ABSTRACT
The recurrent theme of Urizen exploring his dens contains elements from the story of Jupiter setting out to explore the earth after his conquest of the Titans. Odin likewise enters the composite figure of Urizen; and a connecting link between Odin and Jupiter is provided by the theme of the god exploring this world. Urizen's unwonted appearance as an armed man prepares us for his encounter with his three "daughters," William Blake's Norns or Fates. The implication clearly is that Urizen himself is responsible for the metamorphosis of all his three daughters into monsters, the "iron hearted sisters." Urizen's "army of horrors, his monsters sin-bred and lust form'd" that "teem'd vast enormities," are generated from corruption. Blake holds Urizen, and not Pharaoh, responsible for the fate of the laborers of the brick kilns, whether of Raamses and Pithom, or of London.
