Tiriel
Tiriel subsequently set himself up as a tyrant in the west, driving one of his brothers, Ijim, into exile in the wilderness, and chaining the other, Zazel, in a cave in the mountains.
Tiriel then made slaves of his own children, until eventually, led by the eldest son, Heuxos, they too rebelled, overthrowing their father.
[3] Soon thereafter, Myratana dies, and Tiriel's children again ask him to remain with them but he refuses and wanders away, again cursing them and telling them he will have his revenge; There take the body.
Tiriel lies about who he is, claiming that he was cast into exile by the gods, who then destroyed his race; "I am an aged wanderer once father of a race/Far in the north.
Upon seeing Tiriel, Ijim immediately assumes that Tiriel is another manifestation of the spirit; This is the hypocrite that sometimes roars a dreadful lion Then I have rent his limbs & left him rotting in the forest For birds to eat but I have scarce departed from the place But like a tyger he would come & so I rent him too Then like a river he would seek to drown me in his waves But soon I buffetted the torrent anon like to a cloud Fraught with the swords of lightning.
but I bravd the vengeance too Then he would creep like a bright serpent till around my neck While I was Sleeping he would twine I squeezd his poisnous soul Then like a toad or like a newt.
dark smoke Where art thou Pestilence that bathest in fogs & standing lakes Rise up thy sluggish limbs.
the father ready stands to form The infant head while the mother idle plays with her dog on her couch The young bosom is cold for lack of mothers nourishment & milk Is cut off from the weeping mouth with difficulty & pain The little lids are lifted & the little nostrils opend The father forms a whip to rouze the sluggish senses to act And scourges off all youthful fancies from the newborn man Then walks the weak infant in sorrow compelld to number footsteps Upon the sand.
Such was Tiriel Compelld to pray repugnant & to humble the immortal spirit Till I am subtil as a serpent in a paradise Consuming all both flowers & fruits insects & warbling birds And now my paradise is falln & a drear sandy plain Returns my thirsty hissings in a curse on thee O Har Mistaken father of a lawless race my voice is past[7] Upon this outburst, Tiriel then dies at his parents' feet; "He ceast outstretch'd at Har & Heva's feet in awful death" (8:29).
When Ijim arrives at the palace with Tiriel, he begins by saying "Then it is true Heuxos that thou hast turned thy aged parent/To be the sport of wintry winds" (4:72-73).
in deep thought whether these things were so[31] The second large deletion occurs towards the end of the poem, when Tiriel asks Har "Why is one law given to the lion & the patient Ox/And why men bound beneath the heavens in a reptile form" (8:9-10).
poisons inhaling from the morning rose With daggers hid beneath their lips & poison in their tongue Or eyed with little sparks of Hell or with infernal brands Flinging flames of discontent & plagues of dark despair Or those whose mouths are graves whose teeth the gates of eternal death Can wisdom be put in a silver rod or love in a golden bowl Is the son of a king warmed without wool or does he cry with a voice Of thunder does he look upon the sun & laugh or stretch His little hands into the depths of the sea, to bring forth The deadly cunning of the flatterer & spread it to the morning[32] A major question concerning the manuscript is whether or not Blake ever intended to illuminate it.
Whether he had devised his method for relief etching at the time of composition is unknown, although he did make twelve drawings which were apparently to be included with the poem in some shape or form.
Although Northrop Frye speculates that the Vales of Har are located in Ethiopia,[14] due to the pyramids in the illustration Tiriel supporting Myratana, S. Foster Damon believes the poem to be set in Egypt, which is a symbol of slavery and oppression throughout Blake's work.
[20] For example, in The Book of Urizen (1794), after the creation of mortal man, They lived a period of years Then left a noisom body To the jaws of devouring darkness
[36] Similarly, in The Book of Los (1795), Urizen is imprisoned within "Coldness, darkness, obstruction, a Solid/Without fluctuation, hard as adamant/Black as marble of Egypt; impenetrable" (Chap.
Because their brethren & sisters liv'd in War & Lust; And as they fled they shrunk Into two narrow doleful forms: Creeping in reptile flesh upon The bosom of the ground:[37] Damon refers to this transformation as turning them into "serpents of materialism," which he relates back to their role in Tiriel.
Harold Bloom points out that the points of the compass, which would come to play a vital role in Blake's later mythological system, are used symbolically for the first time in Tiriel; "the reference to "the western plains" in line 2 marks the onset of Blake's directional system, in which the west stands for man's body, with its potential either for sensual salvation or natural decay.
"[2] Similarly, Kathleen Raine points out, "this phantasmagoria on the theme of the death of an aged king and tyrant-father may be – indeed, must be – read at several levels.
"[43] A different reading is given by S. Foster Damon, who argues that it is "an analysis of the decay and failure of Materialism at the end of the Age of Reason.
"[1] Similarly, arguing that Har represents Christianity and Heva is an Eve figure, Damon believes the poem illustrates that "by the end of the Age of Reason, official religion had sunk into the imbecility of childhood.
"[17] David V. Erdman looks at the poem from a political perspective, reading it in the light of the commencement of the French Revolution in July 1789, with the Storming of the Bastille.
In England, the royal grasp had suddenly failed but there seemed nothing for the people to do but wait and see [...] when the King's recovery was celebrated, a bit prematurely, in March 1789, "happiness" was again official.
Popular movements did exist, but except for the almost subterranean strike of the London blacksmiths for a shorter workday, they were largely humanitarian or pious in orientation and in no immediate sense revolutionary.
"[44] He also feels the poem deals with "the internal disintegration of despotism,"[45] and finds a political motive in Tiriel's final speech, which he sees as inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile, or On Education.
[48] In this sense, she reads Tiriel's final speech as "reflecting the agony of a self trapped in the repressive social mores and intellectual absolutism of eighteenth-century England.
"[19] Perhaps the most common theory, however, is summarised by Nelson Hilton, who argues that it "suggests in part a commentary on the state of the arts in an age which could conceive of poetry as a golden structure built with "harmony of words, harmony of numbers" (John Dryden) [...] exchanging the present for the past, Tiriel views late eighteenth-century English artistic material and practice as an impotent enterprise with nothing left but to curse its stultifying ethos of decorum and improvement.
"[50] Hilton is here building on the work of Damon, who argued that Mnetha represents "neoclassical criticism, which protects decadent poetry (Har) and painting (Heva).
[50] Similarly, in this same line of interpretation, Ostriker argues that "our singing birds" (3:20) and "fleeces" (3:21) suggest neoclassical lyric poetry and pastoral poetry, while Erdman argues that "To catch birds & gather them ripe cherries" (3:13) "signifies triviality and sacchurnity of subject matter", whilst "sing in the great cage" (3:21) "signifies rigidity of form.
"[52] Tiriel (Russian: Тириэль) is a 1985 opera with libretto and music by Russian/British composer Dmitri Smirnov partially based on Blake's text.
