The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy

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The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy by William Blake (1794)

Enitharmon is a major female character in William Blake’s mythology and she plays a major role in some of his prophetic books.   In this work Blake portrays her as an androgynous Hecate, one with a combination of male and female characteristics, as can be seen in this coloured print.   Hecate is the goddess of witchcraft and you may have come across her in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.  She appeared to the three witches in the play, as they sat around their bubbling cauldron, she came to them demanding to know why she has been excluded from their meetings with Macbeth.   To William Blake she represents female domination and sexual restraints that limit the artistic imagination.  After her birth, Enitharmon asserts that women will rule the world, with Man being given Love and Women being given Pride. This would create within men a fear of female dominance that would in turn bring them under control of the females.

It is therefore not a coincidence that in Blake’s print we can see a frog or a toad, a bat and a snake?  The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy is a large colour print and is plate 5 of Europe, a book written by Blake in 1794 which has the opening line:

“..Now comes the night of Enitharmon’s joy!..”

 In the book, Enitharmon sets the trap of false religion which dominated Europe, for eighteen hundred years between the time of Christ’s birth and the French Revolution.  The night of Enitharmon’s joy is when she establishes her Woman’s World with its false religion of chastity and vengeance.