| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: hostium numcrum augeri, non cunctandum existimavit quin pugna decertaret.
Hac re ad consilium delata, ubi omnes idem sentire intellexit, posterum
diem pugnae constituit.
Prima luce productis omnibus copiis duplici acie instituta, auxiliis
in mediam aciem coniectis, quid hostes consilii caperent expectabat.
Illi, etsi propter multitudinem et veterem belli gloriam paucitatemque
nostrorum se tuto dimicaturos existimabant, tamen tutius esse
arbitrabantur obsessis viis commeatu intercluso sine vulnere victoria
potiri, et si propter inopiam rei frumentariae Romani se recipere
coepissent, impeditos in agmine et sub sarcinis infirmiores animo adoriri
cogitabant. Hoc consilio probato ab ducibus, productis Romanorum copiis,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: The drenched earth rots; and all things change the same:
Lo, change the rivers, the fronds, the gladsome pastures
Into the cattle, the cattle their nature change
Into our bodies, and from our body, oft
Grow strong the powers and bodies of wild beasts
And mighty-winged birds. Thus nature changes
All foods to living frames, and procreates
From them the senses of live creatures all,
In manner about as she uncoils in flames
Dry logs of wood and turns them all to fire.
And seest not, therefore, how it matters much
Of The Nature of Things |
