Plate 50

Plate 50

Therefore remove from Albion these terrible Surfaces
And let wild seas & rocks close up Jerusalem away from
PLATE 50
The Atlantic Mountains where Giants dwelt in Intellect;
Now given to stony Druids, and Allegoric Generation
To the Twelve Gods of Asia, the Spectres of those who Sleep:
Sway'd by a Providence oppos'd to the Divine Lord Jesus:
A murderous Providence! A Creation that groans, living on Death.
Where Fish & Bird & Beast & Man & Tree & Metal & Stone
Live by Devouring, going into Eternal Death continually:
Albion is now possess'd by the War of Blood! the Sacrifice
Of envy Albion is become, and his Emanation cast out:
Come Lord Jesus, Lamb of God descend! for if; O Lord!
If thou hadst been here, our brother Albion had not died.
Arise sisters! Go ye & meet the Lord, while I remain--
Behold the foggy mornings of the Dead on Albions cliffs!
Ye know that if the Emanation remains in them:
She will become an Eternal Death, an Avenger of Sin
A Self-righteousness: the proud Virgin-Harlot! Mother of War!
And we also & all Beulah, consume beneath Albions curse.
So Erin spoke to the Daughters of Beulah. Shuddering
With their wings they sat in the Furnace, in a night
Of stars, for all the Sons of Albion appeard distant stars,
Ascending and descending into Albions sea of death.
And Erins lovely Bow enclos'd the Wheels of Albions Sons.

Expanding on wing, the Daughters of Beulah replied in sweet
response

Come O thou Lamb of God and take away the remembrance of Sin
To Sin & to hide the Sin in sweet deceit. is lovely!!
To Sin in the open face of day is cruel & pitiless! But
To record the Sin for a reproach: to let the Sun go down
In a remembrance of the Sin: is a Woe & a Horror!
A brooder of an Evil Day, and a Sun rising in blood
Come then O Lamb of God and take away the remembrance of Sin
End of Chap. 2
(Erdman 199-200)

Notes:

"The Atlantic Mountains where Giants dwelt in Intellect;"
Blake referred here to the time of yore before the cataclysmic Flood.

Jerusalem was closed up from it by "the Spectres of those who Sleep:"

"A murderous Providence! A Creation that groans, living on Death."
All this is a cogent description of the Fall (Creation came after the Fall). 

"Albion is now possess'd by the War of Blood! the Sacrifice
Of envy Albion is become, and his Emanation cast out:"

"Come Lord Jesus, Lamb of God descend! for if; O Lord!
If thou hadst been here, our brother Albion had not died.
Arise sisters! Go ye & meet the Lord,"

This sentence is completely biblical. It refers of course to
the story of Lazarus and his sisters (Mary and Martha)
(Luke 10:38-42), a prelude to the first 'resurrection'

This paragraph is ascribed to Erin, speaking to the Daughters of Beulah.

"Erin, the ancient name of Ireland, is the western most of the British Isles."
Damon

 They respond: "take away the remembrance of Sin" stated twice.

"to let the Sun go down
In a remembrance of the Sin: is a Woe & a Horror!"
That homely adage is seen in the lower right of the picture as a small arc
sinking into a black sea (Erdman p.329.
Like most of Blake's pictures, this one shows many things to many people.
Erdman saw two crowned heads, but Morton Paley showed a third one with a crown.
One obvious interpretation might be three zoas, the middle one Urizen,
the other two pensive with their head on their hand.
Above I see a veiled Vala. I'm completely unable to give any reasoned
interpretation of it, although Plate 51 is said to be related.

Plate 48

Therefore I write Albions last words. Hope is banish'd from me.

PLATE 48
These were his last words, and the merciful Saviour in his arms
Reciev'd him, in the arms of tender mercy and repos'd
The pale limbs of his Eternal Individuality
Upon the Rock of Ages. Then, surrounded with a Cloud:
In silence the Divine Lord builded with immortal labour,         
Of gold & jewels a sublime Ornament, a Couch of repose,
With Sixteen pillars: canopied with emblems & written verse.
Spiritual Verse, order'd & measur'd, from whence, time shall
     reveal.
The Five books of the Decologue, the books of Joshua & Judges,
Samuel, a double book & Kings, a double book, the Psalms &
     Prophets 
The Four-fold Gospel, and the Revelations everlasting
Eternity groan'd. & was troubled, at the image of Eternal Death!

Beneath the bottoms of the Graves, which is Earths central joint,
There is a place where Contrarieties are equally true:
(To protect from the Giant blows in the sports of intellect,     
Thunder in the midst of kindness, & love that kills its beloved:
Because Death is for a period, and they renew tenfold.)
From this sweet Place Maternal Love awoke Jerusalem

With pangs she forsook Beulah's pleasant lovely shadowy Universe
Where no dispute can come; created for those who Sleep.          

Weeping was in all Beulah, and all the Daughters of Beulah
Wept for their Sister the Daughter of Albion, Jerusalem:
When out of Beulah the Emanation of the Sleeper descended
With solemn mourning out of Beulahs moony shades and hills:
Within the Human Heart, whose Gates closed with solemn sound.   

And this the manner of the terrible Separation
The Emanations of the grievously afflicted Friends of Albion
Concenter in one Female form an Aged pensive Woman.
Astonish'd! lovely! embracing the sublime shade: the Daughters 
     of Beulah
Beheld her with wonder! With awful hands she took                
A Moment of Time, drawing it out with many tears & afflictions
And many sorrows: oblique across the Atlantic Vale
Which is the Vale of Rephaim dreadful from East to West,
Where the Human Harvest waves abundant in the beams of Eden
Into a Rainbow of jewels and gold, a mild Reflection from        
Albions dread Tomb. Eight thousand and five hundred years
In its extension. Every two hundred years has a door to Eden
She also took an Atom of Space, with dire pain opening it a
     Center
Into Beulah: trembling the Daughters of Beulah dried
Her tears. she ardent embrac'd her sorrows. occupied in labours  
Of sublime mercy in Rephaims Vale. Perusing Albions Tomb
She sat: she walk'd among the ornaments solemn mourning.
The Daughters attended her shudderings, wiping the death sweat
Los also saw her in his seventh Furnace, he also terrified
Saw the finger of God go forth upon his seventh Furnace:         
Away from the Starry Wheels to prepare Jerusalem a place.
When with a dreadful groan the Emanation mild of Albion.
Burst from his bosom in the Tomb like a pale snowy cloud,
Female and lovely, struggling to put off the Human form
Writhing in pain. The Daughters of Beulah in kind arms reciev'd  
Jerusalem: weeping over her among the Spaces of Erin,
In the Ends of Beulah, where the Dead wail night & day.

And thus Erin spoke to the Daughters of Beulah, in soft tears

Albion the Vortex of the Dead! Albion the Generous!
Albion the mildest son of Heaven! The Place of Holy Sacrifice! 
Where Friends Die for each other: will become the Place,
Of Murder, & Unforgiving, Never-awaking Sacrifice of Enemies
The Children must be sacrific'd! (a horror never known
Till now in Beulah.) unless a Refuge can be found
To hide them from the wrath of Albions Law that freezes sore     
Upon his Sons & Daughters, self-exiled from his bosom

Draw ye Jerusalem away from Albions Mountains
To give a Place for Redemption, let Sihon and Og
Remove Eastward to Bashan and Gilead, and leave

PLATE 49
The secret coverts of Albion & the hidden places of America

(Erdman 196-7) 

*************************************************************
 Notes:

Plate 48 starts with 'the merciful Saviour in his arms
Reciev'd him [Albion] and set him on the Rock of Ages coming from Isaiah 26:3, 
'everlasting Rock.'

     Rock is very persuasive in the Bible and in Blake:
When the Children in the wilderness from Egypt moaned because of lack of water, 

Moses angrily struck a rock, from which came 'everlasting water'  God penalized 
him for that lapse by prohibiting from from entering the Promised Land.

This is an example of the ambiguous way Blake (an the Bible as well) dealt with 
the events of the O.T.

The Divine Lord is working (timelessly) before Abraham or Moses: "Before Abraham 
was I am" was spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of John. (Many Bible students 
believe that Jesus was reported to have said he existed before Abraham; however 
a better idea (IMO) was that 'I am' was used elsewhere as a name for God. 
the books of the Bible: "from whence, time shall reveal. The Five books of the 
Decologue", etc. This is a step down from Heaven to earth (from the Eternal to 
the temporal).

Like so many of these posts Blake gives an alternation: heaven, fall to earth 
("I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven") (Luke 10:18; memorialized by 
Milton in Paradise Lost.)

"Eternity groan'd....at the image of Eternal Death!" we understand 'Eternal 
Death' to mean being born (from Heaven to 'this vale of tears'.

"a place where Contrarieties are equally true:" which is to say 'Beulah', the 
first in man's descent from Heaven.

   And on and on and on he goes.

38

PLATE 38 [43]
They saw their Wheels rising up poisonous against Albion
Urizen, cold & scientific: Luvah, pitying & weeping
Tharmas, indolent & sullen: Urthona, doubting & despairing
Victims to one another & dreadfully plotting against each other
To prevent Albion walking about in the Four Complexions.

They saw America clos'd out by the Oaks of the western shore;
And Tharmas dash'd on the Rocks of the Altars of Victims in
Mexico.
If we are wrathful Albion will destroy Jerusalem with rooty
Groves
If we are merciful, ourselves must suffer destruction on his
Oaks!
Why should we enter into our Spectres, to behold our own
corruptions
O God of Albion descend! deliver Jerusalem from the Oaken Groves!

Then Los grew furious raging: Why stand we here trembling around
Calling on God for help; and not ourselves in whom God dwells
Stretching a hand to save the falling Man: are we not Four
Beholding Albion upon the Precipice ready to fall into
Non-Entity:
Seeing these Heavens & Hells conglobing in the Void. Heavens over
Hells
Brooding in holy hypocritic lust, drinking the cries of pain

From howling victims of Law: building Heavens Twenty-seven-fold.
Swelld & bloated General Forms, repugnant to the Divine-
Humanity, who is the Only General and Universal Form
To which all Lineaments tend & seek with love & sympathy
All broad & general principles belong to benevolence
Who protects minute particulars, every one in their own identity.
But here the affectionate touch of the tongue is closd in by
deadly teeth
And the soft smile of friendship & the open dawn of benevolence
Become a net & a trap, & every energy renderd cruel,
Till the existence of friendship & benevolence is denied:
The wine of the Spirit & the vineyards of the Holy-One.
Here: turn into poisonous stupor & deadly intoxication:
That they may be condemnd by Law & the Lamb of God be slain!
And the two Sources of Life in Eternity[,] Hunting and War,
Are become the Sources of dark & bitter Death & of corroding
Hell:
The open heart is shut up in integuments of frozen silence
That the spear that lights it forth may shatter the ribs & bosom
A pretence of Art, to destroy Art: a pretence of Liberty
To destroy Liberty. a pretence of Religion to destroy Religion
Oshea and Caleb fight: they contend in the valleys of Peor
In the terrible Family Contentions of those who love each other:
The Armies of Balaam weep---no women come to the field
Dead corses lay before them, & not as in Wars of old.
For the Soldier who fights for Truth, calls his enemy his
brother:
They fight & contend for life, & not for eternal death!
But here the Soldier strikes, & a dead corse falls at his feet
Nor Daughter nor Sister nor Mother come forth to embosom the
Slain!
But Death! Eternal Death! remains in the Valleys of Peor.
The English are scatterd over the face of the Nations: are these
Jerusalems children? Hark! hear the Giants of Albion cry at night
We smell the blood of the English! we delight in their blood on
our Altars!
The living & the dead shall be ground in our rumbling Mills
For bread of the Sons of Albion: of the Giants Hand & Scofield
Scofeld & Kox are let loose upon my Saxons! they accumulate
A World in which Man is by his Nature the Enemy of Man,
In pride of Selfhood unwieldy stretching out into Non Entity
Generalizing Art & Science till Art & Science is lost.
Bristol & Bath, listen to my words, & ye Seventeen: give ear!
It is easy to acknowledge a man to be great & good while we
Derogate from him in the trifles & small articles of that
goodness:
Those alone are his friends, who admire his minutest powers[.]
Instead of Albions lovely mountains & the curtains of Jerusalem
I see a Cave, a Rock, a Tree deadly and poisonous, unimaginative:
Instead of the Mutual Forgivenesses, the Minute Particulars, I
see
Pits of bitumen ever burning: artificial Riches of the Canaanite

Like Lakes of liquid lead: instead of heavenly Chapels, built
By our dear Lord: I see Worlds crusted with snows & ice;
I see a Wicker Idol woven round Jerusalems children. I see
The Canaanite, the Amalekite, the Moabite, the Egyptian:
By Demonstrations the cruel Sons of Quality & Negation.
Driven on the Void in incoherent despair into Non Entity
I see America closd apart, & Jerusalem driven in terror
Away from Albions mountains, far away from Londons spires!
I will not endure this thing! I alone withstand to death,
This outrage! Ah me! how sick & pale you all stand round me!
Ah me! pitiable ones! do you also go to deaths vale?
All you my Friends & Brothers! all you my beloved Companions!
Have you also caught the infection of Sin & stern Repentance?
I see Disease arise upon you! yet speak to me and give
Me some comfort: why do you all stand silent? I alone
Remain in permanent strength. Or is all this goodness & pity,

only
That you may take the greater vengeance in your Sepulcher.

So Los spoke. Pale they stood around the House of Death:

In the midst of temptations & despair: among the rooted Oaks:
Among reared Rocks of Albions Sons, at length they rose
(Erdman 133-38)

PLATE 39 [44]
With one accord in love sublime,

Notes:

In 82 lines of turgid, opaque prose Blake here expressed his feelings.  I can at best point out a few lines that ring a chord of recognition:

In line 1 'they' appear to be the four zoas, and they witness the devastation of the Fall.

In line 12 Los breaks into words:
"Then Los grew furious raging: Why stand we here trembling around
Calling on God for help; and not ourselves in whom God dwells
Stretching a hand to save the falling Man: are we not Four"; Los of course is the most creative of the 'Four'; he's in favor of doing something.   In a detailed description of various forms of fallenness among which Blake appropriated a passage from Milton 34:2-3:
"And the two Sources of Life in Eternity[,] Hunting and War,
Are become the Sources of dark & bitter Death & of corroding Hell"

A few Lines (42) on Blake picked up the theme of War (of two kinds): "For the Soldier who fights for Truth, calls his enemy his
brother:
They fight & contend for life, & not for eternal death!
But here the Soldier strikes, & a dead corse falls at his feet"

Line 48: "We smell the blood of the English": shades of the nursery rhyme: 'fee. foh, fih, fum', said the giant in the beanstalk.

And so it goes; read in detail there are many references, many allusions, etc. from throughout Blake's works that would undoubtedly lend meaning of this Plate.
In line 80 "So Los spoke....."
One interesting thing about this plate is the dichotomy between extreme pessimism and and echo of the great poets alternation of moods
Pictorially the plate has little to offer except the uqiquitous kneeling figure, seen also in Plates 5 and 34. (this from Erdman's Illuminated Blake, p. 317).

Plate 35-2

 
 
 


this Gate cannot be found

PLATE 35 [39]
By Satans Watch-fiends tho' they search numbering every grain
Of sand on Earth every night, they never find this Gate.
It is the Gate of Los. Withoutside is the Mill, intricate,
dreadful
And fill'd with cruel tortures; but no mortal man can find 
the Mill
Of Satan, in his mortal pilgrimage of seventy years

For Human beauty knows it not: nor can Mercy find it! But
In the Fourth region of Humanity, Urthona namd, Mortality begins 
to roll the billows of Eternal Death
Before the Gate of Los. Urthona here is named Los.
And here begins the System of Moral Virtue, named Rahab.
Albion fled thro' the Gate of Los, and he stood in the Gate.
Los was the friend of Albion who most lov'd him. In
Cambridgeshire
His eternal station, he is the twenty-eighth, & is four-fold.
Seeing Albion had turn'd his back against the Divine Vision,
Los said to Albion, Whither fleest thou? Albion reply'd.

I die! I go to Eternal Death! the shades of death
Hover within me & beneath, and spreading themselves outside
Like rocky clouds, build me a gloomy monument of woe:
Will none accompany me in my death? or be a Ransom for me
In that dark Valley? I have girded round my cloke, and on my feet

Bound these black shoes of death & on my hands, death's iron
gloves:
God hath forsaken me, & my friends are become a burden
A weariness to me, & the human footstep is a terror to me.

Los answerd, troubled: and his soul was rent in twain:
Must the Wise die for an Atonement? does Mercy endure Atonement?
No! It is Moral Severity, & destroys Mercy in its Victim.
So speaking, not yet infected with the Error & Illusion,
 
Notes:

In the second paragraph we see Urthona namd, Mortality begins to roll the billows
of Eternal Death Before the Gate of Los. Urthona here is named Los: so who is
Urthona? It's typical of Blake to use one word with several (or many!) meanings.
In this case Urthona is Los (fallen); his name is (also) Mortality; he goes
on to explicate: 'the system of Moral Virtues, named Rahab.'
This is another of the many explanations of the meaning of Fallenness in Blake's myth
then we have an amplified description of Los.



The dialogue between Albion and Los could be considered a meditation on the meaning of
the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross, with sentiments that many of us share.

35a

 
 
 


this Gate cannot be found

PLATE 35 [39]
By Satans Watch-fiends tho' they search numbering every grain
Of sand on Earth every night, they never find this Gate.
It is the Gate of Los. Withoutside is the Mill, intricate,
dreadful
And fill'd with cruel tortures; but no mortal man can find 
the Mill
Of Satan, in his mortal pilgrimage of seventy years

For Human beauty knows it not: nor can Mercy find it! But
In the Fourth region of Humanity, Urthona namd, Mortality begins 
to roll the billows of Eternal Death
Before the Gate of Los. Urthona here is named Los.
And here begins the System of Moral Virtue, named Rahab.
Albion fled thro' the Gate of Los, and he stood in the Gate.
Los was the friend of Albion who most lov'd him. In
Cambridgeshire
His eternal station, he is the twenty-eighth, & is four-fold.
Seeing Albion had turn'd his back against the Divine Vision,
Los said to Albion, Whither fleest thou? Albion reply'd.

I die! I go to Eternal Death! the shades of death
Hover within me & beneath, and spreading themselves outside
Like rocky clouds, build me a gloomy monument of woe:
Will none accompany me in my death? or be a Ransom for me
In that dark Valley? I have girded round my cloke, and on my feet

Bound these black shoes of death & on my hands, death's iron
gloves:
God hath forsaken me, & my friends are become a burden
A weariness to me, & the human footstep is a terror to me.

Los answerd, troubled: and his soul was rent in twain:
Must the Wise die for an Atonement? does Mercy endure Atonement?
No! It is Moral Severity, & destroys Mercy in its Victim.
So speaking, not yet infected with the Error & Illusion,
 
Notes:

In the second paragraph we see Urthona namd, Mortality begins to roll the billows
of Eternal Death Before the Gate of Los. Urthona here is named Los: so who is
Urtho, It's typical of Blake to use one word with several (or many!) meanings.
Blake. In this case Urthona is Los (fallen); his name is (also) Mortality; he goes
on to explicate: 'the system of Moral Virtues, named Rahab.'
This is another of the many explanations of the meaning of Fallenness in Blake's myth
then we have an amplified description of Los.



The dialogue between Albion and Los could be considered a meditation on the meaning of
the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross, with sentiments that many of us share.

Plate 32

PLATE 46 [32]

Leaning against the pillars, & his discase rose from his skirts
Upon the Precipice he stood! ready to fall into Non-Entity.

Los was all astonishment & terror: he trembled sitting on the
Stone

Vala and Jerusalem

Of London: but the interiors of Albions fibres & nerves were
hidden
From Los; astonishd be beheld only the petrified surfaces:
And saw his Furnaces in ruins, for Los is the Demon of the
Furnaces;
He saw also the Four Points of Albion reversd inwards
He siezd his Hammer & Tongs, his iron Poker & his Bellows,
Upon the valleys of Middlesex, Shouting loud for aid Divine.

In stern defiance came from Albions bosom Hand, Hyle, Koban,
Gwantok, Peachy, Brertun, Slaid, Huttn, Skofeld, Kock, Kotope

- 195 -Bowen: Albions Sons: they bore him a golden couch into the porch
And on the Couch reposd his limbs, trembling from the bloody
field.
Rearing their Druid Patriarchal rocky Temples around his limbs.
(All things begin & end, in Albions Ancient Druid Rocky Shore.)

*******************************************************************
This text obviously bears little acquaintance with the text. It seems best to discuss the picture, which is one of the most obvious contraries between Vala and Jerusalem. The veiled figure on the left if obviously Vala and the naked figure in the center Jerusalem. (Veils and nakedness have often been explained to differentiate between the garment of worldlings and the nakedness in Eternity, which is to say that Vala represents the world and materiality while Jerusalem (the bride of Christ) represents the nakedness with this we all expect to arrive at the Heavenly Gate.

Note that the church at the lower left is St. Paul, the citadel of Anglicanism, a flawed institution, especially in Blake's time, while the one on the right is Westminster Abbey, which goes back way before the Reformation. Once again, a marker between materiality and eternity.

Vala is dark- like Ulro, while Jerusalem is radiant.

The three younger figures clutched around Jerusalem might be called her daughters.

26 Canterbury Pilgrims

(This from wikisource)
Here are the pilgrims and their stories:

• The Knight's Tale
• The Miller's Prologue and Tale
• The Reeve's Prologue and Tale
• The Cook's Prologue and Tale
• The Man of Law's Prologue and Tale
• The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale
• The Friar's Prologue and Tale
• The Summoner's Prologue and Tale
• The Clerk's Prologue and Tale
• The Merchant's Prologue and Tale
• The Squire's Prologue and Tale
• The Franklin's Prologue and Tale
• The Physician's Tale
• The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale
• The Shipman's Tale
• The Prioress' Prologue and Tale
• Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas
• The Tale of Melibee
• The Monk's Tale
• The Nun's Priest's Tale
• The Second Nun's Prologue and Tale
• The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale
• The Manciple's Prologue and Tale
• The Parson's Prologue and Tale
• Chaucer's Retraction

(from wikisource.org/wiki)
(See also the modern English version.)

Many people have opined that everyone on earth will fit one of these 26 categories.