Album: Themes from william blake's the marriage of heaven and hell
[plate 15]
I was in a printing house in hell & saw the method in which knowledge is
transmitted from generation to generation. In the first chamber was a
dragon-man, clearing away the rubbish from a cave's mouth; within, a
number of dragons were hollowing the cave. In the second chamber was a
viper folding round the rock & the cave, and others were adorning it
with gold, silver and precious stones. In the third chamber was an eagle
with wings and feathers of air: he caused the inside of the cave to be
infinite; around were numbers of eagle-like men, who built palaces in the
immense cliffs. In the fourth chamber were lions of flaming fire, raging
around & melting the metals into living fluids. In the fifth chamber were
unnam'd forms, which cast the metals into the expanse. There they receiv'd
by men who occupied the sixth chamber, and took the forms of book & were
arranged in libraries.
[plates 16-17]
The giants who formed this world
into its sensual existence and now seem to live in it in chains, are in
truth the causes of its life & the sources of all activity; but the chains
are the cunning of weak and tame minds which have power to resist energy,
according to The Proverb, the weak in courage is strong in cunning. Thus
one portion of beings is the prolific, the other the devouring: to the
devourer it seems as if the producer was in his chains: but it is no so,
he only takes portions of existence and fancies that the whole. But the
prolific would cease to be prolific unless the devourer, as a sea received
the excess of his delights. Some will say: 'Is not God alone the prolific?
' I answer: 'God only acts & is, in existing beings or men'. These two
classes of men are always upon earth,& they should be enemies: whoever
tries to reconcile them seeks to destroy existence. Religion is an
endeavour to reconcile the two. Note: Jesus Christ did not wish to unite,
but to seperate them, as in the parable of sheep and goats!& He says: 'I
came not to send peace, but a sword. ' Messiah or Satan or tempter was
formerly thought to be one of the antediluvians who are our energies.