[FIRST]
"First" is deleted from the title page in copy G (covered by a branch). The Book of Ahania is the second book in the sequence of "Urizen" books.
PRELUDIUM
The Preludium is an epic opening with a traditional statement of the argument of the poem (2.1-4) and an invocation of the muses, the Eternals in this case. The invocation authorizes the poem. It is not the creation of a mere fallen creature, but comes from a higher spiritual source, having a more comprehensive view of what has occurred.
primeval Priests
The Primeval Priest is Urizen, who becomes the archetype of priest and king, assuming the power to impose his laws on others.
north
In Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan withdraws to the north as he plots his rebellion against God:
. . . I am to hasteFrom there he mounts his attempt to overthrow God and place himself on the Heavenly throne. The north has often been the breeding ground of rebellion in English history and literature (e.g., the Percy rebellion in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1). As Blake more fully articulates his mythology in The Four Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem, Urizen's realm is in the south. In taking a place in the north, he is usurping the realm of Urthona, the Zoa of imagination. However, in this early work, Urizen is given a place in the north by the Eternals.
And all who under me thir banners wave, Homeward with flying march where we possess
The Quarters of the North . . . (5.686-89)
Dictate
"Dictate" indicates that the poet is just a vehicle for the story told by the Eternals. He is just an amanuensis. The truth of what is told is guaranteed by the more all encompassing wisdom of the Eternals. The authority of the work rests on the authority of the Eternals and Eternity.
Lo
The point of view is initially that of the Eternals who are dictating the poem, but point of view tends to be fluid.
Unknown, unprolific!
The epithets used to epitomize Urizen point to his abstracted and hidden nature. For example, in the Chapter I, he is "unknown" (3.2, 3.6, 3.10, 3.20, 3.24), "unprolific" (3.2), "unseen" (3.10, 3.15, 3.19), "abstracted" (3.6), "dark" (3.7, 3.9, 3.18, 3.27), "self-closed" (3.3), "all-repelling" (3.3), "brooding" (3.7), "secret" (3.7). Blake often uses double, triple, and even quadruple epithets (as in these lines: "Unknown, unprolific! / Self-closed, all-repelling: what Demon") to create a sense of solidity to his descriptions, a solidity De Luca has called a "wall of words."
Self-closed, all-repelling
self-contemplating
"Self-closed" and "all-repelling" indicate the solipsism and narcissism of Urizen, who will not recognize the visions of others. The description of Urizen as "A self-contemplating shadow" (3.21) also reinforces the sense of his solipsism.
divided, & measur'd
Rather than creating something new in his vision of the world, Urizen divides and measures what he has already created, time and space, and divides himself from the activity that creates the world.
ninefold
Stevenson suggests that "ninefold" is used here because in Neo-Platonic thought 10 is complete and 9 incomplete. In Blake's numerology, 3 suggests the incompleteness of threefold vision, the fourth fold, imagination, is missing. For Blake 3 x 3 is incomplete whereas 4 x 4 is complete.
Bred from his forsaken wilderness
Although Urizen is in a heroic conflict, he is in conflict with the very things that are created out of what he is, "his forsaken wilderness." The nature of this battle again points to Urizen's solipsism.
shut in the deep
From the point of view of the Eternals, Urizen is in a deep or an abyss, divided from and no longer engaged with Eternity.
chaos
What seems to be solid and like rock ("petrific") to Urizen is seen as "chaos" from the point of view of the Eternals.
Earth was not
The earth, the planets, the stars have not yet been created. They will be created out of the laws of Urizen
expanded / Or contracted his all flexible senses
The Eternals have no definite bodily or sensible or sensual form, but their form is subject to their will. They have a spiritual body that takes on a definite form in order to converse with others. The function of the Emanation is to give substance to and the spectre to give form (in the Platonic sense) to that body. Blake is drawing on Milton's description of the "physical" attributes of the Angels in Paradise Lost:
All heart they live, all Head, all Eye, all Ear,
All Intellect, all Sense, and as they please,
They Limb themselves, and color, shape or size
Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare. (6.350-53)
trumpet
The sounding trumpet alludes to God's voice being like a trumpet as he talks to Moses and the people of Israel on Mount Sinai, giving them the ten commandments: "there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceedingly loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled" (Exod. 19:16). It also suggests trumpets of war and the last trumpets at the Apocalypse (Rev. 8-10). The latter connotation suggests that the judgment comes before the creation of the world as well as at the end of the world.
utter'd / Words articulate, bursting in thunders
In The Four Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem, Blake suggests that thunder is the utterances of Eternals heard by the shrunken senses of humans who can no longer understand what is being said.
4
Paragraph 4-8 is Urizen's speech
depths of dark solitude
This image alludes to God talking to Moses on Mount Sinai, when He gave Moses the Laws: "And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was" (Exod. 20:21).
holiness
"Holiness" suggests both Urizen's role as the "Primeval Priest" and his claim to godhead.
joy without pain
Urizen wants to limit the emotional range of life to only that which he considers good.
solid without fluctuation
Urizen desires a world that does not change, where everything is clearly defined.
die
Urizen perceives the metamorphoses (made possible by their "flexible senses") that the Eternals go through as deaths. They cease to be what they were and become something else. For Urizen, to live is to remain the same.
unquenchable burnings
The fires of inspiration and the energy of creativity is for Urizen a painful burning that must be quenched. The "unquenchable burnings" are illustrated by Plate 3 (from the point of view of the other Eternals) and Plate 4 (from the point of view of Urizen).
books formd of metals
The books on which Urizen's laws are written are themselves a solid which resists fluctuations.
terrible monsters Sin-bred
Urizen's laws come out of an internal conflict which he "wins" by casting out part of himself as "monstrous" and seeing these monsters as "Sin-bred." He divides his own desires into good and evil.
Seven deadly Sins of the soul
Traditionally the seven deadly sins are Pride, Lechery, Envy, Anger, Covetousness, Gluttony, and Sloth. Urizen is defining human desires as sins which must be repressed and denied. In the opening speech of the Book of Los, Eno tells of a time when these desires were not sins and not destructive, suggesting that their destructiveness comes from their repression (3.7-26).
This rock
Christ says: "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church" (Matt. 16: 18). By placing his book on this rock, Urizen is founding his church as well as announcing his laws.
place with strong hand the Book
The illustration to Plate 5 shows Urizen opening his book upon the rock.
written in my solitude
The laws of Urizen come out of his own solitude, without reference to or debate with others.
Laws
Urizen attempts to impose his will on others by claiming the status of laws for his vision. Law here means moral law, but his laws will also be the physical laws that form his fallen world.
chuse one
Urizen desires to limit the world, creating what he thinks of as order by reducing each realm to a single law and a single authority.