Today's Stichomancy for Clive Barker
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: einai kai eudokimon. kai parakeleuontai de k.t.l.} Zeune,
{kekrimeno komen}, after Plut. "Lycurg." 22. Weiske, {kai komen
diakekrimeno}. Cobet, {exesti de to neo liparo kai tas komas
diakekrimeno eis makhen ienai}.
[18] Lit. "to the enomotarch."
When the right moment for encamping has come, the king is responsible
for that, and has to point out the proper place. The despatch of
emissaries, however, whether to friends or to foes, is [not][19] the
king's affair. Petitioners in general wishing to transact anything
treat, in the first instance, with the king. If the case concerns some
point of justice, the king despatches the petitioner to the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: chapter, for she looked up, - if there was a film of moisture over
her eyes there was also the faintest shadow of a distant smile
skirting her lips, but not enough to accent the dimples, - and
said, in her pretty, still way, - "If it please the king, and if I
have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem right before the
king, and I be pleasing in his eyes" -
I don't remember what King Ahasuerus did or said when Esther got
just to that point of her soft, humble words, - but I know what I
did. That quotation from Scripture was cut short, anyhow. We came
to a compromise on the great question, and the time was settled for
the last day of summer.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Shepherds their whole flock steep in running streams,
While, plunged beneath the flood, with drenched fell,
The ram, launched free, goes drifting down the tide.
Else, having shorn, they smear their bodies o'er
With acrid oil-lees, and mix silver-scum
And native sulphur and Idaean pitch,
Wax mollified with ointment, and therewith
Sea-leek, strong hellebores, bitumen black.
Yet ne'er doth kindlier fortune crown his toil,
Than if with blade of iron a man dare lance
The ulcer's mouth ope: for the taint is fed
Georgics |
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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: not so much value what I lost; for, as to that, the temptation
was great, and perhaps she was poor and wanted it.' 'If she
had not been poor, sir ----,' says my governess, 'I assure you
she would never have yielded to you; and as her poverty first
prevailed with her to let you do as you did, so the same poverty
prevailed with her to pay herself at last, when she saw you
was in such a condition, that if she had not done it, perhaps
the next coachman might have done it.'
'Well,' says he, 'much good may it do her. I say again, all the
gentlemen that do so ought to be used in the same manner,
and then they would be cautious of themselves. I have no
Moll Flanders |
|
|
