The Book of Thel
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The Book of Thel is a poem by William Blake, dated 1789 and probably worked on in the period 1788 to 1790. It is illustrated by his own plates, and is relatively short and easy to understand, compared to his later prophetic books. The metre is a fourteen-syllable line.
It was preceded by Tiriel, which Blake left in manuscript. A few lines from Tiriel were incorporated into The Book of Thel.
This book consists of eight plates executed in illuminated printing. 15 copies of original print of 1789-1793 are known. Two copies have watermark of 1815, which are more elaborately colored than the others.
Contents |
[edit] Thel's Motto
- Does the Eagle know what is in the pit,
- Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
- Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod,
- Or Love in a golden bowl?
[edit] The first lines
- The daughters of Mne Seraphim led round their sunny flocks,
- All but the youngest. She in paleness sought the secret air,
- To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day.
- Down by the river of Adona her soft voice is heard,
- And thus her gentle lamentation falls like the morning dew;
[edit] Characters
- Thel
- The Clod of Clay
- The Lily of the Valley
- The Cloud
- The Worm
- The Ghosts
[edit] The story
The daughters of Mne Seraphim are all shepherdesses in the Vales of Har, apart from the youngest, Thel. She spends her time wandering on her own, trying to find the answer to the question that torments her: why does the springtime of life inevitably fade so that all things must end? She meets the Lily of the Valley who tries to comfort her. When Thel remains uncomforted, the Lily sends her on to ask the Cloud. The Cloud explains that he is part of a natural process and, although he sometimes disappears, he is never gone forever. Thel replies that she is not like the Cloud and when she disappears she will not return. So the Cloud suggests asking the same question of the Worm. The Worm is still a child and cannot answer. Instead it is the Worm’s mother, the Clod of Clay, who answers. The Clod explains that we do not live for ourselves, but for others. She invites Thel to enter into her underground realm and see the places of the dead where Thel herself will one day reside. Once there, at the places of the dead, however, Thel is assailed by mysterious voices asking a whole series of yet more terrible questions of existence. Uttering a shriek, she flees back to her home in the Vales of Har. The grave represents sex and mortality, while the Vales of Har represent virginity and youth.
[edit] Quotations
- "The Book of Thel is an allegory of the unborn spirit visiting the world of generation. Thel rejects the self-sacrificing aspects of experience and flies back to eternity. The symbols of Lily-of-the-Valley, the Cloud, the Worm and the Clod of Clay represent idealistic fancy, youth, adolescence and motherhood."(Geoffrey Keynes)[citation needed]
- "The Bool of Thel is best understood as a rewriting of Milton's Comus. ... Blake tells the same story, but in biological terms, not moral ones."(S. Foster Damon)[citation needed]
[edit] Trivia
- Metal singer Bruce Dickinson recorded an adaptation of this for his 1998 album "The Chemical Wedding".
