Today's Stichomancy for Michelangelo
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: [Turning to Albanact.]
And Albanact, thy father's only joy,
Youngest in years, but not the youngest in mind,
A perfect pattern of all chivalry,
Take thou the North for thy dominion,
A country full of hills and ragged rocks,
Replenished with fierce untamed beasts,
As correspondent to thy martial thoughts,
Live long, my sons, with endless happiness,
And bear firm concordance amongst your selves.
Obey the counsels of these fathers grave,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Koran: SAD. By the Koran with its reminder! nay, but those who misbelieve
are in pride, schism!
How many a generation have we destroyed before them, and they
cried out, but it was no time to escape!
And they wonder that a warner has come from amongst themselves,
and the misbelievers say, 'This is a magician, a liar!' What! does
he make the gods to be one God? verily, this is a wondrous thing.
And the chiefs of them went away: 'Go on and persevere in your gods;
this is a thing designed; we never heard this in any other sect;
this is nothing but a fiction! Has a reminder come down upon him
from amongst us?' nay, they are in doubt concerning my reminder;
The Koran |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: Even on Sundays she went to the office to open the mail and read the markets.
With Charley, who was not interested in business, but was already preparing
for Annapolis, Mr. Harling was very indulgent; bought him guns and tools
and electric batteries, and never asked what he did with them.
Frances was dark, like her father, and quite as tall.
In winter she wore a sealskin coat and cap, and she and Mr. Harling
used to walk home together in the evening, talking about
grain-cars and cattle, like two men. Sometimes she came over
to see grandfather after supper, and her visits flattered him.
More than once they put their wits together to rescue
some unfortunate farmer from the clutches of Wick Cutter,
My Antonia |
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 Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: another such a wretched being as she in the world?
Tess asked herself; and, thinking of her wasted life,
said, "All is vanity." She repeated the words
mechanically, till she reflected that this was a most
inadequate thought for modern days. Solomon had
thought as far as that more than two thousand years
ago; she herself, though not in the van of thinkers,
had got much further. If all were only vanity, who
would mind it? All was, alas, worse than
vanity--injustice, punishment, exaction, death. The
wife of Angel Clare put her hand in her brow, and felt
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
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