63

Luvah and Vala's energies are sacrificed to provide the energy for Urizen's order. At the feast of Los and Enitharmon, they were a

symbolic sun that engendered the activity, but could not descend.

After Urizen assumes the scepter of Albion to begin the construction of the first universe, Luvah and Vala do 'descend', but into the furnaces to melt the ore so that the ore can be forged into Urizen's geometrical forms:

135 Then size&d the Lions of Urizen their work, & heated

in the forge Roar the bright masses; thund'ring beat the hammers,

many a [Globe del.] pyramid

Is form'd & thrown down thund'ring into the deeps

of Non Entity.

Heated red hot they, hizzing, rend their way down

many a league

Till resting, each his [center del. basement del.l

finds; suspended there they stand

140 Casting their sparkles dire abroad into the dismal

deep.

For, measured out in order'd spaces, the Sons of

Urizen

With compasses divide the deep; they the strong scales

erect

That Luvah rent from the faint Heart of the Fallen

Man,

And weigh the massey [Globes del.] Cubes, then fix

them in their awful stations.

(K. II. 135-144)

Blake's deletions are important here; the "Globes" become "pyramids" and "Cubes" in imitation of the fire and earth of Plato's cosmology. The Hellenic allusions found earlier in the poem are emphasized further by Blake's use of cave symbolism:

145 And all the time, in Caverns shut, the golden

Looms erected

First spun, then wove the Atmospheres; there the

Spider & Worm

Plied the wing'd shuttle, piping shrill thro' all

the list'ning threads;

Beneath the Caverns roll the weights of lead &

spindles of iron,

The enormous warp & woof rage direful in the

affrighted deep.

(K. II. 145-149)