Blake's Myths VII

Visions of the Daughters of AlbionGraphic Version Here's a Blakean twist on the ubiquitous eternal triangle of all the love stories.

Here we see clearly the moral species. Blake used it to express his emphatic displeasure at the notion that a raped girl is 'damaged goods' and no longer worthy of the love of her erswhile lover. He considered that a high degree of immorality, another expression of the Jealousy that was for Blake the primary sin; and to perceive a woman as property, all too prevalent in Blake's day and still quite common in ours.

"Father of jealousy. be thou accursed from the earth!" (And 4 lines earlier:)
Are not these the places of religion, the rewards of continence?

A poke at conventional religion in which women are considered property!

Otherwise the metaphysical (or mythological) 'species' presents an early (1793) version of the myth of the Kore. Oothoon is of course Persephone":

"The Golden nymph replied; pluck thou my flower Oothoon the mild"

Oothoon was trapped in "Pluto's realm", the material world without escape, but she never joined it. Hurrah!

This poem has a lot to say about human sexuality, but won't be dwelt with further here. It's discussed more fully at chapter 8.