Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/291

 Rh to sea, only glancing here and there at the other roads that lead the same way, and carry freights of meaning by other means of transport.

The book of "Milton," however, demands more than any to be read in several meanings at once. The comment may, therefore, go backwards for a moment and very slightly trace the companion methods.

In "Vala," Night VIII., l. 345, Los, in the same words as are found in "Milton," p. 20, l. 15, speaks to the delusive female forms who are Eahab, and identifies himself with the Bard, and Blake, and by a single quality. The Bard taking refuge in the bosom of Milton, and Milton in the foot of Blake, are seen all to signify phases of the one great Spirit, whose sacrificial side is perfect in Christ, and whose prophetic voice was called Elijah before it was named Los.

Los conversing with Rahab is, in her, conversing with Milton's wives and daughters through the first of them. ("Milton," p. 16, l. 11.) Thus he is, in a degree, Milton telling the myth of Satan and Palamabron to the triple form or division of the twenty-seven heavens when he relates it to Rahab.

The account in "Vala" slightly differs from that in "Milton," but is essentially the same. (Night VIII., 1. 362, &c.) We are able to follow the artistic thread, and to a certain extent the biographical thread, by remembering that Hayley was occupying Blake with painting a head of Homer in his library at the time, as well as with the attempt to persuade him to study the classics, and by enforcing on him the duty of following any and every branch of art except symbolic design.

Satan — or the Greek Apollo (see conversations with Crabb Robinson), or classicality, as explained in the Preface to "Milton," and naturalism in art — accused Palamabron before his brethren. These were sons of Los belonging to the group whom Los refused to coerce, though their liberty caused him to go in fear of his own life. ("Vala," Night VII., l. 476.)