Allen Ginsberg on William Blake’s Vala or The Four Zoas continues from here.
AG (reading): “…The energy came out of his feet. The energy left his body and came out his feet, which is a weird idea that Blake has. There, it’s probably part of a big system..
Student: That’s where Milton comes into Blake.
AG: Yeah. Later on in Milton we’ll see the spirit of Milton coming into Blake in his heel – tarsus. What is a tarsus?
Student: The metatarsus – it’s through the arch.
AG: The arch.
Student: Yeah.
AG: Yeah. So through the arch of the foot, the fire of energy is leaving the body. It’s getting more and more complicated now. More and more strange.
Student: In other words, you still have… you have to deal with that energy, just as, you know….
AG: Yeah. So here’s what happens with the energy – “She counted. every vein & lacteal threading” among them. What is lacteal? That’s milky, isn’t it?
Student: (Lacteal vessels)
AG: I can’t hear you.
Student: Lacteal vessels
Student (2): They’re vessels in the lymph system.
AG: Ah.
Student (2): The lacteal vessels.
AG: The lacteal vessels in the lymph system.
Student: Don’t they have to do with (the immune system and the circulatory system) because…
AG: Yeah. “She counted. every vein & lacteal” … “& lacteal threading”.. among.. “& lacteal threading them among/Her woof of terror” or, “She counted every vein & lacteal… threading them among/Her woof of terror.” – How would you read that?
Student: (The) second.
AG: Second? – “She counted. every vein & lacteal”? I….
Student: Blake’s being ambiguous again.
AG: He’s ambiguous in his grammar, but when I read Blake and then begin to adapt Blake to my own modern tongue writing sometimes I’ll take a piece like that (and) make the “lacteal” part of the threading. “She counted every vein & lacteal” – and like, milkily threading them.
Student: (No.) Because after “threading them”, you lose the sense of the line.
AG: No, no, I wouldn’t pause after “threading”.
Student: Pause after “threading”?
AG: No, I wouldn’t pause after “threading” – “and lacteally threading them” – like milk/ through. Well, it’s maybe just sort of a specialized reading. It probably doesn’t make sense that way.
Student: She counted the nerves, she counted the veins, and she counted the lacteal..
threading them…
AG: Yeah “..threading them” – “threading them among/Her woof of terror” – What “woof of terror” have we got here? – The terror of cause and effect, probably.
Student: The terror of watching (what she’s creating)
AG: Well, what she’s creating is she’s creating some sort of material world of cause and effect within this. She’s creating a Circle of Destiny, which is here being called a “woof of terror.” So as we begin to check what Blake is saying out it gets deeper and deeper and deeper and more and more interestingly real.
to be continued