Allen Ginsberg’s 1979 Naropa lectures on William Blake’s The Four Zoas continues from here
Student: (“Upon the Limit of Translucence then he builded Luban“) It’s interesting to hear also “the Limit of Translucence.”
AG: Yeah.
Student: Before he called (it) “the Limit of Opacity.”
AG: Yeah.
Student: It’s sort of like …
AG: Same thing.
Student: … a prefiguration that he’s going to get on the other side.
AG: Yeah.
Student: See what I mean?
AG: It’s a turning point.
Student: You can see it. From this side it looks like the Limit of Opacity …
AG: Yeah.
Student: … from here it looks like the Limit of Translucency.
AG: So we’ve come through the vortex, actually.
Student: Yeah. Right.
AG: In a way. So one page before it’s the Limit of Opacity, here it’s the Limit of Translucence – which is Satan, again – ignorance, let us.
“… he builded Luban” – (In the north. That has to do with Urthona – the vagina, according to (S) Foster Damon – the gate of this world, and by some immense feat of scholarly imagination Bloom says it is also Noah’s Mount Ararat, where the Ark landed after the Flood, (which would fit in, because we’ve had a flood here and we’ve had the beginning of a new world proposed). So that’s what Bloom says. I don’t know how he got to Mount Ararat. Luban. I think maybe that Blake refers….)
Student (2): Mount Ararat sometimes is sometimes called Luban.
AG: In the Bible or Blake? In Blake or the Bible?
Student (2): I don’t think either one …
AG: Luban.
Student (2): … but I think it’s historical.
AG: Ah-ha.
Student (2): The name for the mountain.
AG: Ah. Perfect, okay. That would fit in very nicely then. And that would make Blake a real genius, to correlate the psychological transformation with the historical transformation from Flood in the landing.
Student: He was really interested in Noah.
AG: Yeah.
Student: He saw Noah as a giant figure..because he was the last perceived the hope – that image of the rainbow, which was like the Limit of Translucence, in a way… Between God and man. He saw him as a figure representing the artist – Noah and his three sons …
AG: Yeah.
Student: … are basically … are the gates … members of the Ark so the gateway back into eternity … … that we all have in other work of his. So it isn’t really so weird that he might be thinking of Noah.
AG: Well, if it’s Golgonooza, the gateways (or the..), Golgonooza would be every(where) in our bodies. Like (he) “namd it Satan/ in Albion’s bosom for in every human bosom these limits stand”
Damon has a nice phrase here about Udan Adan, the watery illusion place, place of the unborn, building Luban or Labia, “giving Spectres human lineaments”, you see, because everybody’s a Spectre at this point, so now they’re going to give all these Spectres some human form or human lineament.
Student (2): (T.S.) Eliot mentions Golgotha as the axis (point within) Christian mysticism.
AG: Whom? Eliot?.
Student (2): Yeah. And explains that….
AG: Sure. Well, I mean where….
Student (2): Christ’s blood fell Adam was beneath the mound …
AG: Um-hmm.
Student (2): … and the blood from Christ falls, redeeming Adam’s sin.
AG: Um-hmm.
Student (2): So that would be like some sense of the vortex you’re talking about – like an opacity.
AG: Yeah, and it’s basically the same ultimate projection that Blake has. Luvah in his robes of blood becoming Christ and willing to die in order to renew Albion‘s life.
So, here we have “Giving Spectres human lineaments”, and also “to give form to all uncreated things”, is the function of Luban. How did it happen? – “Tharmas laid the Foundations..”- (The body – meat – laid the Foundations & Imagination) – ” & Los finishd it in howling woe”
Student (3): Where are we, Allen?
AG: Giving body … Pardon me?
Student (3): Where are we?
AG: The body line of page three-three-three. Three hundred thirty three. “Tharmas..” – (the body) – “laid the Foundations” – ( for this Luban gate and city of Golgonooza) – “& Los finishd it in howling woe.”
to be continued
Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately fifty-four-and-three-quarter minutes in and concluding at approximately fifty-eight-and-three-quarter minutes in