93

Ahania's vision re-introduces the events of infinite being into

the events of the first universe of Pythagorean form and harmony; the ` stage', so to speak, has been set for Urizen's assertion of hubris.

Urizen's responses to Ahania's revelation of the truth of the first fall--"'Am I not God?'" said Urizen, '"Who is equal to me?/ Do I not stretch the heavens abroad, or fold them up like a garment?'" (K. III. 107-108)--rejects any higher order of reference than that of his current order of Pythagorean form and harmony. Urizen rejects Ahania's complementary energies of visionary truth and so negates the essential interdependence of the Zoas and Emanations as component energies of a single, fallen consciousness. Hence, he rejects, as Albion did before him, the truth of Divine energy:

He spoke, mustering his heavy clouds around him,

black, opake.

Then thunders roll'd around & lightnings darted to

& fro;

110 His visage chang'd to darkness, & his strong right

hand came forth'

To cast Ahania to the Earth: he siez'd her by the hair

And threw her from the steps of ice that froze

around his throne.

(K. III. 108-112)

Urizen's finite powers can "stretch the heavens abroad" or "fold them up like a garment," but, like the "all flexible" senses of Los and Enitharmon, Urizen's energies are limited to mundane expansion and contraction. The limit of his energies is the limit of his now finite perceptions, and his moral blindness is presented in images of darkness; He musters "his heavy clouds around him"; the clouds are "black" and "opake"; his appearance is "chang'd to darkness"; and "thunders roll'd around" and "lightnings darted to & fro." The "black hail storm" of Urizen's anger results in the casting of Ahania from his throne. In a Zeus-like gesture he seizes her "by the hair" and throws her "from the steps of ice that froze around his throne."