| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: So she, not having yet forgot pardie
Her wonted shifts and sleights in Cupid's toys,
A sequence first of sighs and sobs forthcast,
To breed compassion dear, then spake at last:
XLIII
"Suppose not, cruel, that I come to vow
Or pray, as ladies do their loves and lords;
Such were we late, if thou disdain it now,
Or scorn to grant such grace as love affords,
At least yet as an enemy listen thou:
Sworn foes sometimes will talk and chaffer words,
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: materials he used. There is no evidence that he had any Celtic
written source. We are thus thrown back upon Latin or French
literary originals which are lost, or upon current continental
lore going back to a Celtic source. This very difficult problem
is as yet unsolved in the case of Chretien, as it is in the case
of the Anglo-Norman Beroul, who wrote of Tristan about 1150. The
material evidently was at hand and Chretien appropriated it,
without much understanding of its primitive spirit, but
appreciating it as a setting for the ideal society dreamed of but
not realised in his own day. Add to this literary perspicacity,
a good foundation in classic fable, a modicum of ecclesiastical
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