Pity

"...William Blake met Catherine Boucher in 1782 when he was recovering from a relationship that had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. He recounted the story of his heartbreak for Catherine and her parents, after which he asked Catherine, "Do you pity me?" When she responded affirmatively, he declared, "Then I love you." Blake married Catherine – who was five years his junior – on 18 August 1782 in St Mary's Church, Battersea. Illiterate, Catherine signed her wedding contract with an X. The original wedding certificate may be viewed at the church, where a commemorative stained-glass window was installed between 1976 and 1982. Later, in addition to teaching Catherine to read and write, Blake trained her as an engraver. Throughout his life she proved an invaluable aid, helping to print his illuminated works and maintaining his spirits throughout numerous misfortunes..." - Wikipedia


“William Blake’s ‘Pity’ was influenced by the Bible and Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s similes are embodied here to form a dynamic interplay: a tiny baby springs from his mother towards an angel astride a blind steed.”
~ Wikipedia

‘And pity, like a naked new-born babe, striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim horsed upon the sightless couriers of the air, shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, that tears shall drown the wind.’

The work is unusual, as it is a literal illustration of a double simile from Macbeth (act 1, scene 7), in which the title character imagines the aftermath of his intended murder of Duncan, the king. In this passage, Shakespeare draws on Psalms 18:10, and Blake's design illustrates this underlying text along with the verse which follows it.

‘And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.’

Blake, who believed that the Old Testament spoke at times of the true God, the Divine Humanity, and at times of the legislator of the fallen world, Urizen, would have identified the deity of these verses with the latter. About 1793 he addressed to the secretive Urizen the rhetorical questions:


Why art thou silent & invisible father of jealousy? Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds from every searching eye?




In Pity, the figure on the rear horse, who does duty for one of Shakespeare's cherubim, is recognizable as Urizen hiding in clouds and darkness…




It seems probable that Pity, although its starting point is in Shakespeare's lines, represents the plight of man when he first finds himself…in a fallen world under the rule of Urizen and his female minister.”




~ H. Summerfield, University of Victoria, British Columbia