Tharmas

Tharmas

Blake had more to say about Urizen, Luvah, and Los (fallen Urothona) than he did for Tharmas;  they describe attitudes, activities, and changes of Humankind. Tharmas represents the body; his emanation Enion represents Nature.
       In particular Tharmas is said to be body's energy (Percival 42). In Night i of The Four Zoas Blake referred to him as the "parent power":

Begin with Tharmas Parent power, darkning in the West.
                     (Four Zoas Night 1 page 4:6 301)

(By 'darkening' he meant 'falling'.)

       Damon (122) tells us that Blake used the separation of Thamas and Enion to depict the struggles of the growing lad when he discovers for the first time the power of his awakening sex, and tries "in agonized despair to suppress or control it" page 4 (of Night 1). This likely may not be the issue in our day that it was in Blake's (or in mine). The lad (Tharmas in this case) has learned from his emanation that it is sin:

Lost! Lost! Lost! are my Emanations Enion O Enion
We are become a Victim to the
Living We hide in secret (Four Zoas 1:4:7-8 301)Enion said--Thy fear has made me tremble thy terrors have surrounded me
All Love is lost Terror succeeds & Hatred instead of Love
And stern demands of Right & Duty instead of Liberty.
Once thou wast to Me the loveliest son of heaven--But now Why art thou Terrible (Four Zoas 4.17-21 301)
I have lookd into the secret soul of him I lovd
And in the Dark recesses found Sin & cannot return
(Four Zoas 1.4:26-7)

       Here is the birth of the concept of sexuality as sin which has cursed Western culture for 2000 years. Blake called it Mystery Religion and throughout his works he expressed inveterate hostility against the control of sexual mores by the priest.       In the Four Zoas there follows a loveless embrace of the Spectre from which comes forth Enitharmon (who is the emanation of Los). (This is one of several ways Blake described the appearance of the emanations as the zoas divided into their contraries.)
       "As bodily energy Tharmas is the regent of sex" (Percival 42), but much more than that in Eden. There he is the poetic genius and "the symbol of the united world", a "portion of soul":

Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets of Soul in this age
                     (MHH4; 34)

       With the disasters precipitated by Urizen and Luvah Tharmas became a raging storm (in fact he became the deluge). Blake believed that the ante-diluvian age was closer to Eden; with the deluge of Tharmas man is put down into Ulro.


Enion        The emanation of Tharmas, Enion, is called Earth Mother.       She is noted for her complaints against cold cruel nature:

       Enion blind & age-bent wept upon the desolate wind:Why does the Raven cry aloud and no eye pities her?
Why fall the Sparrow & the Robin in the foodless winter?
Faint! shivering they sit on leafless bush, or frozen stone
Wearied with seeking food across the snowy waste; the little
Heart, cold; and the little tongue consum'd, that once in thoughtless joy
Gave songs of gratitude to waving corn fields round their nest.
Why howl the Lion & the Wolf? why do they roam abroad?
Deluded by summers heat they sport in enormous love
And cast their young out to the hungry wilds & sandy desarts
Why is the Sheep given to the knife? the Lamb plays in the Sun
He starts! he hears the foot of Man! he says, Take thou my wool
But spare my life, but he knows not that winter cometh fast.
The Spider sits in his labourd Web, eager watching for the Fly
Presently comes a famishd Bird & takes away the Spider
His Web is left all desolate, that his little anxious heart
So careful wove; & spread it out with sighs and weariness.
This was the Lamentation of Enion round the golden Feast
Eternity groand and was troubled at the image of Eternal Death.
              (Four Zoas 1-17.2-18.9; E310)

       This of course is a complaint against blind nature, "red of tooth and claw"; but here's another more pointed complaint against social immorality, where the economic world too often emulates the natural one, which is to say there is no spirit evident in the world (that's Ulro).

What is the price of Experience do men buy it for a song
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath his house his wife his children
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy
And in the witherd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain
It is an easy thing to triumph in the summers sun
in the vintage & to sing on the waggon loaded with corn
It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted
to speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer
To listen to the hungry ravens cry in wintry season
When the red blood is filld with wine & with the marrow of lambs
It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan
To see a god on every wind & a blessing on every blast
To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies house
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, & the sickness that cuts off his children
While our olive & vine sing & laugh round our door & our children bring fruits & flowers
Then the groan & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave grinding at the mill
And the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier in the field
When the shatterd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead
It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity
Thus could I sing & thus rejoice, but it is not so with me!
              (Four Zoas 2-35.11-36.13 325)

       If nothing else Blake demonstrates here his power as a social prophet. Was it any more appropriate for his age than it is for ours?

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