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

america 0

Ruler and Oppressed
David Erdman, who wrote Prophet Against Empire. told us that 'Gwin, King of Norway', a poem  written several years before America a Prophecy was a very apt precursor to Blake's America a
Prophecy. Gwin might be considered a type, of which there are many antitypes in Blake's poetry.
The first antitype might be 'Europe a Prophecy, but there are many others.  Gwin might be  considered a pattern for the old story of this 'vale of tears'. The shrewd 'get ahead' and all too often at the expense of his less gifted brothers.  That's the story of  life beginning with Genesis and coming right down to the 21st century. 
The outcome is also everlasting:
The Grey Monk:
"The hand of Vengeance found the Bed
To which the Purple Tyrant fled
The iron hand crushd the Tyrants head
And became a Tyrant in his stead."
(Erdman 490)

---

GWIN, KING OF NORWAY
 Come, kings, and listen to my song,
When Gwin, the son of Nore,
Over the nations of the North His cruel sceptre bore:
 The Nobles of the land did feed Upon the hungry Poor;
They tear the poor man's lamb, and drive The needy from their door!
 The land is desolate; our wives And children cry for bread;
 Arise, and pull the tyrant down; Let Gwin be humbled.

Gordred the giant rous'd himself From sleeping in his cave;
Erdman (page 21) related Gordred to George Washington.)
He shook the hills, and in the clouds The troubl'd banners wave.
Beneath them roll'd, like tempests black, The num'rous sons of blood;
Like lions' whelps, roaring abroad, Seeking their nightly food.
 Down Bleron's hills they dreadful rush, Their cry ascends the clouds;
The trampling horse, and clanging arms Like rushing mighty floods!
 Their wives and children, weeping loud, Follow in wild array,
Howling like ghosts, furious as wolves In the bleak wintry day.

 "Pull down the tyrant to the dust, "Let Gwin be humbled," They cry;
"and let ten thousand lives Pay for the tyrant's head."
Ten thousand lives is modest when compared to what it cost to put
down, Hitler for example.
 From tow'r to tow'r the watchmen cry, "O Gwin, the son of Nore,
"Arouse thyself! the nations black, "Like clouds, come rolling o'er!"
 Gwin rear'd his shield, his palace shakes, His chiefs come rushing round;
... They stand around the King;
Then suddenly each seiz'd his spear, And clashing steel does ring,
 The husbandman does leave his plow, To wade thro' fields of gore;
The merchant binds his brows in steel, And leaves the trading shore:
 The shepherd leaves his mellow pipe, And sounds the trumpet shrill;
 The workman throws his hammer down To heave the bloody bill. 
...Gwin leads his host as black as night, When pestilence does fly.
 With horses and with chariots-- And all his spearmen bold,
March to the sound of mournful song, Like clouds around him roll'd.
 Gwin lifts his hand--the nations halt; "Prepare for war," he cries--
Gordred appears!--his frowning brow t Troubles our northern skies. 
The armies stand, like balances Held in th' Almighty's hand;--

 "Gwin, thou hast fill'd thy measure up, "Thou'rt swept from out the land."
 And now the raging armies rush'd, Like warring mighty seas;
 The Heav'ns are shook with roaring war, The dust ascends the skies!
 Earth smokes with blood, and groans, and shakes, To drink her childrens' gore,
A sea of blood; nor can the eye See to the trembling shore!
 And on the verge of this wild sea Famine and death doth cry;
The cries of women and of babes. Over the field doth fly.
 The King is seen raging afar; With all his men of might;
Like blazing comets, scattering death Thro' the red fev'rous night.
 Beneath his arm like sheep they die, And groan upon the plain;
The battle faints, and bloody men Fight upon hills of slain.
 Now death is sick, and riven men Labour and toil for life;
 Steed rolls on steed, and shield on shield, Sunk in this sea of strife!
 The god of war is drunk with blood, The earth doth faint and fail;
 The stench of blood makes sick the heav'ns; Ghosts glut the throat of hell!
 O what have Kings to answer for, Before that awful throne!
When thousand deaths for vengeance cry, And ghosts accusing groan!
 Like blazing comets in the sky, That shake the stars of light,
Which drop like fruit unto the earth, Thro' the fierce burning night;
 Like these did Gwin and Gordred meet, And the first blow decides;
Down from the brow unto the breast Gordred his head divides! Gwin fell;
the Sons of Norway fled, All that remain'd alive;
..Who mourn'd his sons, and overwhelm'd The pleasant south country.
(Erdman 417-20) .

america-1

AMERICA a PROPHECY LAMBETH Printed by William Blake in the year 1793PLATE 1

America plate i
Rosenwald LC

                                                            PRELUDIUM

The shadowy daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc.
When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode;
His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron;
Crown'd with a helmet & dark hair the nameless female stood;
A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,
When pestilence is shot from heaven; no other arms she need:
Invulnerable tho' naked, save where clouds roll round her loins,
Their awful folds in the dark air; silent she stood as night;
For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise;
But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay'd his fierce embrace.
Dark virgin; said the hairy youth, thy father stern abhorr'd;
Rivets my tenfold chains while still on high my spirit soars;
Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a lion,
Stalking upon the mountains, & sometimes a whale I lash
The raging fathomless abyss, anon a serpent folding
Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs,
On the Canadian wilds I fold, feeble my spirit folds.
For chaind beneath I rend these caverns; when thou bringest food
I howl my joy! and my red eyes seek to behold thy face
In vain! these clouds roll to & fro, & hide thee from my sight.

---

Notes (taken from saylor):
America, A Prophecy, was first engraved in 1793, in eighteen plates, and deals with Blake's interpretation of the American Revolution. 

Orc (partly from Latin orcus, hell) is the spirit of freedom inspiring the American revolt. He is associated with the classical Titans, with the Norse god Loki, also imprisoned in a "cavern" (line 18) under a mountain, and with Esau, the rightful heir of Isaac (cf. "hairy youth" in line 11 with Gen. 27: 11). 

The "Daughter of Urthona" is the land of America; a new civilization is taking possession of.it.

Urthona: the creative power of the imagination, later identified with Los, the hero of most of Blake's prophecies.] 

fourteen: the age of puberty. 

Iron: Urthona or Los in Blake is a blacksmith: (cf. Isa. 54.16.12] tenfold: 
an allusion to the ten commandments of the moral law, used to restrain the impetus toward freedom.13] 

Eagle: The four animals mentioned here and below represent both the four elements and the four quarters of America.

The two characters here are 'Red Orc' and Enitharmon?  The story of the birth of Orc is elaborated in the Book of Urizen.: 

Chapter VII.  In this plate Orc takes the form of an eagle, a lion, a whale, a serpent. All these figures are elaborated in various places of Blake's poetry.



CHAPTER VII

Book of Urizen  (from The works of William Blake)

1. They namèd the child Orc; he grew,
Fed with milk of Enitharmon.

2. Los awoke her. O sorrow and pain!
A tight'ning girdle grew
Around his bosom. In sobbings
He burst the girdle in twain;
But still another girdle
Oppress'd his bosom. In sobbings

Again he burst it. Again
Another girdle succeeds.
The girdle was form'd by day;
By night was burst in twain.

3. These falling down on the Rock
Into an iron Chain,
In each other link by link lock'd.

4. They took Orc to the top of a mountain.
O how Enitharmon wept!
They chain'd his young limbs to the Rock
With the Chain of Jealousy,
Beneath Urizen's deathful Shadow.

5. The Dead heard the voice of the Child,
And began to awake from sleep;
All things heard the voice of the Child,
And began to awake to life.

6. And Urizen, craving with hunger,
Stung with the odours of Nature,
Explor'd his dens around.

7. He form'd a line and a plummet
To divide the Abyss beneath;
He form'd a dividing rule;

8. He formèd scales to weigh,
He formèd massy weights;
He formèd a brazen quadrant;
He formèd golden compasses,
And began to explore the Abyss;
And he planted a garden of fruits.

9. But Los encircled Enitharmon
With fires of Prophecy
From the sight of Urizen and Orc.

10. And she bore an enormous race.