a globe of fire lighting his journey
See Plate 23.
his world teemd vast enormities / Frightning; faithless; fawning / Portions of life
Urizen discovers that his world teems with life, but he sees this life as monstrous--"Frightning; faithless; fawning." He cannot see it as good as God does in Genesis. Life is "mischevous" (23.5) to Urizen.
Dread terrors! delighting in blood
life liv'd upon death
In Urizen's world, "life liv'd upon death" (23.27). Living things maintain life by devouring others, delighting in the hunt and the kill. In Milton's Paradise Lost, after the fall:
. . . Discord first
Daughter of Sin, among th' irrational,
Death introduc'd through fierce antipathy:
Beast now with Beast gan war, and Fowl with Fowl,
And Fish with Fish; to graze the Herb all leaving
Devour'd each other (10.707-12)
sicken'd
Rather than finding joy in his creation, Urizen is repulsed by what he sees.
His eternal creations appear
Plate 24 depicts the birth of the first four sons of Urizen.
His daughters from green herbs & cattle / From monsters, & worms of the pit.
See Plate 25.
curs'd / Both sons & daughters
Horrified and sickened at the world he discovers, not recognizing it as the concrete manifestation of his abstract principles, Urizen condemns his children because they can not "keep / His iron laws one moment" (23.25-26). The visible manifestations of his abstract laws do not match his idealized image of what the world should be like.
The Ox in the slaughter house moans / The Dog at the wintry door
The images here point to the mundane world. These are the visible manifestations of Urizen's laws in our world. In a visionary poem that works almost completely at the mythical and allegorical level, these are the only images that tie us to quotidian life. See Plate 26.
he wept, & he called it Pity
Urizen is moved to Pity by what he sees, repressing his agency as architect of this world. In "The Human Abstract," Blake says: "Pity would be no more / If we did not make somebody poor" (1-2). As Worrall points out, Urizen's Pity lives on poverty just as other creatures live by devouring the ox (140).
A cold shadow
As Urizen wanders over his world a Shadow follows him, forming a web like a spider's. This web is the manifestation of his Pity, of sorrow at the pain he sees. This Pity divides the heavens.
dungeon-like heaven
The heaven, the enclosing sky of Urizen's world, imprison the inhabitants of the cities, closing them off from Eternity.
a Web dark & cold
The Shadow of Urizen becomes a web that further imprisons the inhabitants of the fallen world since "None could break the Web, no wings of fire" because it is a web of ideas (25.19). Not even the fire of inspiration can fully burn through this web. Religion channels and normalizes the message of the visionary prophet.
And the Web is a Female in embrio
This line is erased in Copy A (Erdman, Complete 805).
As a "Female in embrio," the web is the beginning of Urizen's Shadow. The remainder of desire for order and law is religion, the institution that codifies and enforces moral law.
twisted like to the human brain
The web is internalized and becomes part of the structure of thought, making it almost impossible to escape.
The Net of Religion
The residue of Urizen's sorrow and Pity as he crosses back and forth over the skies becomes a net that entraps the inhabitants of the fallen world. Urizen's laws, given as commandments, are institutionalized in the moral laws enforced by religion.
See Plate 28 for a depiction of Urizen with the net draped over him.
their Nerves change into Marrow
The inhabitants of the cities of Urizen's world begin to take on the limited human shape that was forged from Urizen's principles. Initially their nerves are petrified.
The senses inward rush'd shrinking
Just as the senses of Urizen shrunk and were limited as his body was forged, so the senses of the inhabitants of his cities shrink so that they can no longer behold the truth.
net of infection
The net of religion is here seen as a net of infection, a plague that shrinks the bodies of those who catch it. It spreads as a pestilence through the cities, distorting the victims' forms.
Discernd not the woven hipocrisy
With their shrunken senses, the fallen inhabitants of the cities not only lose sight of Eternity, but also lose their ability to perceive the truth and cease being able to see the web that entraps them.
reptile forms
Blake alludes to Milton here. In Paradise Lost when Satan returns to Hell and triumphantly tells his tale of how he caused the fall of Adam and Eve to his lieutenants, his speech is met with "A dismal universal hiss" (10.508), for the fallen angels in the hall have been turned into serpents. Satan himself is metamorphosed into a serpent:
His Visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare
His Arms clung to his Ribs, and his Legs entwining
Each other, till supplanted down he fell
A monstrous Serpent on his Belly prone (10.511-14)
When Satan and his lieutenants emerge from the hall as serpents and appear to the other fallen angels, the other angels in turn are changed into serpents:
. . . horror on them fell,
And horrid sympathy; for what they saw,
They felt themselves now changing; down thir arms,
Down fell both Spear and Shield, down they as fast,
And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form
Cacht by Contagion, like in punishment
As in thir crime. (10.539-45)
The fallen angels catch the serpent form by contagion as if it were a disease. The citizens of Urizen's world are similarly infected by the "reptile forms."
Six days they shrunk up from existence / And on the seventh day they rested
The seven days of creation of the fallen world are repeated. The inhabitants of the cities bless the seventh day, for on that day they stop shrinking. See Genesis 1: 3-2: 3.
their eternal life
The living creatures of the fallen world are Eternals infected with Urizen's vision.
They lived a period of years / Then left a noisom body
Life in this form is given a term of years. Death becomes a part of the pattern of life in the fallen world.
form'd laws of prudence, and call'd them / The eternal laws of God
The inhabitants of the fallen world form rules to govern their lives; however, by calling them "The eternal laws of God," they deny their agency in creating these laws and their complicity in enforcing them. The laws are seen as coming from an outside, higher authority. Since they are seen as God's laws, they are presumed to have universal application and authority. In this way, the net of religion entraps the citizen's of Urizen's world.
now call'd Africa
Africa is a heart shaped continent. Thus this name for the thirty cities is suggested by their division "In form of a human heart" (25.44). The slave trade was at its height when Blake wrote The Book of Urizen, so calling the cities Africa would also suggest the enslavement of their inhabitants.
its name was then Egypt
An allusion to the enslavement of the people of Israel from which Moses saved them (see Exodus 1).
The remaining sons
Not all the sons of Urizen are captured in the net of religion.
Net of Urizen
See Plate 28.
Fuzon call'd all together
As the leader of his people, Fuzon takes on the role of Moses (see Exodus 2).
they left the pendulous earth: / They called it Egypt, & left it
Fuzon leads his people out from under the net of Urizen. As the Moses of his people, he leads them out of Egypt (see Exodus 5-14).
And the salt ocean rolled englob'd
The final image not only suggests the closing of the Red Sea over the Egyptians pursuing Moses (Exodus 14: 26-29), but also the way Urizen is englobed and closed off from Eternity. Worrall suggests that "the 'salt ocean' are our tears as well as the sea" (142). However, Urizen constantly wept as he explored his world, so the "salt ocean" may be constituted of his tears. It is part of his solipsistic self-englobing.