Allen Ginsberg on William Blake’s Europe – A Prophecy continues from here
“O Theotormon robb’d of joy, I see they salt tears flow/Down the steps of my crystal house.”
Now two more characters will be introduced that will be coming on later in The Four Zoas – Sotha & Thiralatha (also known as Diralada later on)
“… secret dwellers of dreamful caves..- (“Dreamful caves” (are) the skull dreaming of love, actually) -“Arise and please the horrent fiend with your melodious songs” – (Orc is the horrent fiend here, remember? He’s been called “horrent” before. Here the male, according to Damon, is beginning to recover his precedence. How? Sotha is war and Thiralatha is erotic dream. So war and erotic dream, secret dwellers of the dreamy skull, arise and please the revolution with your melodious songs.
“Still all your thunders golden hoofd, & bind your horses black/Orc! smile upon your children!/ Smile son of my afflictions./ Arise O Orc and give our mountains joy of thy red light.”
Well, she still thinks that Orc isn’t going to wake up and do anything really serious. She still thinks Orc is a little baby. It’s like a very fond, dreamy mother doesn’t realize that her child has already grown pubic hair and is ready to go out into the world and fuck the world, really. So that’s why she’s asking these daydreams of desire and war to play pretty songs for her baby.
And I think there was a picture of her at some point or other uplifting a curtain. (It’s) illustration number four of “Europe” (on) page one sixty two (of The Illuminated Blake) Yeah. This repeats her earlier prayer for him to arise, that little prick phallic Orc lying there straight out like a little prick, with a flaming head, ready to come. A very sexy Orc, I would say. And there is Enitharmon lifting up the veil over his beauteous body, sleeping with his hard-on lying at his belly, ready to go, but not quite awake yet.
So this is a repeat of an earlier prayer.
“Arise O Orc from thy deep den,/First born of Enitharmon rise!/ And we will crown the head with garlands of the ruddy vine..” – (So, she’s calling on Orc to rise) – “She ceas’d..” –
Now, according to Alicia Ostriker and others,
“All were forth at sport beneath the solemn moon/ Waking the stars of Urizen with their immortal songs,
“Waking the stars of Urizen.” Waking up Urizen‘s thought forms. Singing to Urizen’s thought forms. Actually, in her dream and in her sleep, nonetheless nature, she, Enitharmon, had given birth to all these creatures, a series of contrarities, conflicts, theses and antitheses and syntheses. And awakened from, or released from, Enitharmon’s power, life itself on earth, (or) nature is actually awakened. (Enitharmon is) at sport beneath the solemn moon, waking up Urizen’s children, so to speak, or, let us say, beginning wrath, pity, songs of war, erotic dreams, Antamon, semen, masculine spirit, whom she had been calling up like a fond mother, not realizing what she’d been wakening. They’ve all risen now and..
“That nature felt thro’ all her pores the enormous revelry,/Till morning ope’d the eastern gate/ Then every one..” – (See, you realize that Enitharmon was calling for the sports of night, when it was actually morning. So..”… morning ope’d the eastern gate/ Then every one fled to his station” – & Enitharmon wept” – (She (didn’t) know what was going on here. Her little creatures actually have a life of their own).
And “… terrible Orc, when he beheld the morning in the east,/Shot from the heights of Enitharmon;/And in the vineyards of red France appear’d the light of his fury./ The sun glow’d fiery red!/The furious terrors flew around!/ On golden chariots raging, with red wheels dropping with blood;/ The Lions lash their wrathful tails!/The Tigers couch upon the prey & suck the ruddy tide” – (of blood) – “And Enitharmon groans & cries in anguish and dismay.”
Then (Los) – (Spiritual revolution) – “…arose his head he reard in snaky thunders clad.” – (So Los, the father of Orc, the spiritual revolution, spiritual imagination (and) poetic imagination, finally is risen. Los, who hasn’t been active all this time)
“And with a cry that shook all nature to the utmost pole,/Call’d all his sons to the strife of blood” – (So war and revolution.. Blake is here actually calling for war, revolution, (and) total change of history. Like, a total apocalyptic change of history.
So, now Los has got to sing a song. And Los’s song will analyze all previous history, and make prophecy for the present.
“Africa” next (from Song of Los (1795)), which I want to get through rapidly, actually, because it’s pretty clear.
If you’ll turn to page one-hundred-and-seventy-four-one hundred-and-seventy-five of
(The Illuminated Blake) and page sixty-five of the Erdman (edition of The Complete Prose and Poetry of William Blake)..
to be continued
Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately thirty-nine-and-a-half minutes in and concluding at approximately forty-six-and-a-quarter minutes in