CHAPTER VI

Blake's Rational Cosmology:

Motion and Attraction

Time and space have been added to being and generation. The next phase in the systematic cosmology of the first universe is the emergence of Luvah and Vala's energies. They stimulate the first universe into a generative cycle of summer excess and winter scarcity:

Night darken'd as she spoke; a shudd'ring ran from

East to West;

A Groan was heard on high. The warlike clarions ceast,

the Spirits

Of Luvah and Vala shudder'd in their Orb, an orb of

blood.

(K. I. 312-314)

Suspended in the heavens, the "Orb" of "blood" anticipates the rain of blood in Night the Ninth. Blood symbolism, consistently associated with Luvah and Vala throughout the poem, is a central symbol in the song at the feast of Los and Enitharmon. In the song, blood is clearly associated with a mundane inversion of the wine of Holy Communion:

But Luvah and Vala standing in the bloody sky

On high remain'd alone, forsaken, in fierce jealousy.

They stood above the heavens, forsaken, desolate.

suspended in blood.

Descend they could not, nor from Each other avert

their eyes.

Eternity appear'd above them as One Man infolded

In Luvah's robes of blood & bearing all his afflictions;

365 As the sun shines down on the misty earth, such was the Vision.

(K. I. 359-365)

As with all the Zoas and Emanations in the post-lapsarian state, jealousy and desolation mark Luvah and Vala's relationship, for the process of division results in mutual antagonism. It is clear that they are a

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