These are plates 9 & 10 from William Blake’s little book FOR THE SEXES: The Gates of Paradise. I grabbed them off of the wonderful site The Blake Archive. One way to read them is as adjacent comic book panels: ‘this happens and then this happens. Another is to read them as slightly different views on the same thing, as in a stereoscope. Another possibility is that they are completely unrelated.
Drawn and read from right to left, lower row to upper row. Process: On a blackboard above a flower I saw it said “Yulija loves Hector.” I encircled the words in a word balloon, a talking flower. Next to it, delighting in love, a bee says “Hooray.” At the other end of the bee a stinger too close to a Jersey frog. I note an observation: “Frogs are practically balloons.” I wonder at this and remember a frog’s inflated throat, very like a balloon. I draw a frog so. Next to it another not tied to a string but stuck on a pole. I write, “Frog on a tadpole.” I note another likeness, the frogs on their sides look like pigs with long legs. “Pig with long legs.” I write. Midfebruary 2012 at the Intrinsic Cafe, Newark, New Jersey.
