The Book of Thel

The Book of Thel has 125 lines, each containing 14 syllables, plus a four-line preface, or epigraph, with lines that alternate between 10 and seven syllables. The poem is Blake’s prophetic vision of Thel, a shepherdess; a third-person narrator recounts Thel’s conversations with symbolic creatures and a mysterious voice.

Thel’s Motto (Plate 1)

In Blake’s illuminated manuscript, an entire engraved page is dedicated to Thel’s Motto—its four lines stand alone as a kind of preface, or epigraph, for the Book. These lines alternate between 10 and seven syllables, and the seven-syllable lines rhyme. The Motto poses a series of questions: First, should the reader ask an eagle or a mole about the “pit” (Motto 1). This pit foreshadows where Thel’s journey takes her: a secret underground place occupied by the dead. The burrowing mole is more familiar with the place Thel visited, like the worm she talks to, rather than a bird of prey, like the eagle.

The second set of questions Thel asks in her Motto are about the qualities of wisdom and love. She wonders if these can be contained in a rod or bowl made of precious metals: silver and gold, respectively. Generally, the rod and bowl are phallic and womb-like symbols of religious power; this symbolic combination is also referred to as staff and chalice. In Ecclesiastes 12:5-6, there is a “silver cord” that is loosed and a “golden bowl” that is broken.

Questioning the association of these symbols with expensive metals can be read as a critique of monied peoples and institutions being represented as loving and wise because of their financial status. These rhetorical questions set up the poem’s theme of the expansiveness of God’s love—it is not just for those with silver and gold.

Title Page (Plate 2)

After Thel’s Motto, which has no accompanying illustration, is a plate engraved with the title of the book and illustrations. These include Thel carrying her shepherdess’ crook next to flowers with smaller human figures entwined in their petals, as well as other background elements.

Part I (Plate 3)

The first section of poetry is designated with a Roman numeral I. Part I covers two engraved plates in Blake’s illuminated book; both plates include engraved and colored illustrations. The first illustration includes elements from the Motto, such as a person asking an eagle a question, and other human figures around Thel’s name.

The text introduces Thel, a shepherdess and the youngest daughter of Mne. Seraphim. They reside in the Vales of Har, a location Blake created for the mythology that he uses in many poems. Furthermore, a seraph is an angel of the highest order in the Christian ninefold celestial hierarchy. Blake claimed divine inspiration for his prophetic work, saying angels spoke to him.

Thel separates from her family and the sheep herds to lament by the river Adona. In the second stanza, she asks why spring flowers, like “the lotus of the water” (Line 6), and children fade with time. These questions can be read as a fear of change and aging, and as a continuation of her Motto about questioning.

Then, Thel compares herself to a list of things that she perceives as transient or momentary. Similes include intangible light that shifts, such as a “reflection in a glass” and “shadows in the water” (Line 9), as well as intangible sound that ceases, such as “the dove’s voice” and “music in the air” (Line 11). Thel’s existential crisis is founded in being unable to hold on to beautiful sensory moments because they “fade” (Line 7).

In the last three lines of the second stanza, Thel’s thoughts turn to death and God. Thel echoes “Ah!” (Lines 8 and 12), signaling this move from the list of similes to imagery of sleep. Thel characterizes death as “gentle,” repeating this word twice in both Lines 12 and 13 (four times total). The last repetition refers to the gentle “voice” (Line 13) of God, linking the gentleness of dying with the gentleness of the Biblical deity. The Christian origins of Thel’s God appear in the final line of this stanza; Blake writes, “him that walketh in the garden in the evening time” (Line 14), which is an allusion to Genesis 3.8: “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”

In the third stanza, a “Lilly of the valley” (Line 15) answers Thel. The symbolic flower begins by describing her lowliness: She is “very small” (Line 17) and “weak” (Line 18). In Line 19, Lilly’s speech takes a turn, signaled by the conjunction “Yet”; despite being a “watry weed” (Line 16), God visits her.

Lilly expands on this admission by describing how God blesses her. He “spreads his hand” (Line 20) over her while promising “light” and “manna” (Line 23) until she dies. After her death, the Lilly will “flourish in eternal vales” (Line 25). This speaks to both the expansiveness of God’s love—even a weed is blessed—and the role death plays in life. Part of God’s blessing pertains to the afterlife, or eternal vales; death is simply another step in a divine cycle. The Lilly ends her reply by asking why Thel—a creature that is far more important than a weed—“should complain” (Line 25). At the end of this engraved plate, there is a catchword; in the bottom left-hand corner of the page stands “Why,” which is the first word that appears on the following plate. The repeated “Why” from Line 25 to this catchword and to Line 26 (on the following plate) emphasizes the absurdity of Thel’s questioning the natural cycles of life and death.

Part I (Plate 4)

Part I continues onto another plate, which begins with Lilly questioning why Thel laments. Between two stanza breaks, Lilly “[sits] down” (Line 27), marking the end of her response. After this, Thel replies with a list of ways Lilly’s life benefits others. First, the flower’s fragrance “nourish[es] the innocent lamb” (Line 30), and when the lamb eats some of Lilly’s flowers, she cleans his face. Both in smell and touch, Lilly protects the lamb from “contagious taints” (Line 32); she is an innocent that helps with the maintenance of innocence.

Thel continues describing Lilly’s role as benefactor, then contrasts how she feels out of place. Lilly also helps purify honey, revive the cow, and tame the steed with her “perfume” and “wine” (Line 33). In contrast, Thel compares herself to a cloud that will quickly dissipate and be forgotten. This illustrates the theme of fears surrounding aging and death; the cloud “vanish[ing]” represents a death without a lasting reputation.

In the next stanza, Lilly responds by suggesting Thel talk to a cloud. Blake uses this device multiple times in the poem; Thel’s ideas become symbolic creatures that converse with her. Lilly believes the cloud can help Thel comprehend the role that death plays in life—the cloud can explain why it “scatters its bright beauty” (Line 40). Then, Lilly calls to the cloud in what could usually be considered an apostrophe (an address to an inanimate object): “O little cloud” (Line 41). However, the cloud does descend, becoming a symbol with the ability to respond verbally. Lilly goes back to “mind” (Line 43) her herd of flowers, a tiny version of Thel as shepherdess (a mini-version like this is called a synecdoche).

The end of this plate is an illustration of Thel talking with the symbolic Lilly under a tree by the water. Lilly is anthropomorphized, represented as a small human figure; this shows how Thel talks to a symbolic figure rather than a single lily flower. As described in the penultimate line of poetry on this page, Lilly bows to Thel, connecting the words with the illustration.

Part II (Plate 5)

Part II takes up one plate that only has small ornamental elements around the text (rather than a large engraved illustration). This section includes Thel’s conversation with a symbolic cloud. Thel repeats Lilly’s invocation—“O little Cloud” (Line 44)—and asks why Cloud does not complain about his transient state.

In the next stanza, the Cloud takes on a “bright form” (Line 48), which echoes Blake’s illustration of the anthropomorphized Lilly; both symbolic creatures take on a human form to speak with Thel. Also, this is one of Blake’s short stanzas that contain actions, like Lilly sitting down in Stanza 5, that contrast with the long stanzas of dialogue.

The following stanza is Cloud’s answer to Thel: Death is a natural part of his life. He emphasizes her innocence, calling her “virgin” (Line 50), and then describes his life cycle—in death, he joins with dew. Cloud characterizes the unification of water-based elements as sexual: They go to dew’s “shining tent” (Line 56), where the dew, a “virgin” like Thel, “kneels” (Line 57). Cloud’s death here also refers to la petite mort (the little death), or orgasm. After the loss of her virginity, the dew and Cloud are unified and feed the flowers together. Death transforms Cloud, but it is a positive and generative transformation—like Lilly, whose flowers are eaten by innocent animals, their union materially benefits others.

In the next stanza, Thel answers Cloud by expressing her feelings of uselessness. Thel feels unlike Cloud, now that they’ve spoken. Her anxious feelings come from being unable to “feed” (repeated in Lines 62 and 63) the flowers and birds. While Cloud and dew provide “food” (Line 59) for living flowers, Thel does not provide “food” (Line 63) for birds. She fears her life is thus meaningless, and she will only be useful as “food” (Line 66) for worms. Unlike the joy-filled sensory and sensual experiences of Lilly and Cloud, Thel lacks “delight” (64) in what she smells and hears. Her existential crisis centers on her being “Without a use” (Line 65), or without a role as a provider.

There is a short stanza giving Cloud a physical action—“reclin[ing]” (Line 67)—and clarifying that he is about to respond. The one- or two-line stanza with actions partly function as dialogue tags (showing that the speaker is switching) in the narrative poem.

Cloud’s response, in the following stanza, is that being food for worms is a “blessing” (Line 69). He emphasizes the interconnectedness of life and death, developing this theme in the poem by talking about the “great” (Line 69) usefulness of being “virgin[al]” (Line 68) worm-food. Like Lilly, Cloud calls forth the creature Thel mentions; this time, it is the worm.

The final stanza in this section and plate describes the worm arriving on Lilly’s leaf as the Cloud flies off to meet the dew. Again, this is a very short stanza of physical movement after a longer stanza of discussion; Blake breaks up the poem according to what is occurring in the narrative, devoting more lines to discourse than action.

Part III (Plate 6)

Part III covers two plates, each with its own engraved illustration. Plate 6 begins with an illustration of Thel talking to Cloud, who is a human figure in the sky. Thel remains by a tree and the flower that Lilly was standing on in this illustration.

After the illustration and the Roman numeral III, there is a one-line stanza of Thel looking at the “Worm upon its dewy bed” (Line 75). Dew connects the Cloud with the Worm, adding to the childlike characterization in the following stanza. Here, the Worm does not speak, but Thel sees it as an “infant” (Line 77) and repeatedly questions if it even is a worm: “Art thou a Worm?” and “Is this a Worm?” she asks in Lines 76 and 79. The Worm simply cries; it is unable to speak.

In the next stanza, the symbolic Clod of Clay appears, again anthropomorphized (in human form) to speak to Thel. This is another short, three-line stanza of embodied action and introduction. The Clod of Clay has a “head” (Line 81) and “eyes” (Line 83). Also, The Clod of Clay’s body language is one of caring for the infant-like Worm; she is “bow’d over” (Line 82) the Worm. This image of caretaking is illustrated on the following plate.

The following stanza begins on Plate 6 and continues onto the next plate (Plate 7). Here, The Clod of Clay discusses her lowness, being even lower than the Worm as an, usually inanimate, piece of earth, or the “meanest thing” (Line 85).

Part III (Plate 7)

The Clod of Clay continues; the stanza (broken over two plates) of her dialogue is nine lines long. She explains that God anoints her with “oil” (Line 87); like Lilly, Cloud, and Worm, God loves her. Furthermore, God considers her a mother to his children, like the Worm. The Clod of Clay is not able to explain the particulars of these metaphysics to Thel—she says, “how this is [...] I know not, and I cannot know” (Line 91). However, The Clod of Clay chooses to “live and love” (Line 92).

Thel answers in the next stanza, expressing her surprise at the expansiveness of God’s love. When she first saw the Worm, she thought there was “none to cherish” it (Line 80). After hearing the Clod of Clay’s speech, she realizes that God not only “love[s]” (Line 97) the Worm, but also “cherish[es] it” (Line 96). Lacking this knowledge, Thel complained and cried in her vale. Now, after the symbolic creatures have revealed more intimate knowledge about God’s love, Thel is ready (or so she thinks) for a different perspective on her “cold bed” (Line 99), or death.

In the following stanza, the “matron Clay” (Line 100) replies to Thel, saying she heard the shepherdess’ “sighs” (Line 100) and “moans” (Line 101). The Clod of Clay invites Thel to her “house” (Line 102). Thel is thus given passage—the ability to “enter / And to return” (Lines 102-03)—through the earth that holds the dead.

Part IV (Plate 8)

The final section of text takes up one plate with an illustration of a snake being ridden by three children at the bottom of the page. At the top of the page, Blake devotes two stanzas to descriptions of the “secrets of the land unknown” (Line 105) and Thel’s passage through this land. The five-line stanzas of location-based details, rather than dialogue, echo the first stanza of the poem describing the vales of Har. Also, in the first stanza, Thel sought the “secret air” (Line 2), and seems to find this in the underground realm.

Blake never directly names the location, but alludes to it being the Cave of Naiades, or Nymphs, from Homer’s Odyssey. The “porter lift[ing] the northern bar” (Line 104) to the gate for Thel alludes to the mortals’ entrance to Homer’s cave, which is the northern gate. Sensory descriptions include Thel seeing “couches of the dead” (Line 104), as well as hearing “Dolours & lamentations” (Line 110) and the “voices of the ground” (Line 111).

While there are echoes of previous stanzas, the “land of sorrows & of tears” (Line 108) is “dark[er]” (Line 109) than the Vales of Har. Recalling the symbolic conversationalist Cloud and his lover dew, there are clouds and dew underground, but the latter is part of a “dewy grave” (110). Eventually, Thel comes to her “own grave plot” (Line 112) to listen to a mysterious “voice of sorrow” (Line 113).

The following stanza is devoted to the voice from the “hollow pit” (Line 113) asking a series of questions about the sensory organs. All of the questions begin with “Why” and move from the capitalized “Ear” (Lines 114 and 120), “Eye” (Lines 115 and 118), “Eyelids” (Line 116), “Tongue” (Line 119), and “Nostril” (Line 121) to the uncapitalized “flesh” (Line 123). The interrogation revolves around what these organs cannot apprehend, are defensive against, are persuaded by, or are scared of. This list also develops the allusion to the Cave of the Nymphs; the voice and the nymphs in Homer discuss “honey” (Line 119).

The list of questions concludes with asking why would Thel deny, or “curb” (Line 122), a “youthful burning boy” (Line 122). In the final stanza, the “Virgin” (Line 124) runs back to the vales of Har in reply to these questions. Thel does not want to give up her innocence—her virginity—like the dew with the Cloud. She flees from embodied experiences of life and death. The sinful knowledge that Thel rejects could be represented in the image of the snake that curls around “The End” in Blake’s engraved plate.