's legs; she seems 
to be begging for help.

Europe 7

Commons wikipedia
Europe plate 7

No Text

No text except the "Lord have mercy upon us.

About the Image

Europe 6

Wikipedia Commons
Europe Plate 6

A lurid scene at the bottom, of a child dead, presumably of starvation.  At the top a pot over a flaming fire-- to cook the child?

This is something of the consequence that Blake sees from Enitharmon's intention: WAR.

Two women under the furnace:
   The one on the left bent over with grief.
   The other one, sitting on a sort of throne with an infant, contemplating the pot.
Gruesome!

Blake was familiar with the story in Ist Kings 3 commonly called "splitting the baby"
"[16] Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him.
[17] And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house.
[18] And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house.
[19] And this woman's child died in the night; because she overlaid it.
[20] And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.
[21] And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear.
[22] And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king.
[23] Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.
[24] And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king.
[25] And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.

Europe A Prophecy iii A Preface

Here is an earlier post on 'Five Windows'.

Wikipedia Commons
Plate iii of
Europe a Prophecy

EUROPE a PROPHECY
So sang a Fairy mocking as he sat on a streak'd Tulip,

---

This Plate appears only in Copy K of Blake Archive.

Thro' one, himself pass out what time he please, but he will not;
For stolen joys are sweet, & bread eaten in secret pleasant.

LAMBETH Printed by Will: Blake 1794

PLATE iii

Five windows light the cavern'd Man; thro' one he breathes the air;

Thro' one, hears music of the spheres; thro' one, the eternal vine

Flourishes, that he may recieve the grapes; thro' one can look.

And see small portions of the eternal world that ever groweth;

Thinking none saw him: when he ceas'd I started from the trees!
And caught him in my hat as boys knock down a butterfly
How know you this said I small Sir? where did you learn this song
Seeing himself in my possession thus he answerd me:
My master, I am yours. command me, for I must obey.

Then tell me, what is the material world, and is it dead?
He laughing answer'd: I will write a book on leaves of flowers,
If you will feed me on love-thoughts, & give me now and then
A cup of sparkling poetic fancies; so when I am tipsie,
I'll sing to you to this soft lute; and shew you all alive
The world, where every particle of dust breathes forth its joy.

I took him home in my warm bosom: as we went along
Wild flowers I gatherd; & he shew'd me each eternal flower:
He laugh'd aloud to see them whimper because they were pluck'd.
They hover'd round me like a cloud of incense: when I came
Into my parlour and sat down, and took my pen to write:
My Fairy sat upon the table, and dictated EUROPE.
(Erdman 58-9)

---

So sang a Fairy mocking as he sat on a streak'd Tulip,
In a picturesque way Blake introduces these visions.
My Fairy sat upon the table, and dictated EUROPE.
Five windows light the cavern'd Man

Look at this from MHH plate 4:

Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is
a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets
of Soul in this age.

Look at this from the First Book of Urizen:

Urizen was Blake's creator. This is an account of his Creation.

8. In harrowing fear rolling round;                    
His nervous brain shot branches
Round the branches of his heart.
On high into two little orbs
And fixed in two little eaves
Hiding carefully from the wind,                         
His Eyes beheld the deep,
And a third Age passed over:
And a state of dismal woe.

9. The pangs of hope began,
In heavy pain striving, struggling.      
Two Ears in close volutions.
From beneath his orbs of vision
Shot spiring out and petrified
As they grew. And a fourth Age passed
And a state of dismal woe.          

10. In ghastly torment sick;
Hanging upon the wind;

PLATE 13
Two Nostrils bent down to the deep.
And a fifth Age passed over;
And a state of dismal woe.

11. In ghastly torment sick;
Within his ribs bloated round,         
A craving Hungry Cavern;
Thence arose his channeld Throat,
And like a red flame a Tongue
Of thirst & of hunger appeard.
And a sixth Age passed over:          
And a state of dismal woe.
 
12. Enraged & stifled with torment
He threw his right Arm to the north
His left Arm to the south
Shooting out in anguish deep,           
And his Feet stampd the nether Abyss
In trembling & howling & dismay.
And a seventh Age passed over:
And a state of dismal woe.
(Erdman 76)

Europe a Prophecy ii Title Page

Rosenwald LC
Title Page

Of these two images which do you find most clear?

Commons Wikipedia
Plate ii Title page

At the bottom of the picture Blake has put:
Lambeth
Printed by Will: Blake: 1794
There's no other text.

About the Image

The item of most interest of course is the snake

Erdman Illuminated p.157:

Note how the tail leaves the image and comes back below the signature.

Erdman refers us to his book, Blake Prophet Against Empire, Chapters 9 and 12.

The Blake Archive has 7 copies of this Plate:
Copy B in Glasgow University Library shows two mountains in the lower part of the Plate.
The higher one may be in the sun, the lower one in shade.
The serpent's tail comes back in below the inscription.

Copy D in the British Museum is much the same.

Notice the crest at the top of the serpent's head, the long, protruding tongue is forked.
The serpent is Orc  a positive figure, the embodiment of rebellion, and stands opposed to Urizen, the embodiment of tradition (from wikipedia).


Here are the known copies:
All Known Copies (from Blake Archive

• opy a (proofs), 1794
  British Museum, Dept. of Prints and Drawings
  London

• Copy B, 1794
  Glasgow University Library
  Glasgow, Scotland

• Copy C, 1794
  Houghton Library
  Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

• Copy D, 1794
  British Museum, Dept. of Prints and Drawings
  London

• Copy E, 1794
  Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress
  Washington D.C.

• Copy F, 1794
  Berg Collection, New York Public Library
  New York City

• Copy G, 1794
  Morgan Library and Museum
  New York City

• Copy A, 1795
  Yale Center for British Art
  Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

• Copy H, 1795
  Houghton Library
  Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

• Copy K, 1821
  Fitzwilliam Museum
  Cambridge, England

• Copy I, c. 1832
  Auckland Public Library
  Auckland, New Zealand

• Copy L, c. 1832
  Huntington Library and Art Gallery
  San Marino, California

• Copy M, c. 1832
  Fitzwilliam Museum
  Cambridge, England

Europe ii Title Page

Rosenwald LC
Title Page

Of these two images which do you find most clear?

Commons Wikipedia
Plate ii Title page

At the bottom of the picture Blake has put:
Lambeth
Printed by Will: Blake: 1794
There's no other text.

About the Image

The item of most interest of course is the snake

Erdman Illuminated p.157:

Note how the tail leaves the image and comes back below the signature.

Erdman refers us to his book, Blake Prophet Against Empire, Chapters 9 and 12.

The Blake Archive has 7 copies of this Plate:
Copy B in Glasgow University Library shows two mountains in the lower part of the Plate.
The higher one may be in the sun, the lower one in shade.
The serpent's tail comes back in below the inscription.

Copy D in the British Museum is much the same.

Notice the crest at the top of the serpent's head, the long, protruding tongue is forked.
The serpent is Orc  a positive figure, the embodiment of rebellion, and stands opposed to Urizen, the embodiment of tradition (from wikipedia).


Here are the known copies:
All Known Copies (from Blake Archive

• opy a (proofs), 1794
  British Museum, Dept. of Prints and Drawings
  London

• Copy B, 1794
  Glasgow University Library
  Glasgow, Scotland

• Copy C, 1794
  Houghton Library
  Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

• Copy D, 1794
  British Museum, Dept. of Prints and Drawings
  London

• Copy E, 1794
  Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress
  Washington D.C.

• Copy F, 1794
  Berg Collection, New York Public Library
  New York City

• Copy G, 1794
  Morgan Library and Museum
  New York City

• Copy A, 1795
  Yale Center for British Art
  Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

• Copy H, 1795
  Houghton Library
  Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

• Copy K, 1821
  Fitzwilliam Museum
  Cambridge, England

• Copy I, c. 1832
  Auckland Public Library
  Auckland, New Zealand

• Copy L, c. 1832
  Huntington Library and Art Gallery
  San Marino, California

• Copy M, c. 1832
  Fitzwilliam Museum
  Cambridge, England

Europe the Prophecy Frontspiece

Commons wikipedia.org
Ancient of Days

Blake found the Ancient of Days as a name for God. 

God was referred to as the Ancient of Days three times in the 9th Chapter of the  Book of Daniel. Here is one of them:

"[9] I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.
[10] A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.

But Blake wasn't the only artist who used the 9th Chapter of Daniel; John of Patmos, the writer of the Book of Revelation did also, sometimes almost verbatim.

From Wikipedia: 

"When Europe was printed, it was in the same format as Blake's America and sold for the same price. It was printed between 1794 and 1821 with only 9 copies of the work surviving.."

and seven in the Blake Archive.

It was said to be used as "a portrait of Urizen in his finest hour" (Erdman Illuminated p.155).

This reminds us that Blake thought of the Old Testmant (non-forgiving) God as noted for 'the

bump on the head'

Song of Los Frontspiece and Title

The Song of Los: Frontspiece
There is no text for this Plate (1A)

The knelling (prayerful?) figure, thought to be Urizen
bows before a cloudy Sun.

Blake Archive has copies A through E, each one said to be presenting the 'Sun' in a different way.

Go to Copy A from the British Museum.
Then Copy B. from the Library of Congress.
Then Copy C from the Morgan Library and Museum.
Then Copy D from the Britiish Museum. 
Then Copy E. from the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery.

The white haired figure may be thought of as Urizen or a priest who represents false religion.

Title Page

THE SONG of  LOS                                      


LAMBETH Printed by W Blake 1795

intro

Early in our study of Blake's blog I was studying Revelation.

Here's a portion of Chapter 1 of Revelation:
"[12] And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;
[13] And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
[14] His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
[15] And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
[16] And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
[17] And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:
[18] I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
[19] Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;
[20] The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.
Something clicked: what did Blake do with the golden bowl? In the beginning of Thel we read:

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?
Or wilt thou go ask the Mole:
Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
Or Love in a golden bowl?

In Thel we're introduced to the Lilly, in fact the Lilly of the Valley, a name for Christ; the Bible also uses the lamb for that purpose, in Rev 5 in fact. So Blake took the lamb and the golden bowl from Rev 5:

([8] And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.)

 and used it to set the stage for Thel, one of his earliest lessons for us from the Bible.

Move now down to Blake's first vision of light, and note the identity that God (Christ) gave to him:

Thou ram horn'd with gold. You might say we're still in Rev 5.

(For more on this go here.)