- Title:
- "The Ox in the slaughter house moans..." (Plate 26)
- Part Of:
- Date:
- 1794
- Materials & Techniques:
- Color-printed relief etching in orange-brown ink, with watercolor on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
- Dimensions:
- Sheet: 10 x 7 1/8 inches (25.4 x 18.1 cm), Plate: 6 x 4 1/8 inches (15.2 x 10.5 cm), Spine: 10 1/4 inches (26 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in graphite upper right: "22"
Lettered inside image, left: "The Ox in the slaughter house moans | The Dog at the wintry door | And he wept, & he called it Pity | And his tears flowed down on the winds | 6. Cold he wander'd on high, over | their cities | In weeping & pain & woe! | And where-ever he wanderd in sorrows | Upon the aged heavens | A cold shadow follow'd behind him | Like a spiders web. moist, cold & dim | Drawing out from his sorrowing soul | The dungeon-like heaven dividing. | Where ever the footsteps of Urizen | Walk'd over the cities in sorrow. | 7. Till a Web dark & cold, throughout all | The tormented element stretch'd | From the sorrows of Urizens soul | None could break the Web, no wings | of fire. | 8. So twisted the cords, & so knotted | The meshes: twisted like to the | human brain | -gion | 9. And all calld it. The Net of Reli-"; right: "Chap: IX | 1. Then the Inhabitants of those Cities; | Felt their Nerves change into Marrow | And hardening Bones began | In swift diseases and torments, | In throbbings & shootings & grindings | Thro' all the coasts: till weaken'd | The Senses inward rush'd shrinking, | Beneath the dark net of infection. | 2. Till the shrunken eyes clouded over | Discern'd not the woven hipocrisy | But the streaky slime in their heavens | Brought together by narrowing perceptions | Appeard transparent air, for their eyes | Grew small like the eyes of a man | And in reptile forms shrinking together | Of seven feet stature they remaind | 3. Six days they shrunk up from existence | And on the seventh day they rested | And they bless'd the seventh day, in sick | hope: | And forgot their eternal life | 4. And their thirty cities divided | In form of a human heart | No more could they rise at will | In the infinite void, but bound down | To earth by their narrowing perceptions"
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1992.8.5(26)
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Subject Terms:
- literary theme | nudes | religious and mythological subject | serpent | snake | text | women
- Access:
- Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details. - Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3915
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
The Romantic Print in the Age of Revolutions: Hero, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (Yale Center for British Art, 2003-01-23 - 2003-06-01) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]
William Blake (Tate Britain, 2000-11-02 - 2001-02-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]
William Blake, Libros profe´ticos, vol. 1, Atalanta, Vilau¨r, Spain, 2013, p. 331, PR4142 .S35 2013 [ORBIS]