DISCUSSION

Fellow Travelers . . .

Nelson Hilton

Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, Volume 23, Issue 4, Spring 1990, p. 204 204 BLAKE/AN IUUSTRA TED QUARTERL Y Spring 1990

In the context of this alluSion,· Blake's It was for Mrs. Flaxman that Blake, ellow Travelers "pilgrim" becomes a type of Ulysses commissioned by her husband, had we are to write off if we would prepared his "Illustrations to Gray's Nelson ilton embrace Carew's revisionary Pen- Poems"-including the epigraph to elope. Such a possibility is perhaps no "Ode on the Spring." This seemingly less scandalous than the realization added comment or clue can be seen as that the "Satan" intimately addressed presenting (to "Nancy F---" most by Blake's speaker is "Worshipd by the of all) the designer self-reflexively irst, apologies to anyone who felt Names Divine / Of Jesus & Jehovah." addressing his "wild root" (phallus / bullied, intimidated, browbeaten, The presence of "Satan" or what Blake sexuality / inspiration) as a "Traveller" threat ned, or insulted by my rhetori- calls "The Accuser who is The God of which is now to dream among the cal aside. Mea culpa. As for Tyndale's This World" and elsewhere "the Ac- "leaves"-each of which in its mate- translation, I pushed it in order to add cuser of " (J98.49) in the vicinity of rialization represents a leave-taking or to the single "under the hill" reference "Every Harlot" can facilitate the accom- parting from his seminal desire: of AV Exodus 24:4 th two other sp - modation Tolley proposes between cific instances of that formulation in and the "dream ... of erotic Around the Springs of Gray my wild root Tyndale. Obviously they didn't make desue." TIle "sin" of mounting (or being weaves the case any more convincing, and Traveller repose & dream among my under) a Fanny Hill-"that sweet gold- leaves. Christoph r Heppn r's neglect of even en clime [hear also 'climb'] / Where the the AV occurrence shows how turning travellers journey is done"-can be In "The Keys of the Gates" the root has to Tyndal cost me points for my point. summarized as having been insin- become "the Worm Weaving in the But one minute particular can suffice uated into culture at Mount Sinai (e.g., Ground" which, with the wo[r]m-en to ground what, following Robert Ex. 21: 17, "thou shalt not covet thy in the speaker's existence (Mother, Gleckner (Blake's Prelude, 1982), we neighbor's wife"). The Bible's other Sister, Wife [Daughter?-as per S. might term lakean "significant al- name for the site of moral revelation is Foster Damon's speculation about lusion "-and for all that can be said , opening the possibility Thel], Catherine), ends "Weaving to about the passage from Pilgrim's that in some weary night's decline a Dreams the Sexual strife." Progress quoted by each of the respon- conflicted son of mourning might pon- The speaker of Carew's "The Rapture" dents to "Under the Hill," Bunyan does der the schizoid equation of "mount also worries about sexual strife--not not use the telling phrase. whore" with "mount sin" (ai!). only the toll of hypocritic chastity which Micha 1 Tolley's ffort "to pUJl to- But most would want, I think, more Honor demands for women, but even geth r the idea of an erotic dream with sympathy for "the lost Traveller." He, more the unChristian bloody revenges th t of th rampant Spectr " seems a after all, seems the final avatar of the and consequent potential damnation useful furthering of the discussion, and protagonist of For the Sexes. the speak- Honor expects of jealous men. He ends I agree that we should "think first of the ing "J" specifically labeled in plate 14 the poem with this question: dream as one of erotic desire." In this as "The Traveller [who] hasteth in the onnection w might turn from "under Evening." Such a sympathetic iden- Then tell me why the hill" to 11 th lost rav Her," and tification, contra Carew, would no This Goblin Honour which the world Thomas Car w's memorably licentious doubt duly approve Ulysses' dream of adores, poem, '"A Rapture," The speaker of a faithful wife, even if supposing its Should make men AtheiSts, and not women Whores? Carew's poem flies with "Celia" past twenty years' duration to border on IIHonou .. " to graphically imaged de- wish-fulfillment. A dream of fidelity The prologue to For the Sexes: 7HE lights of "Lov t -lysium." In this would have particular resonance for GATES of PARADISE echoes Carew's I' lysian ground. / All things are law- an author well versed in "the torments satiric stance in its uncomprehending ful"-Lucr reads Aretine, ~ rexample, ofLov &Jealollsy" and might seIVe to conclusion: "0 Christians Christians! and gloss the curious possible inference of tell me Wby / You rear it on your Altars Th Grecian Dam , "To the Accuser ... " lines 3 and 4 re- high" (emphases added here and That in her endlesse w bb, toyl'd for a garding Blake's wife, Catherine, and nam above). As fruitlesse as her worke, doth there the ww of his sometimes best friend displ y John Flaxman, Ann (also Anna and Her s Ife b fore the Youth of Itbaca, Nancy in Blake's writing): And th' morOllS sport of gamesome nights pr ~ r, Harlot: Virgin:: Kate: Nan Before dull dreames of the lost Travell r. (125-30)