sign in sign up
<<
Home , Har (Blake), Hela (Blake), Life of William Blake, The Book of Thel, The Little Boy Found, The Little Boy Lost

W. : and

密 The Book of 教 - A Passage to Experience- 文

化 Toshikazu Kashiwagi

(1) When Blake completed Songs o f Experience in 1794, he bound it to- gether with Songs of Innocence (1789) and published them in one volume under the full title of Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shelving the Two Contrary States of the Huinan Soul. Songs of Experience is, as it were, an antithesis to Songs of Innocence. The one is in a sharp contrast with the other. It is, however, a serious mistake to overlook the transitional phase from Innocence to Experience. We cannot exactly know when he got an idea of showing the contrary state to Innocence' but he was probably conscious of the necessity to show the contrary state to Innocence before he published Songs of Innocence. For a few Songs of Innocence show us the world of Experience and their author transferred them to Songs of Experience later. My aim in this paper is, however, to examine the transitional phase from Innocence to Experience in special reference to Tiriel (c. 1789) and (1789).

I

Early critics and biographers of Blake, including A. Gilchrist and A. C. Swinburne, pay little attention to Tirriel and with some , for this allegorical poem is rather a poor and unsuccessful one and the author himself abandoned its publication and it was not printed till (2) 1874, when W. M. Rossetti included it in his edition. But in my present study it bears not a little importance because it shows what kind of problems Blake was concerned with during the transitional period from Innocence to Experience, It is quite significant that Myratana, who was once the Queen of all the western plains, is dying at the outset of Tiriel. She was queen,

-80- but it is more important that she was a mother. The mother of took the black boy on her lap and taught him how universal the love of God is. In children were ready for rest ... round the laps of their mothers. It is true that the mother and the child of were momentarily separated, but the child was led back to his mother by the hand of God who appeared like his father in white in . There can be no fatal separation of mother and child in the world of Innocence. On the contrary, the mother of Tiriel is dying. As R. F. (3) Gleckner points out, the mothers function expires with the end of Innocence. And while no father had any important role in the world of Innocence, a father-king (Tiriel) is a hero in Tiriel. Tiriel is king of the West, but he is also a selfish and cruel father. His sons rebe against his tyranny:

Old man! unworthy to be call'd the father of Tiriels race! For every one of those thy wrinkles, each of those grey hairs Are cruel as death & as obdurate as the devouring pit!

Tiriel heaps curses on his sons:

Serpent, not sons, wreathing around the bones of Tiriel! Ye worms of death, feasting upon your aged parents flesh!

After the burial of his wife Myratana, the blind old Tiriel sets out on his lonely travel, taking his pathless way over mountains and through vales. Then he happens to come to the vales of . The vales of Har are a kind of earthly , where Har and Heva spend the day playing with flowers and running after birds and sleep like infants, delighted with infant dreams. Har and Heva are senile infants and they are, as we see later in the poem, the parents of Tiriel. Finding Tiriel harmless, they invite him to catch birds with them and to hear Har sing in a great cage. But Tiriel refuses their invitation, saying My Journey is o'er rocks & mountains, not in pleasant vales:/ I must not sleep nor rest, because of madness & dismay He is destined not to stay in an earthly paradise and he takes his -79- lonely way again. Then he meets with his brother Ijim at entrance of the forest, but Ijim cannot recognize him and calls him a tempter of dark Ijim and bears him by force to his palace. Finding his identity, 密 however, Ijim turns his back and wanders away in anger. After de- 教 stroying most of his sons and daughters by calling down thunder, fire and pestilence upon them, Tiriel compels his youngest daughter 文 to guide him to the vales of Har again so that he can live with Har and Heva there. When they pass by the caves of Zazel, another of 化 Tiriels brethren, Zazel and his sons mock at them and throw stones at them. They wander through the wood all and come to the mountains of Har at sunrise. But Tiriel is destined to expire at the vales of Har. At his death he makes a desparate appeal to his parents Har and Heva:

0 weak mistaken father of a lawless race, Thy , O Har, & Tiriels , end together in a curse.

And why men bound beneath the in a reptile form, A worm of sixty winters creeping on the dusky ground?

And now my paradise is falln & a drear sandy plain Returns my thirsty hissings in a curse on thee, O Har, Mistaken father of a lawless race, my voice is past.

This allegorical poem is too obscure to understand in its precis meaning. But it cannot be denied at least that this poem shows the transitional phase from Innocence to Experience in various ways. The end of mothers function and the beginning of fathers tyranny are (4) characteristic of the world of Songs o f Experience. The children of Songs o f Innocence were very young, while the sons and daughters of Tiriel are young adults. It is natural that they should be in conflict with their cruel father, because they have grown up and begun to act out of their own will. The conflict between father and his children is fatal in Tiriel. Tiriel is, as it were, the moral incarnate which restrains human life. Margaret Rudd says Tiriel is an anagram of (5) reality. Mark Schorer conjectures that Tiriel is a poor anagram of

-78- (6) ' ritual.' But seems to be right in saying: Tiriels name may compound the Greek root of "" and the Hebrew for "the (7)Al mighty," one of the names of God. It is, of course, ironical to say that Tiriel is an almighty tyrant, because he is never almighty in the true sense of the word. Another important thing about Tiriel is that he is not only cruel and selfish but also blind as the orbless scull among the stones. His blindness is symbolic of spiritual blindness. In There is No Natural Blake says as follows (the italics are mine):

(1) Man by his reasoning power can only compare & judge of what he has already percievd. (2) If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character the Philo- sophic & Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things, & stand still, unable to do other things than repeat the same dull round over again. (3) He who sees the Infinite in all things, sees God. He who sees the Ratio only, sees himself only. Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.

In the above passages Blake rejects the omnipotence of reasoning power. According to Blake, man cannot see the Infinite in all things by reasoning power alone. It is by the Poetic or Prophetic character (i.e. Imagination) that we can see the Infinite in all things. Blake was concerned with the problem of rejection of the eighteenth century Natural Religion or . Therefore, it is not unreasonable to conjecture that Blake intended to show the tragic fate of one who can see the Ratio only and see oneself only. Tiriel cannot see divine vision because of his spiritual blindness. He is destined to be like a worm of sixty winter creeping on the dusky ground. He can do nothing but wander off beneath the heavens in a reptile form. Moreover, Tiriels two brothers, Ijim and Zazel, are no less lacking in the visionary power. Ijim is a forest-dweller and Zazel is a cave-dweller. The words cave (or cavern) and forest (or wood) are symbolic of the world (8) of spiritual blindness and barrenness. Ijim is the Hebrew word for (9) which occurs in Isaiah xiii, 21. Zazel is possibly the Hebrew

-77- (10) ('scapegoat'). Ijim and Zazel seem to symbolize the brutal side of human represented by Tiriel. This allegorical poem is quite obscure partly because its author is 密 trying to criticize too much at a time. Tiriel seems to be the jealous 教 God of the who imposed the Ten Commandments upon mankind. On the other hand David V. Erdman goes so far as to say 文 that Tiriel is the living example of King George I[j, chiefly because the pattern of Tiriel's 'madness and deep dismay' parallels that of King 化 (11) George's. In short, Tiriel contains within itself criticisms and attacks upon the Old Testament morality, the eighteenth century Deism, the (12) eighteenth century poetry and . It is no exaggeration to say that Tiriel 'symbolizes a society or civilization in its decline' with Northrope (13) Frye. The world of Tiriel is no longer a world of Innocence where children are playing in the field with unrestrained mood. Its author is a prophetic poet as in one of the transferred poems titled 'The Voice of the Ancient Bard':

Youth of delight, come hither, And see the opening morn, Image of truth new-born. Doubt is fled, and clouds of reason, Dark disputes and artful teasing. Folly is an endless maze, Tangled roots perplex her ways. How many have fallen there! They stumble all night over bones of the dead, And feel they know not what but care, And wish to lead others, when they should be led.

The piper of 'Introduction' to Songs o f Innocence sang: '... wrote my happy songs/Every child may joy to hear.' Indeed, almost all the Songs of Innocence are songs for children, but 'The Voice of the Ancient Bard' is no longer a happy song for children but a prophetic song for young men. Although the above poem is hopeful in its tone, its author makes an acute attack upon such sort of morality as is based on 'doubt,' 'reason,' and 'disputes' and restrains young men's life. This -76- poem also marks the transitional phase from Innocence to Experience.

11

The Book of Thel was written in the year of the publication of Songs of Innocence and shows the transitional phase as well as Tiriel. Thel, the heroine of this book, is the mistress of the vales of Har.' The children of Songs of Innocence are thoughthess, spontaneous and free from care, while Thel is pensive and self-conscious. In '' the little baby says:

I have no name: I am but two days old.

I happy am, Joy is my name.

But Thel laments over the mutability of life and wants to 'fade away, like morning beauty from her mortal day.' Hearing her lamentation, the lily of the valley tells her that 'he that smiles on all' sheds the divine love on the lowly flower. Thel laments again, 'But Thel is like a faint cloud kindled at the rising sun:/I vanish from my pearly throne, and who shall find my place?' Thel's vanity shows itself here. She is conscious of her superiority to the lily of the valley but she fears no one will find her when she vanishes from her 'pearly throne.' Then she asks the little cloud why he (i. e. the cloud) does not complain when he fades away in one hour, and she utters a sigh: 'Oh! Thel is like to thee:/I pass away: yet I complain, and no one hears my voice.' The cloud says to her, '... O maid, I tell thee, when I pass away, / It is to tenfold life, to love, to peace and raptures holy.' Thel knows that she is worthless to others. She answers the cloud

...I hear the warbling birds, But I feed not the warbling birds; they fly and seek their food: But Thel delights in these no more, because I fade away; And all shall say, 'Without a use this shining woman liv' d, Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms?'

-75- She cannot understand that 'Every thing that lives/Lives not alone nor for itself.' Finallly the clod of clay says to her: 密

0 beauty of the vales of Har! we live not for ourselves. 教 Thou seest me the meanest thing, and so I am indeed.

My bosom of itself is cold, and of itself is dark; 文 But he, that loves the lowly, pours his oil upon my head, And kisses me, and binds his nuptial bands around my breast, 化

But how this is, sweet maid, I know not, and I cannot know; I ponder, and I cannot ponder, yet I live and love.

Hearing this, Thel says to the clod of clay

Alas! I know not this, and therefore did I weep. That God would love a Worm I knew, ...... but that he cherish' d it With milk and oil I never knew, and therefore did I weep;

Thel seems to have realized why she weeps and complains, but could she really understand the true meaning of divine providence? The matron clay says, 'Wilt thou, O Queen, enter my house? 'Tis given thee to enter/And to return: fear nothing, enter with thy virgin feet.'

Thel enter'd in & saw the secrets of the land unknown. She saw the couches of the dead, & where the fibrous roots Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists: A land of sorrow & of tears where never smile was seen.

Thel wanders on through dark valleys, until she comes to her own grave plot and hears a sorrowful voice from the hollow pit:

Why cannot the Ear be closed to its own destruction ? Or the glist' ping Eye to the poison of a smile ? Why are Eyelids stor'd with arrows ready drawn, Where a thousand fighting men in ambush Tie?

-74- Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy? Why a little curtain of flesh on the bed of our desire?

Hearing this terrible voice, Thel flees back to the vales of Har. Kathleen Raine says that the theme of The Book o f Thel is the descent (14) of the soul into generation. Thel is an unborn spirit and she lives in an unreal paradise ('the vales of Har'). At the outset she is conscious of her coming death and laments over the mutability of life. To the unborn spirit (Thel), death means the entrance to the world of generation. She is half unwilling and half willing to enter the world of generation and asks the lily, the cloud and the clod of clay about the secret of the world ofgeneration. The three voices of lily, cloud and clay tell her the way to higher Innocence through Experience, but she cannot understand what they say because of her vanity and she does not realize the essential similarity between her existence and theirs. They live in the world of generation from which Thel runs back to the vales of Har, but they believe in divine providence. Blake says in his annotations to Lavater's Aphorisms,... God is in the lowest effects as well as in the highest causes; for he is become a worm that he may nourish the weak. For let it be remernber'd that creation is God descending according to the weakness of man, for our Lord is the word (15) of God & every thing on earth is the word of God & in its essence is God.' Thel cannot understand 'every thing on earth is the word of God & in its essence is God' and fears her descent into the world of generation. Thel's tragedy lies in the fact that she is too self-conscious and tries to learn the secret of the world of generation merely by asking. The (16) name of 'Thel' is from the Greek for 'will' or 'wish' and this is quite ironical, for she has no will enough to descend into the world of gener- ation. It seems that Blake intended to satirize the destiny of one who shrinks from the impact ofexperience in The Book o f Thel. In any case, The Book of Thel shows the transitional phase as well as Tiriel. Thel is not so happy as the children of Songs of Innocence. She fears the impact of experience and runs back to the unreal world called 'the vales of Har.' As we have seen above, the world of Experience is presenting itself in The Book of Thel, especially in its conclusion. (17) The conclusion of this poem is said to have been written about 1791.

-73- This suggests that Blake was already aware about this time that the world of Songs of Innocence was not self-sufficient and the gloomy 密 world of Songs of Experience was inevitable to human existence. Unlike

Thel, Blake himself, as Songs o f Experience shows, enters the world of 教 Experience. It was a necessary step to his maturity. 文

Notes 化 (1) F. W. Bateson suggests that Songs of Experience had been engraved by 1793. (Selected Poems of , Heineman, 1957, p. 104) (2) Mona Wilson, The , Hart-Davis, 1948, p. 33. (3) The Piper and The Bard, Detroite, Wayne State U.P., 1959, p. 145. (4) Cf. Songs of Experience, ',' '.' (5) Divided Image: A Study of William Blake and W. B. Yeats, Routledge, 1953, p. 92. (6) William Blake: The Politics of Vision, Vintage Books, 1959, p. 195. (7) Blake's Apocalypse, Victor Gollanez LTD, 1963, p. 30. (8) Cf. 'If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern. (The Marriage o f and , pl. 14.) Cf. also 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, (Italics mine) (Songs of Experience, '.') (9) Northrope Frye, : A Study of William Blake, Princeton U. P., 1947, p. 243. (10) Harold Bloom, op. cit., p. 32. (11) William Blake: Prophet Against Empire, Princeton New Jersey, 1954, pp. 121-22. (12) S. Foster Damon says 'Har and Heva symbolize poetry and painting in a degraded state.' (William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols, Peter Smith, 1958, p. 307.) (13) Northrope Frye, op. cit., p. 243. (14) The Divine Vision, ed. Vivian De Sola Pinto, Victor Gollancz LTD, 1957, p. 20. (15) The Complete Writings of William Blake, ed. Geoffrey Keynes, Nonesuch Press, 1957, p. 87. (16) Harold Bloom, op. cit., p. 52. (17) The Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman, Doubleday & Company, INC., 1965, p. 713. 筆者 高野山大学講師

-72-