Today's Stichomancy for Bob Dylan
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: art. It can only produce a literary age, as it did in the Ptolemaic
era; a generation of innumerable court-poets, artificial epigrammatists,
artificial idyllists, artificial dramatists and epicists; above all, a
generation of critics. Or rather shall we say, that the dynasty was not
the cause of a literary age, but only its correlative? That when the
old Greeks lost the power of being free, of being anything but the
slaves of oriental despots, as the Ptolemies in reality were, they lost
also the power of producing true works of art; because they had lost
that youthful vigour of mind from which both art and freedom sprang?
Let the case be as it will, Alexandrian literature need not detain us
long--though, alas! it has detained every boy who ever trembled over his
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: 2. All haile Macbeth, haile to thee Thane of Cawdor
3. All haile Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter
Banq. Good Sir, why doe you start, and seeme to feare
Things that doe sound so faire? i'th' name of truth
Are ye fantasticall, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye shew? My Noble Partner
You greet with present Grace, and great prediction
Of Noble hauing, and of Royall hope,
That he seemes wrapt withall: to me you speake not.
If you can looke into the Seedes of Time,
And say, which Graine will grow, and which will not,
Macbeth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: in his turn was honoured by the gods. And let none marvel that of
these the greater part, albeit well-pleasing to the gods, nevertheless
were subject to death--which is the way of nature,[4] but their fame
has grown--nor yet that their prime of manhood so far differed. The
lifetime of Cheiron sufficed for all his scholars; the fact being that
Zeus and Cheiron were brethren, sons of the same father but of
different mothers--Zeus of Rhea, and Cheiron of the nymph Nais;[5] and
so it is that, though older than all of them, he died not before he
had taught the youngest--to wit, the boy Achilles.[6]
[1] Or, "This thing is the invention of no mortal man, but of Apollo
and Artemis, to whom belong hunting and dogs." For the style of
|
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 A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: look for it, and gives and urges all manner of reasons why we
should place such faith and confidence in Him? Is it not
lamentable and pitiable that the devil or man, who commands
nothing and does not urge, but only promises, is set above God,
Who promises, urges and commands; and that more is thought of
them than of God Himself? We ought truly to be ashamed of
ourselves and learn from the example of those who trust the devil
or men. For if the devil, who is a wicked, lying spirit, keeps
faith with all those who ally themselves with him, how much more
will not the most gracious, all-truthful God keep faith, if a man
trusts Him? Nay, is it not rather He alone Who will keep faith?
|
|
|
