<< YCBA Home Yale Center for British Art Yale Center for British Art << YCBA Home

YCBA Collections Search

 
IIIF Actions
Creator:
Print made by William Blake, 1757–1827
Title:
"O Skofield why art thou cruel?..." (Plate 68)
Part Of:

Collective Title: Jerusalem: The Emanation of The Giant Albion, Copy E

Date:
1804 to 1820
Materials & Techniques:
Relief etching printed in orange ink, with watercolor and pen and black ink on moderately thick, smooth, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 13 1/2 x 10 3/8 inches (34.3 x 26.4 cm), Plate: 8 3/8 x 5 7/8 inches (21.2 x 14.9 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Inscribed in orange ink, upper right: "68"

Lettered inside image: "O Skofield why art thou cruel? Lo Joseph is thine, to make | You One: to weave you both in the same mantle of skin. | Bind him down Sisters, bind him down on Ebal Mount of cursing. | Malah, come forth from Lebanon: & Hoglah, from Mount Sinai! | Come, circumscribe this tongue of sweets & with a screw of iron | Fasten this ear into the rock: Milcah, the task is thine! | Weep not so, Sisters, weep not so: our life depends on this: | Or mercy & truth are fled away from Shechem & Mount Gilead, | Unless my beloved is bound upon the Stems of Vegetation. | And thus the Warriors cry in the hot day of Victory, in Songs. | Look! the beautiful Daughter of Albion sits naked upon the Stone, | Her panting Victim beside her : her heart is drunk with blood, | Tho' her brain is not drunk with wine: she goes forth from Albion | In pride of beauty, in cruelty of holiness, in the brightness | Of her tabernacle, & her ark & secret place: the beautiful Daughter | Of Albion delights the eyes of the Kings: their hearts & the | Hearts of their Warriors glow hot before Thor & Friga. O Molech ! | O Chemosh! O Bacchus! O Venus! O Double God of Generation! | The Heavens are cut like a mantle around from the Cliffs of Albion, | Across Europe, across Africa, in howlings & deadly War. | A sheet & veil & curtain of blood is let down from Heaven | Across the hills of Ephraim & down Mount Olivet to | The Valley of the Jebusite: Molech rejoices in heaven, | He sees the Twelve Daughters naked upon the Twelve Stones, | Themselves condensing to rocks & into the Ribs of a Man. | Lo, they shoot forth in tender Nerves across Europe & Asia: | Lo, they rest upon the Tribes, where their panting Victims lie. | Molech rushes into the Kings in love to the beautiful Daughters, | But they frown & delight in cruelty, refusing all other joy. | Bring your Offerings, your first begotten, pamper'd with milk & blood: | Your first born of seven years old, be they Males or Females, | To the beautiful Daughters of Albion! they sport before the Kings | Clothed in the skin of the Victim ! blood, human blood, is the life | And delightful food of the Warrior: the well fed Warrior's flesh | Of him who is slain in War fills the Valleys of Ephraim with | Breeding Women walking in pride & bringing forth under green trees | With pleasure, without pain, for their food is blood of the Captive. | Molech rejoices thro' the Land from Havilah to Shur: he rejoices | In moral law & its severe penalties; loud Shaddai & Jehovah | Thunder above, when they see the Twelve panting Victims | On the Twelve Stones of Power, & the beautiful Daughters of Albion. | If you dare rend their Veil with your spear, you are healed of Love. | From the Hills of Camberwell & Wimbledon, from the Valleys | Of Walton & Esher, from Stone-henge & from Maiden's Cove, | Jerusalem's Pillars fall in the rendings of fierce War. | Over France & Germany, upon the Rhine & Danube, | Reuben & Benjamin flee: they hide in the Valley of Rephaim. | Why trembles the Warriors limbs when he beholds thy beauty | Spotted with Victims' blood: by the fires of thy secret tabernacle | And thy ark & holy place: at thy frowns, at thy dire revenge: | Smitten as Uzzah of old, his armour is soften'd: his spear | And sword faint in his hand, from Albion across Great Tartary. | O beautiful Daughter of Albion! cruelty is thy delight, | O Virgin of terrible eyes who dwellest by Valleys of springs, | Beneath the Mountains of Lebanon, in the City of Rehob in Hamath, | Taught to touch the harp, to dance in the Circle of Warriors | Before the Kings of Canaan, to cut the flesh from the Victim, | To roast the flesh in fire, to examine the Infant's limbs | In cruelties of holiness, to refuse the joys of love, to bring | The Spies from Egypt, to raise jealousy in the bosoms of the Twelve | Kings of Canaan, then to let the Spies depart to Meribah Kadesh | To the place of the Amalekite; I am drunk with unsatiated love: | I must rush again to War: for the Virgin has frown'd & refus'd. | Sometimes I curse & sometimes bless thy fascinating beauty. | Once Man was occupied in intellectual pleasures & energies, | But now my Soul is harrow'd with grief & fear & love & desire, | And now I hate & now I love & Intellect is no more: | There is no time for any thing but the torments of love & desire: | The Feminine & Masculine Shadows soft, mild & ever varying | In beauty, are Shadows now no more, but Rocks in Horeb."

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1992.8.1(68)
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
birds | literary theme | religious and mythological subject | serpent | text | vegetation | vines
Access:
Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3501
Export:
XML
IIIF Manifest:
JSON

William Blake (Tate Britain, 2000-11-02 - 2001-02-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Human Form Divine - William Blake from the Paul Mellon Collection (Yale Center for British Art, 1997-04-02 - 1997-07-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]


If you have information about this object that may be of assistance please contact us.