"Thus Albion sat, studious of others..." (Plate 42)
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)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Lettered inside image: "Thus Albion sat, studious of others in his pale disease; | Brooding on evil; but when Los open'd the Furnaces before him, | He saw that the accursed things were his own affections, | And his own beloveds: then he turn'd sick: his soul died within him. | Also Los sick & terrified beheld the Furnaces of Death, | And must have died, but the Divine Saviour descended | Among the infant loves & affections, and the Divine Vision wept | Like evening dew on every herb upon the breathing ground. | Albion spoke in his dismal dreams : O thou deceitful friend, | Worshipping mercy & beholding thy friend in such affliction: | Los ! thou now discoverest thy turpitude to the heavens. | I demand righteousness & justice. O thou ingratitude! | Give me my Emanations back, food for my dying soul: | My daughters are harlots: my sons are accursed before me. | Enitharmon is my daughter: accursed with a father's curse: | O! I have utterly been wasted: I have given my daughters to devils. | So spoke Albion in gloomy majesty, and deepest night | Of Ulro roll'd round his skirts from Dover to Cornwall. | Los answer'd. Righteousness & justice I give thee in return | For thy righteousness; but I add mercy also, and bind | Thee from destroying these little ones; am I to be only | Merciful to thee and cruel to all that thou hatest? | Thou wast the Image of God surrounded by the Four Zoas. | Three thou hast slain: I am the Fourth, thou canst not destroy me. | Thou art in Error; trouble me not with thy righteousness. | I have innocence to defend and ignorance to instruct: | I have no time for seeming, and little arts of compliment, | In morality and virtue: in self-glorying and pride. | There is a limit of Opakeness, and a limit of Contraction ; | In every Individual Man, and the limit of Opakeness, | Is named Satan; and the limit of Contraction is named Adam. | But when Man sleeps in Beulah, the Saviour in Mercy takes | Contraction's Limit, and of the Limit he forms Woman; That | Himself may in process of time be born Man to redeem. | But there is no Limit of Expansion; there is no Limit of Translucence, | In the bosom of Man for ever from eternity to eternity. | Therefore I break thy bonds of righteousness; I crush thy messengers; | That they may not crush me and mine; do thou be righteous, | And I will return it; otherwise I defy thy worst revenge; | Consider me as thine enemy: on me turn all thy fury: | But destroy not these little ones, nor mock the Lord's anointed: | Destroy not, by Moral Virtue, the little ones whom he hath chosen; | The little ones whom he hath chosen in preference to thee. | He hath cast thee off for ever; the little ones he hath anointed! | Thy Selfhood is for ever accursed from the Divine presence. | So Los spoke: then turn'd his face & wept for Albion. | Albion replied. Go, Hand & Hyle! sieze the abhorred friend: | As you have siez'd the Twenty-four rebellious ingratitudes: | To atone for you, for spiritual death ; Man lives by deaths of Men. | Bring him to justice before heaven here upon London stone, | Between Blackheath & Hounslow, between Norwood & Finchley. | All that they have is mine: from my free gen'rous gift, | They now hold all they have; ingratitude to me, | To me their benefactor calls aloud for vengeance deep. | Los stood before his Furnaces awaiting the fury of the Dead; | And the Divine hand was upon him, strengthening him mightily. | The Spectres of the Dead cry out from the deeps beneath | Upon the hills of Albion; Oxford groans in his iron furnace, | Winchester in his den & cavern: they lament against | Albion; they curse their human kindness & affection, | They rage like wild beasts in the forests of affliction, | In the dreams of Ulro they repent of their human kindness. | Come up, build Babylon, Rahab is ours & all her multitudes | With her, in pomp and glory of victory. Depart, | Ye twenty-four, into the deeps; let us depart to glory! | Their Human majestic Forms sit up upon their Couches | Of death: they curb their Spectres as with iron curbs: | They enquire after Jerusalem in the regions of the dead, | With the voices of dead men, low, scarcely articulate, | And with tears cold on their cheeks they weary repose. | O when shall the morning of the grave appear, and when | Shall our salvation come? we sleep upon our watch, | We cannot awake; and our Spectres rage in the forests, | O God of Albion where art thou; pity the watchers! | Thus mourn they. Loud the Furnaces of Los thunder upon | The clouds of Europe & Asia, among the Serpent Temples. | And Los drew his Seven Furnaces around Albion's Altars: | And as Albion built his frozen Altars, Los built the Mundane Shell, | In the Four Regions of Humanity, East & West & North & South, | Till Norwood & Finchley & Blackheath & Hounslow, cover' d the whole Earth. | This is the Net & Veil of Vala, among the Souls of the Dead."
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1992.8.1(42)
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
grapes | literary theme | religious and mythological subject | nudes | text | leaf | fruit | vines | women | men
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
William Blake (Tate Britain, 2000-11-02 - 2001-02-04)The Human Form Divine - William Blake from the Paul Mellon Collection (Yale Center for British Art, 1997-04-02 - 1997-07-06)