CHAPTER 96
GREG, YULIYA, DANIEL and Benjamin Morant left for the British Museum.
— Every ten years they have an art exhibition celebrating the birth of William Blake, bringing his artworks that are scattered around the world.
— And this year, coincidence or not, do you have such an exhibition?
Yuliya nodded.
— This year marks the 240th anniversary of his birth.
— And what are we necessarily looking for?
— Blake's Frontispiece to The Song of Los, showing Urizen presiding over the decline of morality, is a drawing of Urizen kneeling in front of the altar under a sun.
— If we get that information, we can imagine that MI6 has it too.
— I do not believe this...
— Why?
— It's simpler than we think, because the man who cracks the codes for MI6 is Igor Zumerick, and right now he's no longer with them.
— It has a certain logic.
— But speaking of the work The Song of Los, written in 1795, is one of the epic poems by William Blake , known as prophetic books . The poem consists of two sections, "Africa" and "Asia". In the first section, William Blake catalogs the decline of morality in Europe, which he attributes both to the African slave trade and to Enlightenment philosophers. The book provides a historical context for The Book of Urizen , The Book of Ahania and The Book of Los , and also links these more obscure works to the Continental Prophecies, "Europe" and "America". The second section consists of Them inciting the revolution.
— So we can assume that Paul Leaks is trying to create a revolution.
— You don't want to, it's been many years since he's been making a revolution...
Greg nodded and Yuliya continued:
— During the autumn of 1790 Blake moved to Lambeth, Surrey. He had a studio in the new house, which he used while writing what was later called his "Lameth Books", which included The Song of Los, in 1795. Like others under the title, all aspects of the work, including the Composing the drawings, printing them, coloring them and selling them all took place in his home. Early sketches of The Song of Los were included in a notebook that contained images created between 1790 and 1793. The Song of Los was one of the few works that Blake describes as "illuminated printing", one of his works printed in color, with the colored ink being placed on the copper plate before printing.
— That Frontispiece is one of them...
She nodded.
— The work's pages and images were 23 cm × 17 cm in size, the size of America a Prophecy and Europe a Prophecy. And the work was occasionally bound with the other two works. Only six copies of the work survive, and these are not listed along with other prints by William Blake, which he sold in 1818 or 1827. There was no mention of the work by his contemporaries or his first biographer, Alexander Gilchrist.
The work begins with a title page image of an empty, dead world, with an old man looking at the title of the work. The work begins in Africa, with Los singing Adam, Noah and Moses and how they received laws from Urizen. This involves abstractions being granted to Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato. Gospel to Jesus, a bible for Muhammad and a book on warfare given to Odin. These made the world fail, for they were chains that bound the mind.
She took out her cell phone, typed quickly, then read a passage:
Thus the terrible race of Los and Eniharmon gave
Laws and Religions to the children of Har, binding them ever closer to Earth: closing and restricting: Until a Philosophy of the Five Senses was complete, Urizen wept and delivered it into Newton's hands and Locke
— Plate 4, lines 13— 17
In the second half of the work, Asia, Orc creates fire in the mind, which causes the kings to be scared and a kind of apocalypse begins:
The Grave cries out with delight, and shakes
Its hollow belly, and squeezes the solid trunk: Its breast swells with wild desire: And smooth & blood & glandular wine In rivers run & cry & dance, In mountain, valley and plain.
— Plate 7, lines 35-40
— Canção de Los is linked to both America and Europe, insofar as it describes Africa and Asia, which function as a kind of frame for the other works. Thus, the three works are united by the same historical and social themes. The "Africa" section of the poem summarizes Blake's historical cycles, which describes a three-part tyrannical power of Egypt, Babylon and Rome. From this summary appears the line — The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his night tent, which is also the first line of America, the Prophecy.
— The "Asia" section follows the actions in America a Prophecy, and describes a world revolution in an apocalyptic state. There are many similarities between the way Orc is described in the poem, a pillar of fire that burns oppression, and how Fingal from Macpherson's Fingal is described. Fingal, in the work Ossiana, is a good character who defends the oppressed against the Norse and the Romans. While Fingal fights imperialism, Orc fights Urizen's rationality, and both seek to free their people. The work closely follows the idea of biblical prophecy, as it is brief and focused.
— In this case, the Apocalypse.
— Yes… The first section condenses the history of religion, but it does so in a non — chronological way. His story relies on Urizen to establish the various historical moments as incidents, and the type of order within the poem is similar to the prophetic narrative, the prophetic imagery is also embodied in the work of Los, who, by submitting to the system created by Urizen, loses its prophetic capacity, in addition to the prophetic aspects, the work deals with religion as a whole. The first section describes the origins of the priesthood and the origins of the religion, which is established through a form of bardic poetry.
— Now we have another important question to ask.
— You can do it, Greg.
'Is the Stillton Foundation funding this exhibition?'
— Almost all of William Blake's collection in the world is theirs.
'Then I think it's important that we pay Mr. Stillton a brief visit.'
— First, we have to get Yuliya and Daniel to safety.
Greg nodded and said:
— I think I have an excellent place for that.