CHAPTER V

Blake's Rational Cosmology Time and Space

To being and generation, which occur as a consequence of the first fall and the inversion of the ideal within/without relations of Tharmas and Enion, time and space in the forms of Los and Enitharmon are born. The birth of Los and Enitharmon is accompanied by pain and sorrow, the characteristics of finitude:

Till, with fierce pain, she brought forth on the rocks

her sorrow & woe:

Behold two little Infants wept upon the desolate wind.

(K. I. 191-192)

Their birth, or propagation, is conveyed by images of desolation in inverse contrast to the regenerative cycle of the infinite.

The use of the words "rocks" and "wept" establish two important symbol sequences. Rocks, reminiscent of Plato's cubes of earth in the Timaeus, symbolize petrified matter, or matter no longer malleable by mental energies. Tears, weeping, and related imagery reinforce the change in emotional relations from harmonious joy to reciprocal sorrow. The two infants' early growth is related by the two image patterns to their parents, Tharmas and Enion:

The first state weeping they began, & helpless as a

wave

Beaten along its sightless way, growing enormous in

its motion to

195 Its utmost goal, till strength from Enion, like richest

summer shining,

Rais'd the [bright, del.] fierce boy & girl with glories

from their heads out-beaming,

Drawing forth drooping mother's pity, drooping mother's

sorrow.

(K. I. 193-197)

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