| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: Soest. Stands it so?
Vansen. I'll show it you, as it was written down two or three centuries ago.
A Citizen. And we tolerate the new bishops? The nobles must protect us,
we will make a row else!
Others. And we suffer ourselves to be intimidated by the Inquisition?
Vansen. It is your own fault.
People. We have Egmont! We have Orange! They will protect our
interests.
Vansen. Your brothers in Flanders are beginning the good work.
Soapboiler. Dog! (Strikes him.)
(Others oppose the Soapboiler, and exclaim,) Are you also a Spaniard?
Egmont |
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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: streets which were rendered still steeper by the perspective.
They were filled from morning till evening with a tumultuous people;
young boys shaking little bells, shouted at the doors of the baths;
the shops for hot drinks smoked, the air resounded with the noise of
anvils, the white cocks, sacred to the Sun, crowed on the terraces,
the oxen that were being slaughtered bellowed in the temples, slaves
ran about with baskets on their heads; and in the depths of the
porticoes a priest would sometimes appear, draped in a dark cloak,
barefooted, and wearing a pointed cap.
The spectacle afforded by Carthage irritated the Barbarians; they
admired it and execrated it, and would have liked both to annihilate
Salammbo |
