A R T I C L E

BlakeandtheMountainsoftheMind

NelsonHilton

Blake/AnIllustratedQuarterly,Volume14,Issue4,Spring1981,pp.196-204

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BLAKE A N D THE MOUNTAINS OF THE M I N D

NELSON HILTON

W h i l e the Romantics looked to nature's mountains in the form of Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, or Skiddaw to f ind a v i s i b le

externa l izat ion of the i r psychology,1 Blake's

mountains r e f l e c t an i n t e r i o r v is ion of the mountains of mythology and those, not fa r d i s t an t , of the Bib le . These b e f i t a poet who saw his visions in the worlds of thought and, from a l l accounts, never saw a genuine mountain (much less a Welsh one) in his l i f e . Mircea Eliade summarizes the mythological dimension:

Mountains are the nearest thing to the sky, and are thence endowed wi th a twofold hol iness: on the one hand they share in the spat ia l symbolism of transcendence--they are ' h i g h , ' ' v e r t i c a l , ' 'supreme,' and so on--and on the other, they are the especial domain of a l l hierophanies of atmosphere, and therefore, the dwell ing of the gods.^

Their symbolic and re l ig ious s ign i f i cance, he continues, " is endless." One can see the sacred qua l i t y stemming from the fact that mountains penetrate the upper, pure regions of the atmosphere (aether) carr ied on in seventeenth-century poetic d i c t i o n , where standard non-negative epi thets are "cloud-touching, s ta r -b rush ing . "

3 For the ancient

Greeks the upper a i r , source of meteors and other meteorological events, was in teg ra l l y re lated to mountains and "high ground"--ta meteora; t he i r conjunction of fers "a spot where one can pass from one cosmic zone to another" (El iade, p. 100). Blake wr i tes of the "Atlantean h i l l s " that "from the i r b r igh t summits you may pass to the Golden world" (Am 10.6, 7).

h The dwell ing of Zeus--Dios, God of

the Br ight Sky--was Mount Olympus, but "olympus" was to be found a l l over mountainous Greece; the word i t s e l f i s the pre-Greek term for "mountain."

The Romans, though lacking mountains, nonetheless d ign i f i ed " the i r own poor l i t t l e Capitol . . . w i t h the t i t l e of 'Mons'"

5 and the cosmological zone of

the female body receives the same d i g n i t y .6

In Mesopotamia, "temples were cal led the 'mountain house,' the 'house of the mountain of a l l lands,

1 the 'mountain of storms,' the 'bound between

sky and ea r th , ' and so o n . "7 The association of

meteora, high th ings, and center ing, is again expressed in the widespread be l i e f of various cultures that the i r mountain l i es d i r e c t l y under the pole s ta r , and so presents the Axis Mundi. In the Old Testament one of the names of God, El-Shaddai, can be translated as "the God of the Mountain, the God of the 'Height' or (as the highest) an ast ra l god,"

8 and in the h i s to r i ca l period of I s r a e l ,

"mountain house" became a common name for " temple."9

The closeness of God and the mountain is t y p i f i e d by the theophanies at S ina i . As houses of God, they are also places of s a c r i f i c e , h igh--Lat in a£ ta - -a l t a r s ; in Genesis 22:2 God t e l l s Abraham to o f fe r his son"for a burnt o f fe r ing upon one of the mountains which I w i l l t e l l thee o f . " So Los takes Ore "to the top of a mountain" [BV 20.21) to chain him down. The New Testament made great use of the Old Testament symbolism, and i t s repeated descrip-t ion of Jesus' going eis to oros> "up the mountain" or " in to the mountains," assumes a formulaic dimension.

10 L i t t l e wonder that Blake should

characterize the two Testaments by the i r respective dominant mountains:

Such is the Divine Written Law of Horeb & Sina i : And such the Holy Gospel of Mount Ol ivet &

Calvary

[J 16.68-69)

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One mountain, however, serves to site and anchor both Testaments: Mount Zion, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth" (Ps. 48:2), "the holy Mountain" (Zech. 8:3) of the Lord and synonymous with its city, Jerusalem. So Paul reminds the Hebrews, "But ye are come unto mount Si on, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (12:22). Tiny Mount Zion is to "tower over the other mountains" (Clifford, p. 157; cf. Is. 2:4, Mic. 4:1).

As Jerusalem is to Mount Zion, so she was and will be to Albion; which is to say that Albion is--or rather, was and will be--a holy mountain. Holinshed, who begins his Chronicles discussing the legend of the ancient denomination of England, refers to speculation "whether Britaine was called Albion of the word Alb, white, or Alp an hill."11 The name in fact is connected with the root of Latin Alpis, Gaelic alp, and Irish ailp, meaning mountain. Blake plays on this assonance and etymological connection, imagining that Los's "voice is heard from Albion: the Alps & Appenines / Listen" (j 85.16-17). As only high mountains tend to be white (with snow), the traditional association of Albion with albus could also be seen to suggest that Albion was once a high mountain, now islanded by the sea. This could be confirmed by Albion's white cliffs, a word Blake generally uses in its less common sense of "a steep slope, a hill." The cliffs are the sides of Albion's great mountain as it slips down below the surface of the sea: "... Albion the White Cliff of the Atlantic / The Mountain of Giants ..." (J 49.6-7).

Mountains are necessarily related to the image of the ocean deluge. Thomas Burnet's mytho-poetic Sacred Theory of the Earth (1681) argued that the weight of the floodwaters broke the crust of the paradisal "mundane egg" into mountains.12 In a somewhat similar manner, when Eternity rolls apart in The Book of Urizen what is left is "mountainous all around," dominated by "ruinous fragments of life / Hanging frowning cliffs & all between / An ocean of voidness unfathomable" (5.7, 9-11). Earlier cosmologies also focused on the creation of "land" out of Chaos (if not Eternity)--the deep, the Semitic Tehom. These traditions imagined that the mountains were placed in Tehom to serve as foundations of the world--they were the first dry land, like Mount Ararat after the later flood. According to some rabbinical similes, "God's mountains reach down to the great Tehom" and "these mountains dominate Tehom, lest it should rise and innundate the earth."13 As foundations, the mountains are seen as the "pillars of heaven" (Job 26:11, cf. 9:6). So in Albion/ Jerusalem,

Pancrass & Kentish-town repose Among her golden pillars high:

Among her golden arches which Shine upon the starry sky.

(J 27.9-12)

The cosmological scope of this reference is clear remembering that the "piHard hall & arched roof of Albions skies" receive "the eternal wandering stars" (FZ, II, 25.16, 32.9; E 310, 315).14 Since the flood represented the victory of Chaos, of Leviathan, some rabbinical commentators held that the land of Israel

was not submerged by the Deluge, a belief which is paralleled in Islam. A. J. Wensinck comments:

Why the Sanctuary is not attained by the waters of the Deluge is clear: Deluge is the reign of Tehom, of old a demonic power, familiar from the creation stories. The Sanctuary is the type and representation of Kosmos and of Paradise and as such a power diametrically opposed to Chaos; when the Semites maintain that the Sanctuary was not reached by the Deluge, this is not only due to the opinion that the Sanctuary is the highest place in the world, but also to the conviction that Chaos cannot gain a complete victory over Kosmos, for behind the latter is the creative power of the supreme being.

(pp. 15-16)

This conception of fers several analogies to Blake's images, from that of the one sense through which man may "himself pass out" {Ever i i i . 5 ) which remained a f te r the other senses "whelm'd in deluge" {Eur 10.10-11) over him, to the picture of Albion as the mountain remaining when "the A t lan t i c Continent sunk round Albions C l i f f y shore / And the Sea pourd in amain" {J 32[36].40-41). The "sea of Time & Space" is the pr inc ipa l deluge. This may account fo r the frequent graphic depict ion of an act ion taking place on a locat ion surrounded by water; i t is an image of England, but i t s i gn i f i es also imaginative v i s i o n , not yet drowned in Time and Space (or Realism or Naturalism). So when Reuben sleeps " l i k e one dead in the va l ley " - - the va le , or l ow- l y ing , submersible land--the notable thing is that he is thus "Cut o f f from Albions mountains & from a l l the Earths summits" (J 30[34].43,44). "Wild seas & Rocks" are to "close up Jerusalem away from / The A t lan t i c Moutains" {j 49.77-50.1). America t e l l s that

On those vast shady h i l l s between America & Albions shore;

Now bar r 'd out by the A t lan t i c sea: c a l l ' d Atlantean h i l l s

Because from the i r br ight summits you may pass to the Golden world

An ancient palace, archetype of mighty Emperies, Rears i t s immortal pinnacles. . . .

(10.5-9)

One c r i t i c has cal led th is passage " icon ic" and remarked i t s " t an ta l i z i ng qua l i t y of meanings nearly communicated yet w i t hhe ld . "

1 5 Without entering the

context of America or the " s u i t a b i l i t y of invoking the myth of a l o s t , paradisal A t lan t i s as a symbol of transcendent u n i t y , "

1 6 I would simply emphasize

that the mythic st ructure of the mountain sanctuary, temple, palace is i t s e l f a "meaning communicated." The reader is to ld something about the s i t u a t i o n , appearance, and funct ion of the summit-structure and i t takes i t s place among Blake's v is ionary locales-- the descr ipt ion engages our a t ten t ion by ca l l i ng up la tent (and several times removed) mythological associat ions. The A t l a n t i c , one should remember, is named not for A t l a n t i s , but fo r the Titan A t l as , seen in c lass ica l times as Mount A t las , the p i l l a r of heaven. A t las , Blake bel ieved, was the Greek name fo r A lb ion, "Patr iarch of the A t l an t i c " {DC, E 534; i t a l i c s added). Blake viewed

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his Hesperian s i tua t ion qui te personal ly, as evident in the dedicatory poem to The Grave, which says that his "designs unchangd remain":

For above Times troubled Fountains On the Great A t lan t i c Mountains In my Golden House on high There they Shine Eternal ly

("The Caverns of the Grave," 17-20)

These mountains r ise out of the sea of time becoming the " i n f i n i t e " and "e terna l " mountains, the s i t e of paradise: "the Garden of Eden . . . the golden mountains" (J 28.2) , "the mountain palaces of Eden" (j 41[46] .3-4) .

The set t ing of Abraham's sac r i f i ce and Jesus' c ruc i f i x i on leads to the very d i f f e ren t image of Albion "s la in upon his Mountains / And in his Tent,"

1 Lucas van Leyden, "Calvary" (1517; 11 1/8 X 16 1/4 i n . ) Courtesy of the B r i t i sh Museum.

2 Hogarth, Industry and Idleness, p i . X I , "The Idle 'Prent ice Executed at Tyburn" (1747; 10 1/2 X 13 1/4 i n . ) . Courtesy of the B r i t i s h Museum.

a formula which occurs three times [M 3.1-2; 19.20; J 59.16). The Tent is the Sky [M 29 .4) , and the plural mountains reach back to the common mytho-logica l idea of a central ten t -po le , axle- t ree mountain, and four smaller poles making a square around i t (the sor t depicted, in cross-sect ion, dropping around plates 1 and 21 of Job). The image also evokes "mountainous Wales," where Albion's ancient inhabitants f led o r i g i na l l y to escape the Saxons, there f i n a l l y to be conquered by Norman Edward I , who, as re to ld by Gray, put to death "a l l the Bards that f e l l in to his hands"--the poetic beinq of A lb ion .

1 7

But from a l l ind ica t ions , something happened e a r l i e r , something which "separated the stars from the mountains: the mountains from Man" {j 17.31). Somewhere in the Druid past, Albion changed "From w i l l i n g sacr i f i ce of s e l f , to sac r i f i ce of (misca l l 'd ] Enemies / For Atonement," an ac t ion , l i ke Abraham's, located on the mountains. Albion concludes his opening speech in Jerusalem saying:

By demonstration man alone can l i v e , and not by f a i t h .

My mountains are my own, and I w i l l keep them to myself:

The Malvern and the Cheviot, the Wolds Plinlimmon & Snowdon

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Are mine, here will I build my Laws of Moral

Virtue! Humanity shall be no more: but war & princedom

& victory!

(J 4.28-32, my italics)

In less than ten lines, "Albions mountains run with

blood, the cries of war & of tumult" {J 5.6). These

sacrifices in turn react on their sites as

. . all the mountains and hills shrink up

like a withering gourd

As the Senses of Men shrink together under the

Knife of flint In the hands of Albions Daughters, among the

Druid Temples

U 66.82-84)18

Other of Alb ion's f a l l en mountains are l i s t e d in another catalogue: ". . . the Peak, Malvern & Cheviot Reason in Cruelty / Penmaenmawr & Dhinas-bran Demonstrate in Unbelief" {J 21.34-35). The single appearance of "Dhinas-bran" may refer to "Dfn Breon, the Hill of Legislature," which "was the sacred mount, where . . . the ancient judges of the land, assembled, to decide causes."

1 9

Blake was evident ly impressed by the descr ipt ion in Ezekiel of the s a c r i f i c i a l feast the Lord is to

make of his enemies; a l l the beasts are inv i ted to the "great sac r i f i ce upon the mountains of I s r a e l , that ye may eat f lesh and drink b lood;" there "ye shal l eat f a t t i l l ye be f u l l , and drink blood t i l l ye be drunken" (29:17, 19). In "the Song" sung at "The Feast of Los and Enitharmon" Blake transfers the action to the mountains themselves--which begin to emerge as s o l i d i f i e d giant forms wi th B ib l i ca l h i s to r i es :

[The Mountain del.~\ Ephraim ca l ld out to [The Mountain del.~\ Zion: Awake 0 Brother Mountain

Let us refuse the Plow & Spade, the heavy Roller & spiked

Harrow, burn a l l these Corn f i e l d s , throw down a l l these fences

Fattend on Human blood and drunk wi th wine of l i f e is bet ter far

(FZ, I , 14.7-10, E 304, 746)

C l i f f o r d notes the suggestion that "the feast on the mountain of the bodies of the enemy is a transforma-t ion of the exchatological p ic ture of the 'joyous f eas t ' " as in Isaiah 25:6-8. "Possibly," he concludes, "the banquet for the v ic tor ious on the mountain and the s laughter -sacr i f i ce of the enemies are one and the same" (pp. 176-77). This dua l i t y seems applicable to the Wedding Feast of Los and Enitharmon, since they begin, wi th Urizen, "Rejoicing

The IDLE 1'KKNTICK Executed* Tyburn.

2 0 0

in the Victory" (12.35, E 303, c f . J 4.32 above). Blake's in ter tw in ing vis ion of the Fall on the mountains of Israel and England fol lows from his conception of Druid practices and from hints in the Old Testament—unified in an image of "moral" sac r i f i ce on mountains (c lass ica l mountains, ora, become moral emblems). His f i r s t use of the negative power of Old Testament mountains is the f igure and set t ing of "har," the Hebrew for "mountain," i n pa r t i cu la r , "the mountain" {ha-har) where Moses received the Law (c f . C l i f f o r d , p. 107 f f . ) ; as Blake would have read in Bryant: "Har and Hor s ign i fy a mountain;'opos [oros] of the Greeks."

20 So T i r i e l f i r s t enters "the pleasant

gardens of Har" {Tir 2.10)--reminiscent of "Eden the garden of God" located on "the holy mountain of God" (Ez. 28:13-14)--and on his re tu rn , "the mountains of Har" (7 .19 ) .

2 1 The French Revolution

imagines "the old mountains . . . l i k e aged men, fading away" (9) which apt ly sui ts "aged Har" {Tir 8.6) .

The Book of Joshua of fers the Dru id- l ike image of the I s rae l i tes se t t ing up "a great stone . . . under an oak . . . by the sanctuary of the LORD" (25.26) at Shechem, which l i es between Mount Gerizim, appointed by the Lord fo r a b less ing, and Mount Ebal, appointed fo r a curse. Here, in the natural amphi-theater of the two mountainsides, Joshua divided the t r ibes of Israel according to the words of Moses, and whi le one hears l i t t l e of b lessing, twelve shouted verses beginning "Cursed be . . . " (Jos. 27:1 I f f . ) fur ther i l l u s t r a t e the nature of "barren mountains of Moral V i r tue" {J 45[31].19-20; c f . 4 . 3 1 , above). Jerusalem laments: "The mountain of blessing is i t s e l f a curse & an astonishment: / The h i l l s of Judea are fa l l en wi th me in to the deepest h e l l " {J 79.7-8). A passage repeated in The Four Zoas and Jerusalem shows Tirzah binding down the Human Form cry ing:

Bind him down Sisters bind him down on Ebal. Mount of cursing:

Mai ah come fo r th from Lebanon: & Hoglah from Mount Sinai

Weep not so Sisters! weep not so! our life depends on this

Or mercy & truth are fled away from Shechem & Mount Gilead

Unless my beloved is bound upon the Stems of Vegetation

{j 68.3-4, 7-9; FZt VIII, 105.47-48, 51-53,

E 364)

The "Stems of Vegetat ion," a revis ion of The Four Zoas' in t roduct ion to th is passage reveals, are the "stones" of the mountain a l t a r : "binding on the Stones [stems del.'] / Their victims & wi th knives tormenting them" (105.28-29 and E 759). "Druid" monuments tend to be associated with Salisbury P la in , but describing his p ic ture "The Ancient B r i t ons , " Blake wrote, "Distant among the mountains, are Druid Temples, s imi la r to Stone Henge" {DC, E 536). Blake was fo l lowing good au thor i t y . Borlase's Antiquities . . . of Cornwall, for example, observed of the Druids t ha t , " I t was a general custom to chuse fo r the i r places of worship woods which stood on the tops of h i l l s , and mountains, as more becoming the

d ign i ty and sublime of f ices of the i r devotions, and of nearer neighbourhood (as they imagined) to the habitat ions of the i r Gods."

22 Borlase remarks the

Old Testament para l le ls and describes "Karnbr§ -h i l l , which has a l l the evidences that can be desired of having been appropriated to the use of the B r i t i s h Re l ig ion ; " these are "rock-basons, c i r c l e s , stones erec t , remains of Croml£h's, Karns, a grove of Oaks, a cave, and an enclosure" (pp. 116, 120). Thomas Pennant, in his Journey to Snowden (London, 1781), wr i tes that his f e l l ow- t rave l l e r climbed a local h i l l "on whose summit was a c i r cu la r coronet of rude peppley stones . . . wi th an entrance to the east, or r i s i ng sun" (p. 63 ) .

2 3

Jerusalem shows "the Divine Vision l i k e a S i len t Sun"

. . . set t ing behind the Gardens of Kensington On Tyburns River, in clouds of blood, where

was mild Zion H i l l s Most ancient promontory, and in the Sun, a

Human Form appeared (43[29].2-4)

"Zion H i l l s most ancient promontory" i s a formula which appears twice elsewhere in Jerusalem. Plate 12 asks a f te r the burying-place of Etinthus and suggests in fur ther questions,

. . . near Tyburns fa ta l Tree? is that Mild Zion h i l l s most ancient promontory; near

mournful Ever weeping Paddington? is that Calvary and

Golgotha? (12.26-28)

2t+

This is glossed by 27.25ff where "ever-weeping Paddington" is i d e n t i f i e d as "that mighty Ruin / Where Satan the first v ic tory won" (my i t a l i c s ) , where also "the Druids" made "Offerings of Human L i f e . " The general reference is to Tyburn, London's place of publ ic hangings from as early as 1196 u n t i l 1783. By the time they were discontinued, Blake was twenty-six and undoubtedly a l l too aware of the eager crowds that appeared fo r each of the eight public hanging-days--indeed, t r a d i t i o n made these public holidays for a l l journeymen.

25 A

"Paddington Fair" was a publ ic execution, so cal led because Tyburn was less than a mile from the v i l l age of Paddington,

26 in whose parish i t was eventual ly

included. There is a v is ionary cont inu i ty jo in ing the Druid monuments, Calvary, and Tyburn: Druid human sacr i f ices "generally consisted of such cr iminals as were convicted of t h e f t , or any cap i ta l crime" (Borlase, p. 121) and Calvary--as the c ruc i f i x i on of two thieves with Jesus suggests—was, l i k e Tyburn, a s i t e fo r the execution of common cr imina ls .

I am suggesting that the passage from plate 12 of Jerusalem quoted above answers i t s e l f : Mild Zion h i l l s most ancient promontory is Tyburn's fa ta l Tree ( " that " of 1.26). Not because i t had par t i cu la r elevat ion ( i t is a mountain of the mind, a mounting of the sca f fo ld ) , but because i t possessed a l l the a t t r i bu tes of Calvary, succinct ly re-summarized by Richard Cumberland in his long poem, Calvary; or the Death of Christ (London, 1792): "Without the c i t y wall there was a mount / Ca l l ' d

2 0 1

CALVARY: The common grave i t was / Of malefactors" (V I . 440-42). According to one author i ty the Tyburn gallows was in fac t s i tuated "on a small eminence at the corner of Edgeware-Road,"

27 which road, toqether

with Park Lane was as la te as 1806 the western l i m i t of London's urbanization and the locat ion of one of i t s "gates," the Tyburn Turnpike.

2 8 Lucas van

Leyden's engraving of Calvary shows j us t how small an eminence can make a mount, or promontory ( i l l u s . 1 ) , and Sterne probably re f lec ts the general concep-t ion when he has Tristram remark that an a l t a r over s i x ty feet high would have "been as high as mount Calvary i t s e l f " (Tristram Shandy, V I I , 5) . Blake described his residence at South Molton S t r e e t -j us t blocks down Oxford Street from the old gallows--as located on "Calvarys foot / Where the Victims were preparing for Sacr i f i ce " (M 4.21-22). S ign i f i can t also was the very instrument of execution. Tyburn Tree was not a gibbet; ra ther , "The scaf fo ld consisted of three posts, ten or twelve feet h igh, held apart by three connecting cross-bars at the top . "

2^ I t was, in e f f e c t , a

ruined version of a Druidic temple made of t r i l i t hons - -one of the far- fetched hypotheses about

3 Milton, copy C, p i . 3. Courtesy of the Rare Book D iv is ion , The New York Public L ibrary , Astor, Lenox and T i l den Foundations.

Stonehenge was that i t had served as a monumental gallows. In Jerusalem, plate 80, Vala attempts to "weave Jerusalem a body" or "A Dragon form on Zion H i l l s most ancient promontory": the "form" is that of the Druidic "Dragon Temples" (J 25.4, 47.6).

These motifs are i l l u s t r a t e d at the bottom of Milton, p late 4 ( i l l u s . 3 ) ; there a rock-skul l emerges from the ground, overshadowed by three t r i l i t h o n s on a mount, reminiscent of the three crosses on Calvary (note Blake's reference to Calvary on the same p la te , quoted above), while on the r i gh t the three seem to have joined in to a threefold t r i l i t h o n which suggests a Druid form of the Tyburn gal lows.

3 0 One might note also how

d i r ec t l y above th is s t ructure a spindle or body hangs on high from the end of the l i ne held by one of Blake's spinner-Goddesses. The rock-skul l i den t i f i es th i s scene as Calvary or Golgotha, "which i s , being in te rp re ted , the place of a s k u l l " (Mk. 15:22, i n t e r a l . ) . This theme is fu r ther developed in Jerusalem, plate 28, where Albion "sat by Tyburns brook, and underneath his heel shot up! / A deadly Tree, he nam'd i t Moral V i r tue" (14-15) — the "Tree" here jo ins the cross, Tyburn Tree (c f . OED, s.v. " t r e e , " B.4a,b), and the Tree of Good and E v i l , complete with a Serpentine form at i t s base.

3 1

Tyburn, then, is Zion H i l l s promontory, "most ancient" because a l l things begin in Albion and th i s i s ' " the most ancient promontory' of sac r i f i ce " (Erdman, Prophet, p. 475), "the summit of the cosmic mountain and at the same time the place where Adam had been created and bur ied. Thus the blood of the Saviour f a l l s upon Adam's s k u l l , buried precisely at the foot of the Cross, and redeems him"

3 2 ( i l l u s . 4 ) .

The use of the word "promontory," as Tolley notes, is s ingu la r—i t serves perhaps to br ing in several associat ions. The promontory i s a visionary scene ( l i k e the A t lan t i c mountains of America), a "head-land" o f fe r ing a v is ta on the Sea of Time and Space (c f . 3 Henry VI, I I I .11 .134-36) ; i t is the s t e r i l e earth to which Hamlet equates i t (11.11.311); and f i n a l l y , i t i s the covering of the f a l l en mind: in Paradise Lost the angelic host defeats the rebels and "on t h i r heads / Main Promontories f lung" (6.653-54; c f . J. 71.55 c i ted below). Ul t imately the most ancient promontory is the reader's skul l (Golgotha/ Golgonooza), "Once open to the heavens and elevated on the human neck" {Eur 10.28), but now imagining and enclosing a l l these mountains of and in the mind.

Los, who i s himself an ancient B r i t on , reaches back to the unfal len state of the mountain imagery, praying "0 Divine Saviour ar ise / Upon the Mountains of Albion as in ancient time (J 44[30].21-22). This image, together with the evocation of "those feet in ancient time / . . . upon Englands mountains green" [M 1 ) , reca l ls the twice-repeated B ib l i ca l pra ise, "How beaut i fu l upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good t i d i n g s , that publisheth peace" ( I s . 52:7, Nah. 1:15). Considering the plate geology of r e l i e f e tching, one could say that Blake's message also is published on the mountains. The f i na le of Jerusalem presents a v is ion of "the Sun in heavy clouds / Stuggling to r i se above the Mountains" (95.11-12): a s t rugg le , perhaps, because mountains are the " r i s i ngs " of the ear th , the objects of increasing Romantic adorat ion.

2 0 2

203

That Sun w i l l r i se over d i f f e ren t mountains, the natural ones being removed and cast in to the sea by f a i t h and " f i rm perswasion" in imagination [MHH 12; c f . Mt. 21:21). Once

Jerusalem coverd the A t lan t i c Mountains & the

Erythrean, From br ight Japan & China to Hesperia France

& England. Mount Zion l i f t e d his head in every Nation

under heaven: And the Mount of Olives was beheld over the

whole Earth («7 24.46-49)

and though at present "Jerusalem l ies in ru ins : / Above the Mountains of A lb ion, above the head of Los" (J 71.54-55), in the words of Isa iah, " i t shal l come to pass in the las t days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shal l be established in the top of the mountains, and shal l be exalted above the h i l l s ; and a l l nations shal l f low unto i t " (2 :2 ) .

1 On the development of t h i s t rend , see Marjor ie Hope Nicolson,

Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite, The Norton L ibrary (1959, r p t . ; New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1963). We may note here that "mountains" do, in f a c t , appear more f requent ly in Blake's imagery (161 times in the poetry) than in Wordsworth's or She l ley 's . This i s , to be sure, hardly t rue of mount/mountain imagery at la rge ; one f inds at once that Blake uses no ad jec t i va l combinations such as "mountain gloom" or " g l o r y . " But the "mountains" themselves are more numerous, and more strange.

2 Mircea El iade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, t rans .

Rosemary Sneed, Meridian Books (New York: World Publ ish ing, 1963), p. 199.

3 Joshua Poole, English Parnassus; or, A Help to English Poesie,

c i ted i n Nicolson, p. 35. Such ep i thets show how mountains become qu in tessen t ia l l y "sublime" or sublimen, j u s t "below the threshold" (of heaven).

u References to Blake are from E: The Poetry and Prose of William

Blake, ed. David V. Erdman, 3rd ed. w/rev. (Garden C i t y , N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968). Cf. FZ, I I , 3 2 . 8 f f . , E 315: "a Golden World whose porches round the heavens / And pi Ha rd ha l l & rooms receivd the eternal wandering s t a r s . "

5 W i l f r i d Noyce, Scholar Mountaineers, Pioneers of Parnassus

(London: Dennis Dobson, 1950), p. 11 .

6 Cf. Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, V . i . 75 -77 ; Ahania urges

Urizen in a Blakean double-entendre "To ar ise to the mountain spor t , / To the b l i ss of eternal va l l eys " {BA 5 .7 -8) . Mountains also represent the woman's bosom; see in pa r t i cu l a r Blake's i l l u s t r a t i o n no. 4 to M i l t on ' s L'Allegro, "The Sunshine Hol iday."

7 E l iade, Patterns, p. 376; c f . Thomas Fawcett, The Symbolic

Language of Religion: An Introductory Study (London: SCM Press, 1970), p. 153. According to Richard J . C l i f f o r d , The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament, Harvard Semitic Mono-graphs, v o l . IV (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1972), " . . . many modern scholars seem d i s inc l i ned to use the concept of the Weltberg to describe Mesopotamian speculat ion about the cosmic center. Nonetheless, there is a cosmic center, where heaven and earth are un i ted. The cosmic center appears in some texts to be commerorated by a shrine or temple" (p. 25).

8 Ad de Vr ies , A Dictionary of Imagery and Symbolism (Amsterdam:

North-Holland Publ ish ing, 1974), S. v.* "mountain."

4 Albrecht Du'rer, "Crucifixion," from the Small Passion (1509-11; 127 X 97 mm.). Courtesy of the British Museum.

9 W. Foerster in Gerhard K i t t e l , e d . , Theological Dictionary of

the New Testament, t rans . Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vo l . V, (Grand Rapids, Mich. : Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1968), s .v . "to oros."

10 Cf. Mt. 5 : 1 , 14:23, 15:29; Mk. 3:13, 6:46; Lk. 6:12, 9:28;

Jn. 6 :3 , 6:15. Thomas Fawcett n ice ly summarizes th i s important theme:

In addi t ion to being a n t i t y p i c a l , many events in Ch r i s t ' s l i f e are associated wi th the cosmic mountain. The one in fac t i nev i tab ly brought in the other by assoc ia t ion. When Jesus is made in Matthew's gospel to give his new law from the mount, there i s both a f u l f i l m e n t of the Sinai reve la t ion in view, and underlying t h i s , the symbolism of the mountain as the place of God's d isclosure to men. The mot i f appears on several occasions. The narra t ive opens wi th a s tory of temptation i n which Chr is t formulates his message i n confrontat ion w i th the Devil and i n re l iance on the word of God, appropr ia te ly located on a mountain. The moment of d isc losure to the d isc ip les of Jesus' nature and mission takes place on the mount of T rans f igura t ion . At the summit of the mountain they see him converse wi th the saints of the past . His c r u c i f i x i o n was l a t e r held to have taken place upon a h i l l , and Calvary became the focal mountain fo r much Chr is t ian theology, because at th i s moment above a l l i t came to be held tha t God had revealed himself to man. F ina l l y the ascension is said to have taken place on the mount of Olives i n such a way that the symbolism of the summit as the point of meeting between man and God is c l ea r l y shown. His ascension from th i s point implies a summit i n which the two worlds of mythology are j o i ned .

{Symbolic Language, p. 227)

1 1 Holin8hed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 6 vol. (London: J. Johnson et a l . , 1807-1808), I , 6.

12 Cf. Thomas Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the Earth, i n t r o .

Basi l W i l l ey , Centaur Classics (Carbondale, 111. : Southern I l l i n o i s Univ. Press, 1965), Bk. K, ch. 5, p. 63.

13 A. J . Wensinck, The Ideas of the Western Semites Concerning

The Navel of the Earth; Verhandelingen der Konink l i jke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Adeeling Le Herkunde, Nieuue Reeks, Deel XV I I , no. 1 (Amsterdam: Johannes Mi i l le r , 1916), p. 2.

lk Cf. K i t t l e , e d . , Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,

s .v . stulos, " p i l l a r " : "The word stulos has cosmological s ign i f icance in some hymnal passages in the OT. . . . The primary thought here is that the earth is a house which God has b u i l t " ( v o l . V I I , p. 733). The mountains are the p i l l a r s of that house. Compare Christopher Smart's use of the image: "For he [God] hath f i xed the earth upon arches & p i l l a r s , and the flames of he l l f low under i t . " {Jubilate Agno, ed. W. H. Bond [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1954], p. 67) .

15 Vincent A. De Luca, "Ar is ton 's Immortal Palace: Icon and

Al legory in Blake's Prophecies," Criticism, 12 (Winter 1970), 5-6. For a recent and suggestive reading, c r i t i c a l of the impl icat ions of the "archetype," see Deborah Dorfman, " 'K ing of Beauty' and 'Golden World' in Blake's America: The Reader and the Archetype," ELH, 46 (Spring 1979), 122-35.

16 De Luca, p. 6 ; note that nowhere i n his work does Blake ever

s p e c i f i c a l l y mention A t l a n t i s .

1 7 According to Ma l l e t , however, "the ancient inhabi tants of

B r i t a i n have been dispossessed by the Saxons of the greatest and most pleasant par t of t he i r i s l a n d , and constrained to conceal themselves among the mountains in Wales, where, to th i s day, they re ta in t h e i r language, and preserve some traces of t he i r ancient manners;" Northern Antiquities, t rans . (London, 1770), I , 70.

18 The mountains shr ink ing " l i k e a w i ther ing gourd" suggests

God's act ion on the gourd t ree she l te r ing Jonah; He "prepared a worm . . . and i t smote the gourd tha t i t wi thered" (Jonah 4 : 7 ) . One may th ink also of the comparison of the earth to an apple, w i ther ing in to mountainous r idges.

19 Davies, Myth and Rites of the British Druids (London, 1809),

p. 6. Damon suggests the obscure "Dinas Bran," a h i l l i n north Wales topped by the ru ins of an ancient camp. Unconvinced h imsel f , he adds, "Blake might r ea l l y have had in mind Dinas Penmaen, and ancient B r i t i s h f o r t which could hold twenty thousand men. I t was on the summit of Mount Penmaenmawr" {A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake, r p t . [New York: Dutton, 1971], p. 103; c f . J 18.38 where Hand and

2 0 4

Hyle are "Bui ld ing Castles in desolated places, and strong F o r t i f i c a t i o n s " ) . One argument against "Dhinas-Bran" as a "camp" is that a l l the others are spec i f i c mountains or mountain ranges; but th i s remains unsat is fy ing at best.

2 0 Jacob Bryant, A New System or, An Analysis of Ancient

Mythology, e t c . , v o l . I (London, 1774), p. 94. The Greek root

appears in the word "oro logy, " which the OED c i tes from 1781 as

"the science of mountains."

2 1 Harold Bloom remarks, "As Har means 'mountain' in Hebrew, the

very phrase 'vales of Har' i s an i rony" [ ? ] (E 863); Damon in te rp re ts the name and s i t u a t i o n of Har as, "He who was a mountain now l i ves i n a va le , cut o f f from mankind" [Blake Dictionary, p. 174).

2 2 Wi l l iam Borlase, Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of

the County of Cornwall. Consisting of Several Essays on the First Inhabitants, Druid-Superstition, Customs, and Remains of the most Remote Antiquity e t c . , 2nd ed. (London, 1769), p. 116. The pract ice was not confined to England; John Toland bel ieved that "Abundance of such heaps remain s t i l l on the mountains i n France, and on the A lps ; " A Critical History of the Celtic Religion e tc . (London, n .d. [1740?]) , p. 102. The c ross-cu l tu ra l associat ions can extend even f u r t h e r . In his Ode to Superstition (1786), Samuel Rogers w r i t e s :

On yon hoar summit, m i ld l y b r igh t With purple e ther ' s l i q u i d l i g h t

High o 'e r the wor ld , the wh i te - rob 'd Magi gaze On dazzl ing bursts of heav'nly f i r e . . . .

( I I . 3 ) A note adds: '"The Pers ians, ' says Herodotus, ' r e j e c t the use of temples, a l t a r s , and statues. The tops of the highest mountains are the places chosen fo r s a c r i f i c e s ' " [The Pleasures of Memory with other Poems, new & enlarged ed. [London, 1799], p.

2 3 The imaginat ive power which increasingly associated mountain-

tops and Druids is exempl i f ied by a mid-nineteenth-century c l imber 's descr ip t ion of the top of "Glyder Fach": "The scene before us, in f a c t , resembled the ruins of some vast Druid ical temple--a mountain Stonehenge--which has been overthrown ages ago by some awful convulsion of nature. Indeed, so strong was our impression that we were in the midst of venerable Druid ical remains, that i t was some time ere we could convince ourselves that what we saw was in r e a l i t y a chaotic mass of stones thrown i n to inconceivable convuls ion" (John H. C l i f f e , quoted in Edward C. Pyat t , Mountains of Britain [London: B. T. Bats ford , 1966], P. 67) .

2 4 See also Michael J . To l ley , "Jerusalem 12:25-29--Some Questions

Answered," Blake Newsletter, 4 (August 1970), 3-6; and David V. Erdman, Prophet Against Empire, rev. e d . , Anchor Books (Garden C i t y , N. Y.: Doubleday, 1969), pp. 474f f .

2 5 Georqe Rude", Hanoverian London, 1714-1808, The History of

London (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univers i ty of Ca l i fo rn ia Press, 1971), p. 94.

2 6 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence, fore. Robert Cromie, rpt . from 1811 original (Chicago: Follet t Publishinq, n.d. [71971]), s.v.

2 7 John Timbs, Curiosities of London, A New Edi t ion (London,

1867), p. 809.

2 8 See, fo r example, the map accompanying B. Lambert, The History

and Survey of London and Its Environs (London, 1806), v o l . IV.

2 9 Peter Linebaugh, "The Tyburn Riot Against the Surgeons," in

Albion'8 Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England, Douglas Hay, Peter Linebaugh, John G. Rule, E. P. Thompson, Cal Winslow (New York: Pantheon Books/Random House, 1975), pp. 65-117, p. 66. The s t ruc tu re is v i s i b l e , fo r example, in Hogarth's p r i n t , The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn, Industry and Idleness, XI ( i l l u s . 2)—complete w i th a Ca lvary- l i ke crowd of spectators. Timbs reports that "The gallows subsequently consisted of two uprights and a cross-beam" (p. 809)--an equal ly Dru id ic , i f less impressive, s t r uc tu re .

30 Cf. Erdman, The Illuminated Blake, Anchor Books (Garden C i t y ,

N. Y.: Doubleday, 1974), p. 220.

3 1 Erdman as tu te ly observes that "To correspond to the serpent

in the Garden of Eden the typography of Hyde Park supplies the Serpentine River, which Blake in his deviousness never refers to by i t s own name . . . " [Blake: Prophet Against Empire, rev. ed. [Pr inceton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1 9 6 9 ] / p . 465); one antiquary notes that the fa ta l t ree was "opposite the head of the Serpentine . . . i t s e l f being formed in the bed of the ancient stream, f i r s t ca l led Tybourn. . . " (Timbs, p. 809).

32 Mircea El iade, Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal

Return, t rans . Wi l la rd R. Trask, Harper Torchbook's, Bol l ingen Library (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), p. 14; see a l s o , George Every, Christian Mythology (London: Hamlyn Publ ish ing, 1970), "The place o f the s k u l l , " pp. 51f f . Erdman wr i tes ( fo l low ing Timbs), " I t was reca l led tha t a f t e r the Restoration the bodies of Cromwell, I r e ton , and Bradshaw had been d i s i n t e r r e d , hanged, and beheaded, and then reburied [under Tyburn gal lows]--another denial of the Resurrect ion" [Prophet, p. 474).