Allen Ginsberg on The Book of Los continues from here (Chapter IV)
The fourth day. Each chapter here now does, according to Damon – that was Chapter III, the third day of Genesis, the waters and land divided. The fourth day of Genesis, in the Bible, the sun, moon and stars are created, according to Damon, and here’s your fourth chapter: “The light first began.” In a way you could have Los here as the God of Genesis. Imagination experimenting around with the creation of itself. Or creation of life forms.
“The Light first began; from the fires/ Beams, conducted by fluid so pure/Flow’d around the Immense: Los beheld/Forthwith, writhing upon the dark void/ The Back bone of Urizen appear/Hurtling upon the wind/Like a serpent! like an iron chain/Whirling about in the Deep”.
That’s pretty horrific. – So Urizen‘s backbone comes up. And that’s again continuing with that creation in the womb thing that would be – I don’t know where the backbone first begins forming, but it is some kind of a reptillian backbone that forms very early in the womb.
However, finally, (Los) is glimpsing a form. Imagination is glimpsing or has gotten together the beginnings of a form for this Urizen creature, which is becoming more and more like a serpent. But at any rate, some definite form is appearing to the imagination – a backbone. Somewhat like an awful, what do you call them – a thing that pinched – Burroughs’s favorite little animal – the insect?
Student: Centipede.
AG: Well, centipede. The little creature that stings. Centipede, right. You get (them) in Texas.
Student: Scorpion.
AG: Scorpion! Scorpion. There’s a kind of Scorpionic (quality).
“Like a serpent! like an iron chain/Whirling about in the Deep”.
(2): “Upfolding his Fibres together/ To a Form of impregnable strength/Los astonish’d and terrified, built/Furnaces..”
Well, he didn’t like what he saw. He’s astonished and he’s terrified by this form, so he tries to redefine Urizen – the serpent spine Kundalini. He cannot behold him until he be revealed in his system. So, at this point he’s trying to give a form to Urizen, so he formed an anvil, built his furnaces, because he’s frightened of what he sees, or what Urizen might become. Or what he’s created, actually. So
“… he formed an Anvil/ A Hammer of adamant then began/The binding of Urizen day and night..”
So he’s trying to bind Urizen into a form so that at least he can deal with him, because if Urizen is shapeless you can’t grab him, can’t see his shape and you can’t know what to fit him into or how to relate to him.
(3): “Circling round the dark Demon, with howlings/ Dismay & sharp blightings; the Prophet/Of Eternity beat on his links”.
(4): “And first from those infinite fires/The light that flow’d down on the winds/He siez’d; beating incessant, condensing/The subtil particles in an Orb..”
So actually he’s creating the sun here.
(5): “Roaring indignant the bright sparks/ Endur’d the vast Hammer..”
The bright sparks are probably thoughts.
“… but unwearied/ Los beat on the Anvil; till glorious/And immense Orb of fire he fram’d/ The mortal sun itself.”
(6): “Oft he quench’d it beneath in the Deeps” – (Creating time. Day and night. So that time and space are created here) – “Oft he quench’d it beneath in the Deeps/ Then survey’d the all-bright mass. Again/ Siezing fires from the terrific Orbs/ He heated the round Globe, then beat/ While roaring his Furnaces endur’d/ The chaind Orb in their infinite wombs”
(7): “Nine ages” – (or nine months in the womb, perhaps?) – “Nine ages completed their circles. You get back to (The Book of) Urizen, Chapter 1, for that “nine ages”. See, this is Book of Urizen – the book of reason (or the birth of reason) – but rewritten from the point of view of poetic imagination as the author of it. In Chapter 1, second stanza, line 9 altogether on that page –
“Times on times he divided, & measur’d/Space by space in his ninefold darkness/Unseen, unknown!”
So he has that nine months in the womb there also. That was on page 69. “Space by space in his ninefold darkness.” And here, “Nine ages completed their circles.” So it may be, again, a recapitulation of the growth of the embryo in the womb.
“When Los heated the glowing mass, casting/It down into the Deeps: the Deeps fled/Away in redounding smoke; the Sun/ Stood self-balanc’d.”
That’s a little paraphrase of a line of Milton: The earth in Milton, I think, stood “self-balanced” during the creation. ( “And Earth self-balanced on her centre hung”)
“… and Los smild with joy./ He the vast Spine of Urizen siez’d/And bound down to the glowing illusion..”
Apparently it’s interpreted as he is binding Urizen’s spine to the sun, making Urizen mortal perhaps, or beginning to create a universe. Kind of a funny idea. A funny alchemy – taking the spine and the sun to create the universe, to create the entire phenomenal world.
Student: (The spine being connected to) the brain I suppose.
AG: Yeah, that would make sense.
Student: If the sun is (the source of energy)
AG: Well it’s all that energy, all that thought, that he’s beaten into one orb, yeah.
Student: Talking about the sun here I think (of the figure of Apollo)
AG: Right. Right, the Greek Apollo, who’s the sun god, also God of reason – Apollonian.
Student: I was just going to say that there’s a possible thing that if things get too out-of-hand he can withdraw, since he is the sun. And he’s bound to (energy)
AG: We’re almost to the end of this, in case you’re getting weary of the complications of it. Which are wearying and strange.
to be continued